Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. The Need for Evaluation
    When you focus on the breath, when you try to bring the mind to a state of concentration, you’re trying to do two things at once. One is to give the mind a place where it can rest, gather its strength, heal its wounds, and in general develop a sense of ease and well-being. The second purpose is to be able to … 
  3. Only Natural
     … So now, as you meditate, you’re going to talk to yourself about the breath, and you’re going to talk to yourself about getting the mind to stay with the breath, and wanting to stay with the breath—a new topic of conversation, a new way of talking. So talk to yourself about the breath. How is the breath right now? Is it … 
  4. Tending the Flame
     … Once you’ve finally got the mind to settle down, you’ve talked to yourself about the breath, and about the mind’s relationship to the breath, and figured out how to get them snugly together: From that point on, you try to maintain it with as much ease as possible, but also as much strength as you can manage, so that you can … 
  5. Protecting Yourself Against Yourself
     … You’ve got to keep that perception, that label of breath in mind, because it really helps as you focus on the breathing. When you’re trying to breathe in a comfortable way, think about the breath and evaluate the breath in a way that gives rise to a sense of pleasure, a sense of fullness, a fullness that doesn’t get squeezed out … 
  6. Potentials for Rapture
     … So just drop the perception of the breath and focus on something else. Then sneak back into the breath through the back door. In other words, look at how the breathing feels, look at how your sense of the body feels when you’re thinking about something inspiring. In addition to the recollections, you might be thinking thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, or … 
  7. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … If you don’t stay here, how are you going to learn about the potentials of the breath? We read about the ajaans, about Ajaan Lee and all the psychic powers he developed through staying with the breath. We hear about the Buddha, how he gained awakening by focusing on his breath. If you don’t really look into the breath, devote yourself to … 
  8. Universal Truths
     … Because as you work with the breath, you begin to gain a sense of the power that the mind has on the sensation of the breath. You can play with the breath: Make it long, make it short, deep, shallow, heavy, light, fast or slow. You can check the impact on the body and the impact on the mind of those different ways of … 
  9. The Trick to Staying in Place
     … Focus in on the breath. Know when the breath is coming in, know when it’s going out. This involves two things: mindfulness, which is keeping this in mind, remembering to stay with the breath; and then alertness, watching the breath as it comes in, goes out, to see what it’s like. That’s the mind in place. The hard part of the … 
  10. Ironies
    Meditating on the breath starts with two activities: One is thinking about the breath, and the other is actually watching the breath as it comes in and goes out. When you think about the breath, you don’t just think once. You keep on thinking about it. In other words, you have to be mindful. “Mindful” means keeping something in mind. In this case … 
  11. Breath Meditation When It’s Hard to Breathe
     … He had learned already that you can focus on the breath up in the head. He began to realize there was more. There’s the breath that goes down the spine, the breath that goes down the legs, down the arms. So he took advantage of that. Working with the breath energies in the body, he was able to pull himself together and at … 
  12. Self-Correct
     … When you’re with the breath, you want to be as sensitive as possible to how the breath feels. Then think of any sense of ease or well-being that comes with the breath as spreading around. You don’t want to clamp down on your sense of the body, your sense of the breath. You want there to be a sense of freedom … 
  13. Tranquility & Insight
     … You’ve got the breath: That’s form. You’ve got the feeling of pleasure around the breath: That’s feeling. You’ve got the perception of the breath that holds you with it; the thought-fabrications that help adjust the breath and make it just right; and the consciousness that’s aware of all these things. So you’ve got all five aggregates … 
  14. Countercultural Conditioning
     … Talk to yourself about the breath. Talk to yourself about the breath in a way that helps the mind to settle down, so that the mind and the breath fit together nicely, where the breath is calm enough so that it has a calming effect on the mind, but not so subtle that you lose focus. The subtlety of the breath will develop as … 
  15. The Source of Goodness
     … If you learn to be at ease with the breath, sensitive to the breath, you know what’s going on in the mind, because the breath does mirror the events in the mind. That puts you a lot more in touch with what’s going on inside. Thoughts and emotions will show up in the breath. You can use the skills we’ve been … 
  16. Start the Year Right Here
     … being mindful of the breath, being alert to the breath, being persistent and sensitive in how you approach the breath, how you play with the breath, adjust the breath, experiment, so that you really get to know how the mind and the breath relate. To develop this kind of consistent awareness requires discipline. The discipline is, as soon as the mind slips off, you … 
  17. The Web of Pain
     … So you start with the breath. How you focus your attention on the breath and how you evaluate the breath: That’s called verbal fabrication. You can think of the breath, if you want, simply as the air coming in and out of the lungs, but that’s very restrictive. You can also think of it as the energy flow in the body, and … 
  18. Forging a Path
     … Try to be right here with the body, right here with the breath. Take some good long in-and-out breaths. Think of the breathing as a whole-body process. Give the mind an anchor. Don’t clamp down on the breath, don’t clamp down on the mind, because if you do, it’s going to resist and rebel. Just try to be … 
  19. Good at Thinking
     … For instance, you can keep the breath in mind. Just keep reminding yourself, “Stay with the breath. Be sensitive to the breath.” That kind of thinking is called mindfulness, and it’s very useful. You want to couple it with alertness, which is watching the breath, noticing how the breath feels. When it doesn’t feel good, you can change it. You don’t … 
  20. What’s Real
     … So when you’re sitting here focusing on bodily fabrication, i.e., the breath, and you’re directing your thoughts and evaluating the breath, that’s verbal fabrication. Then there are the perceptions of the breath. How do you perceive the breath? Is it just a little bit of air coming in and out of the nose? How about thinking of the body as … 
  21. Doing
     … You’ve got the form of the breath, which shapes your sense of the body. You’ve got the feelings that go with the breath, and we’re trying to give rise to comfortable ones. How much can you play with the breath? How much influence do you have on the breath? How much does the breath lie under your control? In the beginning … 
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