Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. How to Straighten Out the World
     … Be aware of the breath, because the breath is one of the best anchors to keep you in the present moment. There’s no future breath you can watch, there’s no past breath you can watch. If you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present. So keep the breath in mind: That’s mindfulness. Then watch the breath as … 
  3. Agreements to Perceive
     … either in-and-out breathing or the breath flowing through the blood vessels, through the nerves. After all, without that breath you wouldn’t sense the body at all. You’d be dead. The experience of the breath comes prior to the experience of the other properties. So learn to look at your sensation of the body as a set of variations on the … 
  4. Fabricating with Awareness
     … seeing the effect that the breath has on your mind, seeing the effect that the breath has on your body, and then learning to adjust it. You have that within your power. As you get more and more sensitive to the breath, you get more and more sensitive to the very subtle levels of fabrication in the mind. This is why Ajaan Lee has … 
  5. What Are You Doing in the Present?
    Try to bring your mind in harmony with the body, in harmony with the breath. Gently settle it down so that the breath can come in and go out with a sense of ease. You don’t squeeze it too much. You don’t force it too much. Notice, when you’re breathing out too long, if there’s a sense of squeezing it … 
  6. Chronic Pain
     … Then when they got tired, I could visualize the breath coming in someplace else, and another set of muscles would pick up the burden. Another time, when I was having heart problems, I discovered that thinking of the breath energy coming in from the left side of the body seemed to help a lot. So you never know where the breath energy is going … 
  7. Goodwill for All Beings
     … One of the reasons we work with the breath to make the breath comfortable is to give the mind a good place to stay. When you have a sense of ease in the body, you’re much less likely to want to go out and cause harm to other beings. And you become more sensitive to how you cause harm for yourself. When you … 
  8. Behind the Scenes
     … And as for the issues that would pull you away, you want to see them as small so that you really can give your attention to what’s happening with the breath right now. We use the breath as an anchor for the mind to stay in the present moment. We try to make the breath as comfortable as we can to make the … 
  9. Dealing with Pain
     … Form is the breath. The feeling-tone you’re trying to create with the breath is one of ease and fullness. The perception is the mental label you hold in mind to stay with the breath. Fabrication is the conversation you have with yourself about how to make the breath better and how to use the breath energy when it feels good. And then … 
  10. Metta Meditation
     … But if you come to the breath with the right attitude, it’s a different kind of house of mirrors. Different things get reflected and magnified, good things. The breath feels good, the mind feels good, and that gives you a basis for settling down, being on good terms with the breath, showing some goodwill for the breath. And even though we can’t … 
  11. The Buddha’s Secret Weapon
    Try to be comfortable with the breath. Find the right amount of pressure for your focus—not so weak that you start drifting off, and not so heavy that it starts interfering with the breathing. Try to get a sense of what breathing feels best. This may involve playing with the length of the breath, the heaviness of the breath, or your sense of … 
  12. Investing Your Intention
    Keep coming back to the breath. And sometimes you may wonder, “When do we finish with the breath and move on?” But that’s based on a wrong idea of what progress means. Progress means seeing one thing very carefully—more and more carefully all the time, more and more precisely. Fortunately, when you’re focusing on the breath right here in the present … 
  13. Finding Balance
     … You direct thoughts to the breath and then evaluate what you’ve done: Is the breath appropriate right now? And how about the way you’re relating to the breath: Is that appropriate? If you have trouble staying with the body in the present moment—in other words, the more you’re focused on it, the more agitated you get—the Buddha recommends dropping … 
  14. The Lessons of Equanimity
     … You direct your thoughts to the breath and then you evaluate: Are you staying well with the breath? Does the breath feel good? How might it feel better? This way you bring the body and the mind together with the glue of a comfortable feeling inside. Once there is a comfortable feeling, you can think of it spreading to the different parts of the … 
  15. Realities Right Here
     … What’s the best way to pay attention to the breath in the body? What are the best perceptions to have around the breath? You can think of the breath coming in almost anywhere in the body. But notice, where does it feel like it’s coming in? Where does the movement of the breath start? It starts in the body—because we’re … 
  16. W.W.B.R.
    There are times when you sit down to focus on the breath and the mind is right there, and it takes to the breath. Ajaan Fuang would say that the mind takes to the breath in the same way a kite takes to the wind. You spread your awareness through the body and it stays there. You get interested in how the breath energy … 
  17. Unraveling the Present
     … You’re directing your thoughts to the breath and you’re evaluating the breath. Then there are mental fabrications, feeling and perception, and those are right at the breath as well. There’s the feeling of pleasure or pain, or the neutral feelings that come with the breath. And then perception: Those are the labels you put on things when you say, “Okay, that … 
  18. The Quality of Your Awareness
     … You allow the breath to grow more quiet, more serene. The word “serene” here connects with one of the factors for awakening. You try to quiet down the movements of the breath. You also try to quiet down the feelings and perceptions in the mind. In other words, figure out how you might conceive of the breath, how you might picture the breath to … 
  19. How to Feed Mindfulness
     … Notice, when the breath comes in, where it’s feeling good, which part of the breath cycle feels nicest. Is it the middle of the breath, the beginning of the breath, the end of the breath? Can you notice when the breath is getting too long? Can you catch yourself squeezing the breath as it goes out? When you squeeze it, you’re weakening … 
  20. Immersed in the Body
     … Here we’re working with the breath. When we say to focus on the breath, it’s an unfortunate image. It gives the impression that your mind is like a camera, and you’re going to focus the lens of the camera on something outside of the camera. It’d be better to say, “Wear the breath. Put it on, wear it. Think of … 
  21. The Skill of Happiness
     … Like right now, you have an image of the breath in your mind. You can ask yourself, “What kind of image would be helpful right now?” Especially, what kind of image of the breath would help make the breath more comfortable? You can think of the breath, not so much as air coming in and out of the lungs, but as the flow of … 
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