Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Speech for the Sake of Stillness
     … You’re focusing on the breath. Where do you feel the breath right now? Do you know when it’s coming in? Do you know when it’s going out? Does it feel comfortable? If it’s not comfortable, this is where you start talking to yourself. What can you do to make it more comfortable? Is the breathing too long? Is it too … 
  3. Looking in Three Directions
     … When you’ve got a plan here—you want the mind to settle down with the breath, and you want the breath to be comfortable—then you have to look at what you’re actually doing. Where are you focused? How is the breath going right now? To what extent are you controlling the breath, and to what extent are you allowing the breath … 
  4. The Right Touch
     … Be there just enough so that you don’t leave the breath, but don’t squeeze it. After all, we’re trying to get a sense of fullness. If we squeeze the breath in pushing it around, it’s not going to feel full. Or, if you squeeze the breath between the in-breath and the out-breath to mark, “Well, now the breath … 
  5. At Home with the Breath
     … It’s like that definition of home in the Robert Frost poem: “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” The breath is the object; it’s the primary vihāra-dhamma. When the mind settles there, the breath has to take it in. You can watch someone else breathing, but it’s not nearly the same as … 
  6. A Mind Like Earth
     … And the breath gives you a good place where you can stand. So you work with the breath. And also in working with the breath, it takes your mind off a lot of other things that it could be making itself miserable about. At the same time, the breath is something that you can work with and see results. You change the way you … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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