Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Lift Your Mind
     … Watch the breath coming in, going out—all the way in, all the way out—each breath. Center your attention there. The Buddha doesn’t say that you focus on any particular part of the body. But wherever the breath is obvious—wherever you have sensations that tell you, “now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out”—stay with those … 
  3. Starting from Within
     … And again, think of the breath as prior to everything else that you feel in the body. In other words, there may be parts of the body that feel constricted or painful, but just think of the breath going right through them. It doesn’t have to be constricted by them. The breath doesn’t have to shrink away from those spots. Give it … 
  4. Be Bigger Than Your Pains
     … Other times, it means investigating things in the body—areas where the breath energy seems to be in knots or entangled in various ways and you try to sort out the tangles. If you have an injury in one part of the body, think of the breath energy going right through the injured part. Notice where the breath energy seems to be cut off … 
  5. The Art of Right Speech
     … When the breathing gets labored, try to calm it down, smooth it out. The stages of the breath meditation that the Buddha taught start first with noticing when the breath is long, when it’s short—in other words, observing what’s going on. And you can expand that in many directions to include noticing when it’s heavy, when it’s light, when … 
  6. The Sport of Wise People
     … The more precise your awareness of what’s going on, the more precise your sensitivity to what’s going on, then the more solid and balanced the breath becomes—and the more solid and balanced your concentration. So we’re evaluating the breath and evaluating the way the mind relates to the breath. When a sense of pleasure does come, you evaluate what to … 
  7. How to Be Happy
     … In fact, as you get more sensitive to what’s going on in the body, you begin to realize that the whole body’s connected to the breathing. Every nerve, out to every pore of the skin, is involved in the breathing process in one way or another. So if you can think of the breath suffusing throughout the body, what effect does it … 
  8. Get Real
     … You’re going to stay focused right here on the breath, focused right here on the immediate sensation of the body no matter what else happens. Try to elaborate that as little as possible. Stay just with the direct sensation: the breath coming in, the breath going out. You feel it right here, and you feel the different sensations in the body that let … 
  9. The Particulars of Your Suffering
     … You perceive the breath not only as the air coming in and out of the lungs but also as energy that suffuses the body. You start thinking about how that energy could be adjusted, how it could be made more comfortable so that you have a better place to settle down. That’s fabrication: thinking about the breath and then evaluating the breath. Then … 
  10. In Line with the Truth
     … All sorts of good qualities get gathered together here if we focus properly on the breath. Try to focus with a sense of ease, as a way of showing compassion to yourself. We all want happiness, and this is a good place to find it, because the breath is always there—and the happiness we find from the breath is something that we don … 
  11. Learning from Desire
     … And so we have perceptions about the breath: Where is the breath flowing? When the breath comes in, where does it come in? How do you know a sensation of breath? Then there’s fabrication, the intention to do this and that, along with the inner conversation we engage in: what the Buddha calls directed thought and evaluation. So we’re** **thinking about the … 
  12. No Extra Arrows
     … You’re focused on the breath as your topic. Well, that’s bodily fabrication. You talk to yourself about how the breath is going, how the mind fits with the breath, and how the breath fits with the mind—and where they don’t fit, what changes need to be made. You change the way you breathe, the rhythm of the breath: In long … 
  13. The Brahmaviharas Are Not a Complete Practice
     … Get to know how the breath feels there. Then make it comfortable—that’s the next step, what the Buddha calls “calming bodily fabrication,” as you breathe in and as you breathe out. What this means is that you calm the breath. But before the breath can grow calm, first you have to nourish yourself well with breath energy. Breathe in such a way … 
  14. Free for the Time Being
     … Think of all the various things you’ve been holding on to and feeding on and stashing away, like a squirrel, throughout the day, getting swept away with the breath, down out the feet and out. Do a little housecleaning here. The Buddha says that an important part of staying with the breath, staying with the body in and of itself, is what he … 
  15. Good & Independent
     … But actually, your first immediate experience of the body is through the energy, the breath. So let the breath have priority right now. It can go anywhere in the body. Expand your awareness to fill the body. Expand the breath to flow throughout the body so that you’ve got the breath filling the body. You’ve got a sense of ease filling the … 
  16. Light Merit
     … So you stay with the breath and get interested in the breath. See what ways the breath can create a sense of well-being in the body, a sense of well-being in the mind. For the time being, that’s all you have to worry about: just the present moment. This is a really good practice, cutting off thoughts of past, cutting off … 
  17. The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind
     … The only movement is the movement of the breath. Then you realize that you have the perception that the breath comes from the outside. Actually, though, the breath comes from inside. It pulls air in from outside. But it’s the energy in the body that allows that air to come in. If it weren’t for the energy in the body, the air … 
  18. Ups & Downs
     … Try to see what you can do with the breath, because at the very least you know while you’re with the breath that you’re at the right spot. This was the spot where the Buddha was when he gained awakening, right where the mind and the body meet at the breath. There was simply the combination of his past karma and his … 
  19. Choices that Matter
     … You could choose to be with the breath or to wander around. If you choose to be with the breath, you can decide what kind of breathing you want to do: fast, slow, heavy, light. You can decide where you want to focus in the body. You can choose what kinds of perceptions you hold in mind about the breath. You can perceive the … 
  20. The Skill of Stillness
     … For a while you’ll be running around the body, surveying the different parts of the body as you open up the breath channels here, open up the breath channels there, to allow the breath to go through. But there comes a point where things are pretty much open. The breath is pretty satisfactory. You don’t have to run around so much anymore … 
  21. Ānāpānasati Day
     … Or even directly staying with the breath, there are ways of perceiving the breath that are calming both for the breath and the mind. You can perceive the breath as the air coming in and out through the nose, or you can perceive it as the sense of energy throughout the body, which is more calming. It allows a sense of well-being to … 
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