Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Time to Heal
     … You’ll find—if you’ve been carrying a lot of burdens, a lot of responsibilities around—that the breath energy in the body could use a lot of healing work. And you find that it gets really interesting. Here it is: your own body, and you’ve missed parts of it. As you learn how to direct the breath energy around, you find … 
  3. Imagine
     … The same way with the breath: You open up channels in the body, and the breath energy will flow. You don’t have to push it. There’s lots to discover here. Lots to explore. Focus your desires on wanting to learn about the breath energy in the body. When you come up with a good idea, or with any idea that seems worth … 
  4. Control
     … As for any thoughts that go off toward the pain, you have to say, “Nope, I’m going to direct my thoughts to the breath. I’m going to direct my thoughts to making the breath comfortable. And I’ll evaluate the breath and evaluate the success of my efforts.” Because the breath is something that responds to your intentions. It does have its … 
  5. Purity Comes Through Discernment
     … The main kinds of fabrication the Buddha talked about are directed thought and evaluation, and feeling and perception, although the breath also comes under the topic of fabrication. The way you breathe in relationship to some things actually will change your relationship to them. This is why he starts meditation with the breath, getting to know the breath, getting on familiar terms with it … 
  6. Exploring What You’ve Got
     … So, think about the breath and be aware of the breath. And then be aware of the next breath and then the next and then the next. Just keep at it. As you stay here, your awareness of the breath will get more refined. You see more clearly what you’ve got right here, what potentials there are, both in term of physical potentials … 
  7. Training the Mind to Train the Mind
     … We develop the ability to remember by keeping the mind with the breath and reminding ourselves again and again, “Stay with the breath. Stay with the breath.” That’s mindfulness. Alertness is actually watching what you’re doing: watching what the breath is like and watching what the mind is like right now, what it’s doing, and the results of what it’s … 
  8. Unattractive
    As Ajaan Fuang used to say, the breath is the basis of our skill here, and concentration focused on the breath is the safest of all the concentration practices. It’s the one where you can see most clearly the stages of jhana as the mind settles down. You can see the different kinds of fabrication: bodily, verbal, mental. Bodily, being the breath itself … 
  9. In the Present
     … Think of the breath coming in and out through all the pores. It can flow anywhere in the body, so wherever there’s a sense of tightness or blockage, hold in mind the perception that allows your mind to believe, okay, the breath can go through the blockage, no matter how solid your bones or the pains or any other solid-seeming parts may … 
  10. Building a Home for the Mind
     … 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, the more solid your concentration becomes. The more solid your concentration, the clearer your awareness of what’s going on inside. So you’re evaluating the breath, evaluating the way the mind relates to the … 
  11. How to Leave Meditation
     … If there’s a sense of ease in the breath, it’s a lot easier to stay with the body. You can give yourself some task to do. Remind yourself that when anger, fear, or any unskillful emotion comes into the mind, there’s going to be a corresponding tension in the breath. The rate of the breath will change. The quality of the … 
  12. Accepting the Way Things Function
     … When you’re dealing with the breath, it’s not just a matter of keeping watch over the breath. You also have to look at how you’re thinking about the breath, what images you have. What are you telling yourself about the breath? Could you tell yourself something different that would still be true, but would have a different impact on the body … 
  13. Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Space
     … These properties are also useful as you’re trying to settle down and gain a sense of well-being in the body, especially with the breath. You can think of the breath as a whole-body process. It makes the breath a much better object for meditation than just having it in one spot—say, at the nose, or just the air coming in … 
  14. The Mind in Good Shape
     … One way to guarantee that it’s right here is to keep it with the breath. Take a couple of good long, deep in-and-out breaths and see where you feel the breathing process. Send your attention right there. It can be anywhere in the body, because “breath” is not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the … 
  15. Inner Refuge
     … One way of preventing this is to try to see how interesting the breath can be. There’s a lot going on in the breath. It’s the energy flow throughout the body. It’s not just air coming in and out of the lungs. There’s an energy flow that accompanies the breathing process—which actually is the breathing process. It can involve … 
  16. How to Fall
     … And not only are we teaching it how to stay on one topic as we stay with the breath, but we’re also teaching it how to come back to the breath more quickly: how to catch yourself as the mind begins to let go of the breath and latch on to something else, and to just turn right around, without any problem at … 
  17. Truth Through Training
     … That’s what we do as we think about the breath and evaluate the breath: We’re trying to get a sense of just right with the breath, so that the breath feels good and nourishing coming in, relaxing going out. It’s not too heavy, not too light, not too fast, not too slow. So fine-tune your breathing right now—and then … 
  18. Respect for Happiness
     … Notice how the breathing feels. Where does it feel comfortable? Are there parts of the body where it doesn’t feel comfortable? Sometimes the breathing may be constrained or tense. It can be too long or too short, or maybe too shallow. You don’t feel really nourished by the breath. A good way to start out is to try a couple of good … 
  19. Balanced Breathing
     … Focus on the breath coming in and going out. And don’t let the breath get mechanical. Try to be sensitive to the way you breathe. There’s a lot of information about your subconscious mind in the way you breathe. We were talking this afternoon about clamping down. Some people have the idea that when you focus on breathing in and breathing out … 
  20. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … So he contented himself with what are the potentials of the breath. Then he explored them to see how far they could go. He was able to use the breath, working with the breath energies through the tightness in the back of his neck, thinking of the breath coming in the back of the neck, then going down the spine, working through the tightness … 
  21. The Best Work Around
    Bring the mind to the breath in a friendly way. If you treat the meditation as a war, the mind is going to fight, but if you treat it as a process of creating friendship—developing a friendly relation with the present moment—the mind will soften into the present moment and be a lot more willing to settle in to make itself comfortable … 
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