Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. To See What You’re Doing
     … So we focus on the breath. In the beginning, the mind may not be that still. The breath may not be all that still. But you’re working in that direction. You want to breathe in a way that makes the mind more and more interested in staying here, because one of our big problems in seeing the connection between our actions and their … 
  3. Introduction: Meditation as a Skill
     … Try to be as consistent as possible in staying with the breath. This means you have to develop mindfulness, to remember to stay with the breath each time it comes in, each time it goes out. As for alertness, notice what’s actually going on with the breath. Notice when the mind is actually staying with the breath and when it’s moving off … 
  4. Asking the Right Questions
     … And that’s right here with the breath. The breath itself is a type of fabrication. Your directed thought and evaluation are verbal fabrication. The feelings of pleasure and the perceptions you hold in mind about the breath: Those are mental fabrications. The questions about discernment concern how to view fabrications in a way that gives rise to dispassion. Of course, this doesn’t … 
  5. Reflections
     … There are different ways of perceiving the breath, some of which allow the mind to settle down more fully than others. Thinking of the breath as a whole-body process—your whole nervous system is involved—changes the way you relate to the feelings of the breath coming in, breath going out. You don’t have to pull the breath in through the nose … 
  6. Fear of Concentration
     … You’re not stifling the breath. If you stifle the breath, the body will react. But if it’s got to the point where it doesn’t need to breathe, why force it? So these are some of the fears that people can have as they settle in and some of the ways of dealing with those fears. But the important thing to remember … 
  7. Strength Training
     … Wherever you feel the breath, hang on right there. As you breathe in, as you breathe out, be sensitive to that sensation wherever you feel it in the body. The important thing is that you stick with the breath. You know that there’s no future breath you can watch, no past breath you can watch. So when you’re with the breath, you … 
  8. Understanding Contentment
     … Now bring your attention to the breath and make something good out of the breath. It’s already coming in and going out, but what could you make out of it. Start with how it feels as it comes in, how it feel as it goes out. Wherever the breath is most obvious, wherever there are sensations in the body that tell you now … 
  9. To Make Suffering Crumble
     … You’ve got the breath, which is body or form, and you’re trying to breathe in a way that gives rise to a feeling of pleasure. You use certain perceptions of the breath. Feeling the body and the breath running along the nerves, the blood vessels, the muscles of the body, you talk to yourself about the breath to get it more comfortable … 
  10. Ironclad Technique vs. No Technique
     … the breath in the soles of the feet going up the legs and then up the spine, or the breath starting at the navel and going up the front of the body, whereas in the seven steps he talked about the breath coming in at the heart and then going down through the intestines. So there are lots of different ways you can play … 
  11. To Discern Suffering
     … You can focus on the sensation of the breathing anywhere that’s comfortable. You can explore different parts of the body to see where your comfortable spot is. Then ask yourself, “How can the breath be adjusted to keep this spot right here comfortable?” Learn how to maintain that sense of comfort while you’re sitting here with your eyes closed, when things are … 
  12. Holding on Strategically
     … In fact, ideally, as you’re getting into concentration, you want to have a sense that the body, the mind, and the breath are all one. The breath fills the body; the mind fills the body; the mind is one with the breath. They’re all sitting here together. Then you can use this sense of you inhabiting your space when you’re dealing … 
  13. To Know the Noble Truths
     … And you’re alert to make sure that you actually are doing it. “Is the mind with the breath? Is the breath with the mind?” As long as the answer is yes, you’re fine; you keep that up. That’s the beginning of the third quality, which is ardency: You try to do this well. If you find that the mind and the … 
  14. The Buddha’s Program
     … The way you picture the breath to yourself will have an influence on how the breath actually goes right now. How you tell yourself to focus on the breath will influence how the breath goes right now. This is why we try out different assumptions about the breathing and the breath energy in the body—and why, when the meditation isn’t going well … 
  15. Question & Probe
     … You work with the breath in the body so that even though there may be difficult emotions going on in the mind, you’re here with a sense of well-being, physically at least. And the difficult emotions are not working their way into the body through the breath. The breath forms a cocoon around the body. Then, when you’re coming from that … 
  16. Samvega & Pasada
    Focusing on the breath, trying to get the mind to stay with the breath, can sometimes be a very chastening experience. On the first level, there’s the simple difficulty of getting the mind to stay with one thing: something as simple and nearby as the breath, and yet you find it slipping off, slipping off, slipping off. You start out with the best … 
  17. The Ennobling Path
     … With certain factors of the concentration—such as having to keep reminding yourself to stay with the breath or having to evaluate the breath—there comes a point when they’re no longer necessary. The breath feels good coming in; the breath feels good going out. You can really bore into the breath and feel like you’re penetrating it. There’s a sense … 
  18. Different Minds, Different Bodies
     … Sometimes the breath can do that for you; other times, you have to drop the breath for the time being and work on other issues that will finally bring you back to the point where you’re willing to take on the breath. Even when the mind settles down with the breath, it’s going to settle down in different ways. The descriptions of … 
  19. Attahi Attano Natho
     … The more you’re aware of the breath, the more you explore the breath, then the more you see find that the breath has lot more to offer than just keeping the body alive. The way you breathe can have an effect on your health, and it can have an effect on your mental state. Even when the mind is bouncing around but the … 
  20. Immediate Knowledge
     … This is why we’re focusing on the breath. It’s something right here, right now. Even if you have doubts about other things, you can at least be confident, when the breath is coming in, you know that it’s coming in. When it’s coming out, you can know that as well. When you’re with the breath, you know what you … 
  21. Feeding the Mind
     … If you learn how to savor the breath, you realize there’s a lot to feed on right here: just the sensation of the breath coming in, going out. As you get more and more skilled staying here, learning how to work with the breath, finding what the breath can do for the body, you begin to realize that a lot of things you … 
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