Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. The Forerunner of All Things
     … This is why we’re focused on the breath, because the breath is right near the mind. I’ve heard sometimes people say “What are you going to do when you die? You’ve been focusing on your breath all your whole life, but the breath is going to leave you.” The reason we focus on the breath is not to get the breath … 
  3. The Image of the Raft
    When we meditate, we choose one object to focus on—in this case, the breath. If we’re going to think, we think about the breath. What we’re going to watch is the breath. We gather all these different mental activities around the breath. This is how the mind can become one. Once you’ve chosen the breath as your object, you try … 
  4. Eight Principles
     … the little patches of time times when you can be with the breath, and really study the issues of the breath. Learn to understand what this bodily fabrication is. It has an impact on feelings and, of course, feelings have an impact on the mind. And as you think about the breath and evaluate the breath, you learn about perceptions. All these fabrications—bodily … 
  5. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … What kind of breathing would be good now? Now, you won’t be experiencing just the breathing. There will also be pleasant and unpleasant feelings associated with the breath. So how can you breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of pleasure? And while you’re dealing with this, you’re going to be noticing how you perceive the breath. What … 
  6. Doing Meditation
     … Right now you’re focusing on the breath. In the beginning, that requires a lot of repeated reminders to yourself: keep focusing on the breath, keep focusing on the breath. But you often find that simply reminding yourself to do that is not enough. More is required. Use your ingenuity in figuring out ways to make the breath more interesting, more comfortable, a more … 
  7. Dhamma in Vinaya
     … You have the intention to stay with the breath. And you’ve got the object, which is the breath. Then there’s your perception. What perceptions are useful? You can perceive the breath as a whole-body process. You can perceive the breath as originating from outside, you can perceive it as originating inside, or as a cocoon of energy around the solid parts … 
  8. A Basis in Well-being
     … You work with the breath to make it comfortable, you want the mind to be comfortable with the breath, you want the mind to be comfortable here in the present moment. That’s your foundation, that’s one of the main factors of the path. It’s when the mind feels at ease in this way that there’s a good sense of well … 
  9. A Home for the Mind
     … The liquid and the breath energy are the good ones to focus on, because they can change. The breath, in particular, has no obstacles. If tighten up the arm, that’s usually the liquid. In other words, the blood gets locked up in some spots and doesn’t flow is easily as through others. But the breath energy always flows, but here again there … 
  10. Taking an Active Role
     … So as you’re working with the breath, remember to think of the breathing as a whole-body process. In Ajaan Lee’s instructions, he has you start with different parts of the body, finding a center, working through the body and then trying to connect everything. The Buddha works the other way around. You maintain a full-body awareness, and then look at … 
  11. Dependent Co-arising Right Now
     … Here’s the breath. Here are these processes in the mind: directed thought and evaluation, and there are perceptions that hold identify the breath, and then the feelings that come as you stay with the breath or don’t stay with the breath: feelings of pleasure or feelings of dis-ease. But you can convert them to more feelings of pleasure if you use … 
  12. Deconstructing Suffering
     … You find that by staying with the breath, you can create a sense of ease, you can create a sense of fullness, just by keeping your focus steady, just by adjusting the breath, paying careful attention to what the breath is doing, paying careful attention to what the mind is doing, and learning how to disband any thoughts that come up, either by not … 
  13. Controlling
     … For example, when working with the breath, you want to fabricate the breath in a way that it first gives you energy and then calms you down. How do you do that? How do you work with the breath? You commit yourself to trying. You’ll learn after a while that certain ways of trying to force the breath don’t work. But you … 
  14. Patterns to Happiness
     … For instance, when you’re focused on the breath, you can play with the breath in different ways: long in, long out, short in, short out, long in, short out, short in, long out. Try to see what rhythm feels best for the body right now. You can focus in different spots in the body. Then you can explore the way the breath energy … 
  15. Leaving Distractions Alone
     … You’ve got the breath right here. Keep the breath full, ventilating the whole body. Try to take interest in what the breath energy is doing for you from the top of the head down to the soles of the feet, between the toes, between the fingers, up your arms, all around in the chest, in the neck and the back, shoulders, down in … 
  16. Admit Your Stupidity
     … When you’re with the breath, you know. When you’re not with the breath, you know. Of course, for most of us, when we’re not with the breath, we don’t know what’s going on. It’s because we’re ignorant of what we’re doing that we wander off. Which means simply that there are lapses in our alertness. So … 
  17. Non-Verbal Discernment
     … how much pressure you can put on it, how much pressure you put on the breath, so that you can stay with the breath but you don’t force the breath too much. If the pressure isn’t right, the mind won’t settle down. If there’s too much pressure on the breath, you feel confined. If there’s too little, you float … 
  18. The Gatekeeper’s Duties
     … One is keeping track of something that’s good and skillful, like the breath coming in and going out. You want to be with the breath just on its own terms. What does it feel like to be breathing right now? Where do you feel the breathing? You can feel it anywhere in the body. It’s not the air coming in and out … 
  19. Your Intentions Come First
    Your Intentions Come First June 12, 2015 The passages we chant before we begin to meditate are for the purpose of firming up your intention to sit here and meditate, to be with the breath for the whole hour. To begin with, we think about principles of kamma: that the body is not going to stay with us—it’s going to get old … 
  20. Taking Your Own Medicine
     … So, make the breath comfortable. You’re allowed to play with the breath. In other words, you have to fix your own medicine. What kind of breathing feels good for the body right now? What kind of breathing would the mind find easiest to settle down with? If the breath doesn’t feel really comfortable, there will be a sense of dis-ease in … 
  21. Mindful of Your Potentials
     … As with the breath: Ajaan Lee sometimes talks about activating the breath. We become more and more sensitive to the fact that there’s an energy suffusing the body. It’s connected with the in-and-out breath, but there’s also a background, cosmic hum in the body. As you pay more attention to it, it comes to the fore. When you get … 
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