Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. The Skills of Stillness
     … So give it an exercise, like being mindful of the breath, being alert to what you’re doing around the breath, trying to breathe well and stay well-focused. Try to get the mind really still and interested in the breath as continually as possible. All the other skills you need to know about becoming happy, truly happy, will come from here. That’s … 
  3. Right Here, Right Now
     … Now, what are those fabrications? There’s the bodily fabrication, which is the breath. Verbal fabrication: directed thought and evaluation. When you focus your thoughts on the breath, you’re evaluating the breath, okay, verbal fabrication is right there. And then mental fabrications: feelings and perceptions. Perceptions are the labels you put on things. Feelings are the feelings of pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor … 
  4. In the Mood to Meditate
     … So put yourself in the right mood and then continue it by the breath. What kind of breathing feels really good? Here’s your opportunity to develop your taste for the breath, develop a sensitivity to the breath. This is something else you can do to gladden the mind. You don’t need to buy a lot of meditation paraphernalia. And you don’t … 
  5. Concentration Isn’t Dumb
     … You also figure out, “Okay, what are these things I’m putting together to create a state of concentration?” You’ve got the breath. You’ve got your thoughts that you direct to the breath and then evaluate the breath. And there are perceptions you’re holding in mind, along with feelings you’re trying to create. All of these forms of fabrication are … 
  6. Three Levels of Effort
     … You’re focusing on the energy of life—the breath coming in and the breath going out—and you’re trying to pay attention to how it feels in the body. Think of the breathing as a whole-body process. Notice where in the body there’s tension that feels like it’s blocking the breath, or there are ways that tension builds up … 
  7. Stop & Think
     … You simply let go of your concerns and find yourself with the breath. You settle in with the breath, you’re mindful, alert, and ardent to stay with the breath. And whatever thinking you engage in has to do only with the breath itself and the mind’s relationship to the breath: the directed thought and evaluation that eventually get you into right concentration … 
  8. The Karma that Ends Karma
     … Try to hold onto that perception until the breath energy in the body grows still. Then you stay with still breath as your perception. After a while the border between your body and what’s outside your body begins to dissolve. You begin to realize that the border was a perception reinforced by the movement of the breath. When the breath gets still, there … 
  9. The Buddha’s Protection
     … If you’ve slipped off the breath, you bring it right back. While you’re with the breath, you try to be as sensitive as possible to how the breathing feels. Even though you may not be able to create a sense of well-being in every part of the body, find the areas where you can create a sense of well-being. Focus … 
  10. Diagnosing the Mind
     … When the mind is too energetic, one way of dealing with it is to give it lots to think about—lots to think about in terms of the breath. Focus on the details, move around, watch the breath energy in different parts of the body. Get really precise, down to the joints of your fingers, the joints of your toes, trying to see if … 
  11. When This Is, That Is
     … Get the breath comfortable first wherever you find easy to focus on the breath, and then start doing your spreading. Don’t spread a tense breath. That just makes things worse. And have an open mind about where the breath energy can come in and out of the body. It can be anyplace. So you can experiment with that. As you do this over … 
  12. The Importance of Being Truthful
     … You can work with the breath. You can make the breath comfortable. Try some good deep in-and-out breaths for a while just to ventilate the body and to make the breathing process really obvious and blatant. Then pose that question in the mind: What kind of breathing would feel good now? How about this breath? And then this breath? And keep it … 
  13. A Legacy of Strengths
     … There’s directed thought, where you keep reminding yourself to stick with the breath. And then evaluation: You ask yourself, “Does the breath feel good? If not, what can I do to make it feel better?” You can change the rhythm of the breath or the texture of the breath. Or you can change the image you have in mind about what the breath … 
  14. Desire for Happiness
     … Once you learn to be sensitive to the breath, in touch with the breath, then allow it to expand through the body. If you find any little pieces of tension or tightness in any place in the body, any sense of blockage, allow the breath to move in there, seep through those places of blockage, open things up. Then maintain that quality of openness … 
  15. The Pleasure of Concentration
     … Gain a sense of where its most sensitive spots are, and of how the breath can nourish those spots, refresh those spots. And again, remind yourself that sitting here blissing out on the breath is not a selfish thing. If you can find well-being in here, one, you’re not taking anything away from anyone else. And two, you develop an inner strength … 
  16. The Buddha’s Qualities
     … If you run into obstacles in your pursuit of the breath, you have these other tools for dealing with the obstacles. Once they’re out of the way, then you can focus on the breath 100%. Just be with the breathing. That’s all you need to know about right now. There’s nothing else. In fact, you don’t even have to listen … 
  17. The Carpenter’s Adze
     … What’s distinctive about the sixteen steps is how much they talk about fabrication, starting with the breath. The Buddha could have said many times, “Calm the breath.” But no, he says to calm bodily fabrication. He could have said to calm your perceptions and feelings. But no, he said to calm mental fabrication. He’s focusing on the fact that you’re fabricating … 
  18. Shaping the Present
    Bring your attention to the breath and notice where you feel it as you breathe in and breathe out. Do you like the way it feels? If you do, keep on breathing that way. If you don’t, you can change. This is one of the most important principles in the practice, one that gets overlooked or ignored or even denied: that you have … 
  19. Tuning-in to the Breath
    Tuning-in to the Breath December, 2002 When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, one of the questions I asked him was, “What do you need to believe in order to meditate?” He answered that there was only one thing: the principle of kamma. Now when we hear the word “kamma,” we usually think, “kamma-and-rebirth,” but he meant specifically the … 
  20. It’s All in What You’re Doing
     … You’ve got the breath, which is form. You’ve got the feeling of ease that you’re creating by the way you pay attention to the breath. You’ve got the perception that’s holding you with the breath. You’ve got the thought fabrications that are directing your thoughts and evaluating to get the breath and the mind to settle down together … 
  21. Beyond Duality
     … Take the breath for example. When you begin, it seems that you’re in one part of the body watching the breath in another part of the body. But as you get more and more sensitive to the breath, and the longer you stay with it, then the more you have a sense that the breath is surrounding you, that you’re plunged into … 
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