Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Meditation as a Skill
     … Is the breathing comfortable? Could it be more comfortable? You can try it longer or shorter, heavier, lighter, faster, slower, deeper, more shallow. Experiment for a while to see what kind of breathing feels good. In watching yourself, you have to watch the breath and watch the mind watching the breath at the same time. After all, just because you have the intention to … 
  3. Learning by Doing
     … Look as carefully as you can at what’s actually going on right now as you try to keep your mind with the breath, keep your awareness with the breath, maintain the intention to stay with the breath. Breathe in a way that gives rise to a feeling of pleasure. Maintain a perception of the breath that’s open—in other words, open to … 
  4. Choices
     … You’re making choices right now as you stay with the breath, sensitive to how the choices of the mind affect the breath, how the breath affects the choices of the mind. Explore that. There are a lot of good things to be learned right here. So the teaching on karma provides the context for the present moment, and karma itself is what makes … 
  5. Talking to Yourself
     … You want to be with the breath. See what happens when you can stay with the breath. Try to get interested in the breath. Ask yourself questions about it. What are these breath sensations in the body? They’re already there. It’s a question of simply viewing them as breath sensations. This is where another type of fabrication comes in. It’s called … 
  6. Tranquility & Insight in Tandem
     … How do they flow out? What are they flowing for? What are they looking for? When you’re first trying to settle down with the breath, the obvious things are the cravings that pull you away from the breath. You’re sitting here focusing on the breath, it’s coming in and going out, and then all of a sudden you realize you’ve … 
  7. Patience & Consistency
     … If you’re going to stay with the breath, stay with each breath, each breath, each breath—but don’t let this get mechanical—all the way in, all the way out. It helps to have some strategies for getting the mind to stay this way consistently. That’s why you work on getting the breath comfortable and being aware of the whole body … 
  8. A Concentration Diet
     … Here your service is staying focused on the breath, being conscious of the breath filling the body. Try to maintain that sense of full-body awareness. It takes work, but the work you do in the sense of well-being is what keeps you clearly here with the breath. If, as the breath gets more and more refined, your range of awareness is small … 
  9. The Form of the Body
     … If you want to think about things, think about the breath; if you want to analyze things, analyze the breath; if you want to you enjoy something, learn how to enjoy the breath. In other words, get the mind to really engage in this aspect of having a body. In that way, the mind can get to know itself a lot better. Its exploration … 
  10. The Tricks of Denial
     … Then try to get with the breath. Watch the breath coming in; the breath going out. But also be on guard for the fact that there may be some other agendas going on. So you have to watch your mind. You need a double focus. Ajaan Lee talks about this in his book on frames of reference. He says that your alertness is like … 
  11. Exploring Contentment
     … That’s the approach you take to the breath. It’s not a matter of simply sitting with whatever the breath is going to do—because, as you’re going to find out, what the breath can do is not totally out of your control. There’s an element of your shaping in it: your intention, whether conscious or subconscious, in how you want … 
  12. Head & Heart
     … So hunker down, and realize that the tension over particular issue is often going to get reflected in the breath, so at the very least you can work with the breath. This is an important point. In dependent co-arising, the breath comes right after ignorance. This is the kind of breathing that leads to suffering, it’s one of the forms of fabrication … 
  13. Noble Wealth
     … focusing on the breath. It’s a small thing, focusing on the breath. How would you imagine that this would be the potential for developing discernment? Well, it comes from focusing on the breath in the right way. There was one time when the Buddha told the monks that it would be good for them to practice breath meditation. One of the monks responded … 
  14. On the Surface of Things
     … And what do you sense? What are your immediate sensations right now? Try to stay with whatever seems to be “breath.” And, for the time being, whatever comes along with the breath, think of it as part of the breath as well. You’ll have some mental images, but try to keep them focused on the breath. As for any mental images focused on … 
  15. Watching Over Time
     … But sometimes this analysis seems all too abstract, so a good way of looking at the issue directly is right here—at the breath. How does the breath feel? How is your ability of the mind to stay with the breath? Can it not stay with the breath because the mind is too antsy, or because its energy level isn’t up to staying … 
  16. Strength to Be Good
     … The basic principle with regard to rapture is that whatever comes up, you want to stay with the breath. Don’t go jumping off into any rapturous feelings that come up. The breath is the cause. And your ability to stay with the breath will allow the sense of rapture to bathe over the body and, once it’s done its work, to fall … 
  17. Heedful of Small Dangers
     … You’ve got the breath. Try to make the breath as comfortable, as calm as possible, to calm the mind down when it’s agitated, or to energize it when you need energy. Learn how to use the breath as a balancing medicine. In the old days, they would talk about medicine as balancing out different humors or the different potentials in the body … 
  18. There’s Work to Be Done
     … When you’re focusing on the breath, where is a good place to focus? There are instructions that tell you to try different spots in the body. You remember those, but you remember particularly the ones that you’ve tried and have worked in the past. Then you remember different ways of thinking about the breath. Ajaan Lee recommends thinking of the breath as … 
  19. Totally Secure
    Try to be true to the breath. There’s competition with the music outside tonight, but the competition doesn’t destroy the breath. It’s still there. You just have to find in your body where the sensations of breathing are, and stick with them. Look after them. If the breathing doesn’t feel comfortable, you can adjust it. Make it longer or shorter … 
  20. Factors for Awakening
     … For instance, right now we’re with the breath, which is the frame of reference that the Buddha recommends most specifically for dealing with all four frames. When feelings come up, relate them to the breath. How does the breath affect the feelings? How do the feelings affect the way you breathe? For instance, if there’s a pain in your body, do you … 
  21. Maintaining Goodwill
     … Choose any one spot where it’s easy to follow the breath—the tip of the nose, the lungs, the middle of the chest, the abdomen, any place where it’s easy to keep track of “now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out,” and it feels comfortable to be centered there. Then relax around that center. All too often … 
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