Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. Concentration Work
     … People complain that it’s not quieting to think about the breath and work with the breath energy in different parts of the body. Well, it’s part of the work needed in order to get things ready to settle down in a way that will be solid and lasting. Be willing to do the work that’s needed for a good, solid concentration … 
  17. Near to the Buddha
     … We meditate on the mind; we meditate on the breath. The breath is the closest thing in the world to your mind. Even in your own body, there’s nothing that’s closer to you than the breath. When you learn to develop qualities of mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration, discernment around the breath, then every time you breathe, there they are, right nearby. In … 
  18. Building on Certainty
     … Then you can try different ways of thinking about the breath. Instead of thinking of the body as a big bellows—with the nose as the little hole at the end of the bellows—think of it as a big sponge. The breath energy is coming in and out through all the pores of the sponge. Put that mental picture in your mind. Think … 
  19. Lifting the Mind
     … Because you have to learn how to observe yourself, say, with the breath: Can the mind stay with the breath? What seems to pull it away from the breath? How do you bring it back? You have to learn how to monitor what you’re doing, and this is another way of lifting the mind. They’ve done studies with school children and found … 
  20. Read the Breath
     … Learn how to read the breath. In other words, learn how to read what the body needs. Sometimes you see the effects of the breathing immediately; other times you notice it over time. This ability to read your breath is a very important skill, because learning how to read the situation in your body and mind in general is where discernment comes. Discernment is … 
  21. The Problem of Suffering
     … For instance, we’re working with the breath now. You’re focusing on the breath coming in, going out. The teachings on the four noble truths, all the various ways of expressing the path, relate to what you’re doing right now. The important thing is what you’re doing. You pick up the Buddha’s teachings as they become necessary, as they become … 
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