Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Anupassana
    Anupassana April 18, 2018 Tell yourself that the breath is your friend, and you’re going to stay with your friend. You’re going to be loyal. You’re going to be consistent. You’re going to be a true friend to the breath, and that way, the breath gets friendlier. But the important thing is that you stay together. There’s a Pali … 
  3. Start by Relaxing Your Hands
     … That helps to establish a good rhythm for the breathing, because you’ll be able to tell at what point the breath starts getting too long. Things begin to tense up, and you don’t want to tense up. Let the breath out. And again, don’t push it out too far. Find just the right rhythm for the breathing that allows you to … 
  4. A Gentle Touch
    Give the mind a chance to settle down, and try to learn just the right amount of pressure to put on the breath to keep it there. For a lot of people, if you could take a picture of what they’re doing to their mind as they’re practicing concentration, it’s as if they’re strangling it, which is why the mind … 
  5. Basic Stuff
     … As you stay with the breath, you actually find several things are going on at once. To begin with, you’re being mindful. In other words, you’re remembering to stay with the breath. And you’re being alert to watch what’s actually going on: how the breath feels, whether the mind is still with the breath or not. You’ve got to … 
  6. In Alignment
     … Now, while you’re working with the breath, you’ve got the breath here. When it comes in, when it moves, it reminds you, “Breath. The breath is here.” And so, if there’s a lapse in the perception, then the breath makes up for the gap. Otherwise, you get into the pleasure or into anything else that pulls you away, and it may … 
  7. Distraction & Drowsiness
    Try to put aside all your other concerns and just be with the breath. This is called being with the body in and of itself, as opposed to being with the body in the world. As we go through the world in the course of the day, the body plays lots of different roles, and the questions are: Is it strong enough to do … 
  8. Everything Gathers Around the Breath
     … And in our practice here, our lak wichaa is the breath. You can relate every issue in the practice to the breath. Ajaan Lee has a lot of Dhamma talks where he talks about how the different Wings to Awakening relate to the breath in one way or another. You look in the 16 steps of breath meditation, and you get training in focusing … 
  9. Beginner’s Mind
    Try to bring a fresh mind to the breath each time you meditate. Imagine that you’re someone who hasn’t been living in a body for a couple of lifetimes and you’re suddenly back in this body with this unusual experience: There’s an energy flowing around the body, flowing in the body, flowing in and out. And so you’re curious … 
  10. Directed Thoughts, Random Thoughts
     … You’re wearing the breath. You’re not on one side peering into the breath. You’re surrounded by it, bathed by it, immersed in it: whatever perception helps you get a sense of being centered right here in the midst of the breath. And be careful not to let go of the breath. A feeling of ease will arise and it’s all … 
  11. Friendship
     … It’s rare to get an hour like this where you can just be with the breath and learn about it, explore it, experiment with it. So do what you can to take an interest in it. When you learn about the breath, it’s like having a friend inside. The breath can do all kinds of things for you when you need it … 
  12. Friends with The Breath
     … And as you return to the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels especially good. Think of what other parts of the body don’t usually get involved in the breath, or don’t usually seem to be involved in the breathing. Give them a little extra energy. As the breath starts getting comfortable, you can explore how it feels in different … 
  13. Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog
     … The fact that you’re trying to think about the breath continually and evaluate the breath, that’s called verbal fabrication. This too, is a fabrication that’s involved in the meditation. It’s also involved in your different emotions. So you learn how to keep the mind with the breath, learn to think about the breath in a way that’s helpful, how … 
  14. The Language of the Breath
     … What’s working, what way of focusing on the breath puts you to sleep, what way of focusing the breath can wake you, what way of focusing on the breath can develop too much tension in different parts of the body, what ways of focusing on the breath can relieve that tension. Part of that comes from evaluating it on your own; part of … 
  15. Explore & Experiment
    As you focus on the breath, try to think of it going all the way down to your feet. Obviously, this is not the air coming in and out through the nose. It’s the flow of energy in the body. It’s a part of our awareness that tends to get obscured because we’re interested in other things. All the interesting things … 
  16. Developed in Body & Mind
     … Just make sure that you stick with the breath coming in, the breath going out, because that’s the foundation for the pleasure: your steady attention to the breath. Even if the breath seems to stop, stay with the idea of “breath energy filling the body.” That way you become developed both in body and in mind. So when the Buddha talks about developing … 
  17. Off to a Good Start
     … So, to counteract that tendency, we focus on the breath because it’s very close to the mind. Sometimes an intention will go through the mind and you may not even know that it’s there. But if you’re sensitive to the breath, you’ll notice something’s wrong, something’s happened. So we focus on the breath as a way of training … 
  18. Stay with the Breath
     … See how the rhythm of the breath affects your sense of the body. And see how your conception of the breath affects your sensation of the body. If you feel that you have pull the breath in, you really have to fight to pull it in, that’s really unnecessary—because the breath is going to come in and go out on its own … 
  19. Basics
     … Think about the breath and then be alert to the breath: What’s the breath doing right now? Is it coming in? Is it going out? Where do you sense it coming in? Where do you sense it going out? For the time being, put aside any preconceived notions you may have about where the breath comes in and where it goes out. Just … 
  20. Goodwill as Wealth
     … changing the length of the breath, changing the depth of the breath, how fast or slow it is, where you think the breath is coming into the body. You can play with that. This is especially useful when you’re meditating all day and you find that you’ve been overworking some of the muscles in the body that have been doing the breathing … 
  21. True to the Breath
     … All you have to do is stay with the breath in that new moment. There’s nowhere else you have to go, nothing else you have to do. Just work on this one process of staying with the breath and exploring the breath. Give it your full attention. Think of the breath coming in and out of the body through every pore of your … 
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