Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Judging Just Right
     … When you’re working with the breath, you don’t think about concentration. You don’t think about jhana. You think about the breath. Try to explore the breath. What does the breath feel like in the body right now? Try to put aside all the notions you brought to today about what the breath is doing in the body and just notice: How … 
  3. Knowing the Body from Within
    Knowing the Body from Within December 23, 2008 As you’re meditating and listening to the Dhamma talk, give most of your attention to the breath, to your actual meditation object. The talk is here in the background, pointing things out that may or may not be appearing right now in your breath, in your mind. The actual Dhamma is right there in the … 
  4. The Balance of Power
     … You make the breath your friend. The pleasure that comes from comfortable breathing, that can be your friend as well. So figure out how to experiment with the breath, because sometimes just the process of experimentation takes a while before you can do it skillfully. In other words sometimes you push too much, you stretch the breath too much, you try to force things … 
  5. Dualities
     … Instead of the breath being in one place and your being something else, now you’re *in *the breath. You’re surrounded by the breath. And instead of being outside, encompassing the breath, hovering over it, or pushing it around, you’re bathed in the breath. Which is less burdensome? And so on, down through the different levels of concentration. You want to get … 
  6. The Pursuit of True Happiness
     … As we sit here, what demands are being placed on you? All that’s being asked is that you sit relatively still for the hour, breathe, and watch the breath, stay with the breath. When the breath comes in, know that it’s coming in. When it goes out, know that it’s going out. Breathe as comfortably as you can. There are several … 
  7. Duties
     … But always try to stay with that sensation of where you feel the breathing. Because when we talk about doing breath meditation, that’s the breath we’re focusing on. It doesn’t have to be the air coming in and out through the nose. Anyplace where you feel the energy of the breathing process, anyplace where you’re especially sensitive to the breathing … 
  8. High Level Metta
     … And when the breathing feels good, what do you do with it? If you think of it spreading through the body, you can also expand your range of awareness so that it spreads through the body too—so that you’re not sitting up here like an owl perched on your shoulders looking down at the body. Think of the breath bathing the whole … 
  9. Firmly Intent
     … What is the breath? Where does it start? Where does it end? You may have some preconceived notions, but you can question those notions. See what happens. Does the breath begin outside? Does the breath begin inside? If it does begin inside, where does it begin? If it begins outside, do you have to pull it in, or is it just waiting to come … 
  10. Safe at Home
     … If you catch yourself slipping off, just come right back to the breath. The breath is very forgiving. It keeps on coming in and going out no matter what you do. So just come back and get comfortable with the breath again. And don’t get upset by the fact you’ve wandered off. It’s normal. Everybody does it. What makes a difference … 
  11. An Island above the Flood
     … When you’re focused on the breath, anything that would pull you away from the breath is something you’ve got to abandon. As for any thoughts that would help with the breath—getting the breath more comfortable, maintaining that sense of comfort, visualizing the body in ways that allow that sense of comfort to spread around so that it saturates and fills the … 
  12. Making the Dhamma Your Own
     … This is when you begin to appreciate the usefulness of the breath and the reliability of the breath. It’s always your home. You can always work with it, no matter what. Even when you’re sick, you can work with the breath in a way that can turn a heavy pain into a lighter pain, or at least put you in a place … 
  13. A Pleasure Not to Be Feared
     … Take a couple good long, deep in-and-out breaths to see how the breathing feels and where you feel it most prominently in the body. The breath is an all-body, full-body process. It’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the flow of energy as you breathe in, as you breathe out, because the … 
  14. Guarding the Truth
     … You’re working with the breath. That’s bodily fabrication. You have a perception of how the breath comes in and out of the body, and you’re creating feelings of pleasure as best you can. Those are mental fabrications. You’re doing this by maintaining that intention to stay with the breath. You’re paying attention to the things that might get in … 
  15. Comprehending Suffering
     … You’re directing your thoughts to the breath and you’re evaluating how it’s going. You evaluate the breath. You evaluate the state of your mind right now. Is it ready to settle down? Work with the breath for a while and see how it feels. If the mind refuses to settle down, maybe the problem is not with the breath, maybe it … 
  16. Right Effort
     … You try to go to the breath and there just doesn’t seem to be any breath at all. If you immediately get worked up, then you’ve got a problem. But you say, “The breath’s got to be here. If there were no breath, I’d be dead.” Or if you can detect the breath but it’s not comfortable, be willing … 
  17. The Middleness of the Path
     … This is a lesson we can learn with the breath. Sometimes there are levels of discomfort in the breath you can actually deal with, patterns of tension in the body you can work through, by experimenting, by trying this, trying that, making the breath longer, shorter, deeper, more shallow, changing your conception of the breath. But sometimes you run up against a brick wall … 
  18. What to Tolerate, What Not
    The Buddha calls the breath a type of bodily fabrication. Which means two things. One is that the breath is what shapes your experience of the body, of the various properties of the body: breath; fire or the warmth; liquid, coolness; earth or solidity. The breath is your most immediate experience of the body. It’s through the energy of the body that you … 
  19. Contemplating the World You Create
    We focus the mind first at the breath because as you get to know the breath, you begin to realize that the mind opens itself up there, right at its attention to the breath. And that’s what we’re trying to understand. Our primary task here is not trying to understand the world outside. It’s trying to understand the worlds of our … 
  20. Gladdening
     … See if you can get the mind interested in how the breath affects the body and how your ways of thinking can affect the breath. When you breathe in, breathe out, what mental picture do you hold of where the breath can come in, how it comes in, how it courses through the body? Is that a good picture? Is it helpful for getting … 
  21. Admirable Intentions
     … In this case, it’s the breath. You stay with the breath coming in, the breath going out. You don’t think of the body in terms of the world, whether it’s strong enough to do the work of the world, whether it’s good-looking in the eyes of other people. You put those kinds of issues aside. Just: What is it … 
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