Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas
    Focus on the breath. Take a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths first, to highlight your sense of the body as you feel it from within. And if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t, you’re free to change. Try shorter breathing, or in short, out long; in long, out short; fast, slow; heavy, light; deep … 
  17. All Your Old Baggage
     … just keep remembering, “Stay with the breath, stay with the breath.” Being alert: noticing what you’re doing with the breath; how you’re focusing on it and which ways of focusing, which ways of conceiving of the breath, are helpful and which ones are not. And then just sticking with it. That’s really all you have to carry right now. All your … 
  18. Seeing Through Your Defilements
     … Wherever the breath is discernable, focus your attention there. And if you’re going to talk to yourself, talk to yourself about the breath, and about the mind fitting together with the breath. This is a part of concentration called directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to the breath and then you evaluate it. Is it good, is it not good? Is … 
  19. Let Pleasure & Pain Fall Off the Plow
     … a sense that all the energies in the body are working together; the breath is flowing smoothly. If it’s not flowing smoothly yet, you work on it. That’s what directed thought and evaluation are for. Directed thought is when you focus your thoughts on staying with the breath. Evaluation is asking yourself, “Does this feel good? If it feels good, how do … 
  20. Strong Through Commitment
     … Where does the breath come in? Where does it go out? You have a wide range of choices. There’s one sense in which the breath does come in from the outside; there’s another sense in which the breath energy originates inside the body. You can focus on either one. They both have their advantages. When you think of the breath coming in … 
  21. A Willingness to Learn
     … the breath, the sensation of the breath coming in, the sensation of the breath going out. And make it comfortable. If the mind’s really been tired, that’s all you have to do for the hour. Just try to remember to stay with as much comfortable breathing as possible. Give the mind a chance to rest, give it a chance to gain some … 
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