Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Watch What You’re Doing
     … In other words, you tell yourself to focus on the breath in a certain way, to work with the breath a certain way, then you do it, and then you have to evaluate the results—one, to make sure you’re doing things the way you tell yourself to do, and when the results don’t come out, you have to figure out why … 
  3. Noble Contentment, Noble Discontent
     … For instance, with the breath: When the breath is not going well, when it feels uncomfortable, laborious, strained, you watch it for a while, but not so that you just sit with it. You watch it so that you can try to figure it out and then improve it. “What is it about the breath that’s uncomfortable? Why is it uncomfortable? Is it … 
  4. Analysis of Qualities
     … This is what makes the breath interesting. You begin to see that certain ways of focusing on the breath, certain ways of playing with the breath, have a really good effect on the body. Other ways don’t. That way, you learn the principle of what’s skillful and what’s not by observing cause and effect. And you learn to make yourself a … 
  5. In the Mood
     … They’re for taking a mind that doesn’t feel like meditating, that refuses to stay with the breath, and get it so that it’s more willing, so that it finally decides that, Yes, it really does want to stay with the breath. After all, this element of desire is an important part of the meditation. It’s an important part of the … 
  6. Joyous Endurance
    Direct your thoughts to the breath. Direct your attention to the breath. Direct your whole mind to the breath. And try to keep it in that direction. In the Mangala Sutta, this is called having yourself rightly directed. It’s one of the ways that you bless yourself, protect yourself. The nature of the mind is that it doesn’t just sit in one … 
  7. Pain & the Middle Way
     … But if there’s a pain that you can’t work out with the breath, you can simply learn how to work around it. In other words, focus not on the pain, but first on the breath energy in the body and seeing what you can do to make that energy pleasant. There arises a sense of pleasure in form, i.e., your sense … 
  8. Things As They Function
     … The same with the coolness of water or the energy of the breath. The theory is that they’re provoked, and you notice this as you work with the breath. Change your perception of the breath, and the breath feels different. Change your perception of the solidity of the body, and the body feels different. Think of all the atoms composing the body. We … 
  9. What Are You Doing Right Now?
     … You’re going to stay with the breath, to watch the breath come in, watch the breath go out. Then you learn how to augment that intention, because simply making the intention is not going to make it last. You’ve got to learn how to nurture it and keep it going. You can do this by experimenting with the breath. Make this a … 
  10. A Pervasive Well-being
     … Focus on the abdomen, or focus at the base of the neck, and then think of the breath going in various parts of the body in relationship to that. If you’re focused on the back of the neck, think of the breath energy going down the spine. This broadens your range of awareness. If you start at the navel, be aware of that … 
  11. The Skill of Patience
     … And it’s through the breath energy that you notice that you’re touching things. Without the breath, you’d be dead. There’d be no sense of awareness at all. So wherever there’s a sense of the body that you’re clear about, focus there. If you have trouble gaining a sense of the breath, just hold your breath for a while … 
  12. Listening to the Body
     … It’s the same with the breath. You’re here with this one breath—but the mind doesn’t stay with this one breath. It thinks about how you’ve got to sit for the whole hour, and suddenly the mind has been sitting for an hour already, probably two or three or four hours already. Yet the breath has hardly gone through a … 
  13. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … You can think of the breath coming in from outside or you can have a mental image of the breath originating inside—because that’s where the energy of the breath comes from. It comes from inside. You can ask yourself where in the body it starts. Does it start in one spot, or several spots? Or how about every cell? Think of every … 
  14. For the Sake of the Deathless
     … So focus right now on the breath for the purpose of knowledge, for the purpose of knowing what to do—both with the purpose of leading to the ultimate happiness. Have that purpose in the back of your mind. In the front of your mind, have the breath, have the mind focusing its attention on the breath, its alertness on what’s going on … 
  15. A Pure Happiness
     … When you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present moment. The more fully you are with the breath, the more fully you are in the present, and you don’t have to hold anything back. Just allow yourself to fully sense the breath as it’s coming in, fully sense the breath as it’s going out, wherever you can … 
  16. Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt
    When you focus on the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels really refreshing. Think of the breath energizing your entire torso all the way down, and then even beyond the torso down through the legs, down the back. Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the … 
  17. Fighting Spirit
     … You can choose how you conceive of the breath, what’s called perception, or saññā in Pali. As you’re breathing right now, where do you think the breath is coming in? What sensations do you think are the ones that tell you that you’ve got to breathe in this particular way to get the breath in?—that you’ve got to tense … 
  18. On Not Being a Victim
     … And you can see this very directly in the breath. You can simply watch the way the breath already seems to be, or you can put up a mental picture of how you would like the breath to be. Just a thought, don’t try to force it in that direction, just think about it. Think about the breath coursing through the body. As … 
  19. A Sense of Space Inside
    Allow your attention to settle on the breath. And hold in mind the perception that the whole body is breathing: all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the cells. That creates a nice spacious sense here in the present. See how long you can maintain that perception—and what happens to your sense of the body, your sense of yourself sitting here as … 
  20. The Right Medicine
     … That’s why we work with the breath, both because the breath can be very calming—it can provide a good, steady foundation for the mind so that it can stay continually in the present and feel content to stay in the present—and also because the breath is about as close as you get to the mind without actually focusing on the mind … 
  21. The Adventure in the Present
     … So we focus our attention on the breath as our reflector. Make the breath a comfortable place to stay. Take the whole flow of energy through the body as your object. Wherever it’s most obvious or feels comfortable to stay focused, and the breath energy feels most comfortable, stay right there. Then see if you can make it more comfortable. When you do … 
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