Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. How to Be an Admirable Friend
     … So the mind needs a measure of control, and this is where you exercise that control by developing mindfulness and discernment around the breathing. So you come back to the breath. Try to make the breath as interesting as possible. In other words, notice how the breath energy has an impact on how you experience your body right now. Think of the energy flowing … 
  3. Meaning & Purpose
     … The same with the breath going down the back of the neck, through the shoulders and the arms, or the breath energy coming in and out through the eyes and the ears. You can think of the body as being a large sponge. The breath comes in and out from everywhere, all around. As you play with these perception, you’re creating a state … 
  4. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … In the beginning, you’ll notice that you’re with the breath for a while, and then it’ll fade away. Then you notice you’ve wandered off, and you come back to the breath. Next time around, try to stay with the breath a little bit longer. Then, when the mind wanders off the next time and you bring it back, try to … 
  5. The Craft of the Heart
     … Energy is a movement—that’s the breath. And so we can imagine the breath doing different things in the body, the breath energies going down the spine, going down the legs, going down the arms. The imagining is to help you see it in that way and then you can do something with it. Without the imagination, the body seems just to be … 
  6. Inconstancy
     … Even though your focus is on the breath, you can’t help but notice that there are times when the mind is concentrated on the breath and times when it’s not. You’ve got to learn how to figure out both sides of the question: which things are helping to foster concentration, and which things are getting in the way of concentration. And … 
  7. Dissolving Narratives
     … So use the breath as an anchor to stay here. When you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present, because you can’t watch any past breaths and you can’t watch any future breaths—just this one right here, right now. And if you’re going to stay here, you want to make the breath comfortable. That involves experimenting … 
  8. No Foolproofing
     … So how much pressure do you apply to the breath right now so that it’s just right? You stay with the breath, but you’re not clamping down on it. You try to stay with it smoothly. Try to make the breath like silk: smooth all the way in, smooth all the way out. That requires a certain steadiness of focus, and the … 
  9. Survival Tactics
     … The steps we have here – focusing on the breath, making it comfortable, spreading it throughout the body, allowing it to grow calm to the point where there’s a sense of ease and rapture – the beginning stages of breath meditation: these are useful not only on the cushion or your meditation seat, but also in daily life. In other words, by focusing on the … 
  10. The Buddha’s Letter
     … All of the things you’ve learned to associate with the breath as you try to get the mind to settle down—to be alert, ardent—they’re here in the breath. It’s as if they’re buried here in the breath. So as long as you stay in touch with the breath, it can remind you. You can settle down right here … 
  11. A Frame for the Day
     … And if it turns out that by focusing on the breath, you’re keeping yourself awake a little bit longer, that’s perfectly fine, because the rest that comes from concentration, especially when the breath is comfortable, can often be a lot more refreshing and reinvigorating than the rest that comes from plain old sleep. By thinking thoughts of goodwill and working with the … 
  12. Jhana: Responsible Happiness
     … So wherever you focus on the breath in the body, keep in mind that you want the breath to be comfortable, you want the energy in that spot to be comfortable, the sense of flow to be unobstructed. And the results in the body help you to gauge how skillfully you’re focusing the mind. In the beginning it’s hard to tell the … 
  13. At Home in Your Own Skin
     … So it’s important that you develop a sense of being at home with the breath, familiar with the breath, knowing all of its ins and outs—and using the breath so that you can really inhabit the whole of your body, so that you can really be comfortable inside your own skin. Focus on the breath until it’s comfortable. Find what rhythm … 
  14. Change Your Habits
     … You’re going to stay with the breath. That’s what you’ve got in mind right now. Then you try to figure out how to do it. It’s not just through force of will that the mind is going to stay. You need strategies; you need tactics. This is why we work with the breath energy—trying to make it interesting, trying … 
  15. Strength for Stillness
     … So what have you got here? You’ve got the breath, coming in and going out. And a mind that may or may not want to settle down. Or a mind whose various committee members may or may not be in agreement about settling down. So try and find the members that want to stay with the breath, that want to look inside, and … 
  16. Full-Body Breath
    Often when you set your mind on the breath, the hardest thoughts to let go are not the ones that are blatantly unskillful. They’re the relatively skillful ones. There’s a part of the mind that keeps telling you that you’ve got to be responsible for this. You’ve got to look after that. Can’t let this go. If you let … 
  17. A Quiet Spot
     … So focus on the breath. There are lots of other things you could focus on right here, right now, but you limit yourself to the breath. See what the breath is doing. Is it coming in? Is it going out? Is it comfortable? Is it not comfortable? If the mind wants to analyze things, there’s plenty to analyze right here. If it wants … 
  18. Being Still
     … And in the same way if you want to see things in the mind, see things in the breath, you have to make yourself very quiet. The quieter the mind is the more it sees. So, when the breath comes in, the breath goes out, the mind doesn’t have to come in and out with the breath. You choose a spot in the … 
  19. Animals in the Mind
    As we sit here focusing on the breath, we’re developing what’s called mindfulness immersed in the body. You keep the body in mind and you try to fill the body with your awareness, allowing your awareness to spread out and be filled with body. Don’t squeeze off your awareness of the body, which is something we normally do an awful lot … 
  20. Something to Stand On
     … Can you detect any parts of the body that are not being affected by the breath? See if you can get the breath to go there. This gives you work to do because it’s something to explore. And don’t think that you’ll explore it all within one hour. There are lots of lessons to learn about the breath that can take … 
  21. Nobody’s Servant
     … Allow the breath to become comfortable, think of the sensitive parts in your body and how the breath might nourish them. Sometimes just thinking of that as a possibility changes the way you breathe, changes the way you relate to the breath. Align the sensitive spots with the breath; keep them together, and they give energy to each other. Then the mind can calm … 
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