Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Rhythms of the Mind
     … For the mind to develop, you have to focus on what you’re doing right now, which is to get it quiet, to be with the breath. The instructions are there in the definition of the establishing of mindfulness: keep focused on the body in and of itself—in this case, the breath—ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to … 
  3. Deconstruct Your Emotions
     … So the breath is your first line of defense. This is why it’s so important to get sensitive to how you manipulate the breath energy and, as I was saying the other day, it’s as if you have a series of tools. The breath is a tool that you can use to counteract a negative emotion. The ways you think can be … 
  4. The Little Things
    Pay close attention to the breath. Be right on top of it each time it comes in, each time it goes out. Don’t let the process get mechanical. Don’t put it on automatic pilot. Really pay attention. How does the breath feel when it comes in? Where do you feel it? Which parts of the body would really feel good if the … 
  5. No Arrows, Nothing
     … Even Ajaan Lee, who was a master of the breath, suffered from a lot of pain that came with his heart disease. Ajaan Fuang was another master of the breath. He had some pretty painful conditions in his body as well. But we use the breath to soothe things as much as possible to get the mind in a position where it can look … 
  6. Heedfulness All the Way Through
     … So you need to start talking to yourself about the breath again. What are you saying about the breath? How to breathe so that you can stay with the breath with a sense of ease; how you can use that sense of ease and spread it throughout the body, because you want to develop a whole-body awareness. Once you’ve got that whole … 
  7. The Body Doesn’t Care
     … There have been some people who’ve asked, “Why do you focus on the breath? After all, when you die, the breath is going to end, and where will that lead you?” Well, if all we learned about was the breath, then we would be in trouble. But the fact is that, as you’re getting the mind to stay with the breath, the … 
  8. Top Priorities
     … When something goes wrong with the breath, be sensitive to it. Again, try to keep your sensitivity of the breath going all the time. It may seem like a lot to ask when you’ve got to focus on your work and on the sense of the breath in your body at the same time. But then again the breath is what provides the … 
  9. Energy
     … So when you’re working with the breath in the body and you find that you come up to an area of pain, try to treat it as a challenge, and not as a blockage. It’s important that you make use of whatever pleasure you do get from the breath, because if you’re focusing just on the pain, it gets wearisome after … 
  10. Random Word Generators
     … You’ve just got to be really determined that you’re not going to fall for any of that—because you’ve got the breath here, you’ve got your work to do. You have to remind yourself that just because this thinking’s going on in the mind, that doesn’t mean that you can’t experience the breath. The breath is there … 
  11. Determined to Be Undefeated by Death
    Sometimes when you come to meditate and you tell the mind to stay with the breath, it’s pretty obedient. It settles down. It’s happy to be here. And sometimes it’s not. When it’s not, that’s when you have to be determined to get it to settle down. And there are four steps to a good determination. The first is … 
  12. A Foundation for Restraint
     … You can use both the felt sense of the breath energy in the body, and pictures in the mind, pictures of your body, to anchor yourself. If you want to focus on the breath, think of a picture of how the breath flows. Remind yourself that it can flow in a lot of ways that you might not expect. This gives you something to … 
  13. The No Common Sense Zone
     … We’re doing something similar with the breath, the difference being that even though the breath is our object, it’s not our goal. Our goal is the mind. We want the mind to settle down. What kind of breathing will help? You try things out. You try chest breathing, you try abdominal breathing, you try breathing all the way down to your toes … 
  14. Borrowed Goods
     … How do *you *analyze them? What’s *your *experience of the breath? And when you perceive it in a certain way, what does that do to the breath? What are the best perceptions for when you’re sick? What are the best perceptions for when you’re tired—for when you’re nervous, upset? How do you perceive the breath in a way that … 
  15. The Buddha’s Vipassana
     … In the same way, you can adjust the breath up to a point and then it’s not going to get any better than that. So you might as well settle down with what you’ve got. You can drop all the adjusting and just be with the breath. This is where the sense that you are one thing and the breath is something … 
  16. Work on Your Mind
     … When you breathe in, where do you think the breath is coming in? And what is the breath? Is the breath the air, or is the breath the movement of energy in the body? Which perception is more helpful? Usually, it’s the perception that we’re dealing with energy in the body, because then you can move that energy around. With the air … 
  17. Putting Out the Fires
     … Focus on the breath and allow the breath be comfortable—comfortable coming in, comfortable going out. Try not to put too much pressure on it. Just stay right next to it. Ajaan Fuang’s word for this, prakhawng, is a Thai word meaning that you hover around something and hold it very gently. The classic image in the texts is of holding a baby … 
  18. Appreciating Dispassion
     … When you start out getting focused in the breath, you’ve got to talk to yourself about it to adjust it. There are perceptions of the breath that allow you to visualize the breath going through the different parts of the body to create a sense of the well-being. You can maintain it and you can spread it around. If you find a … 
  19. Intent
     … After all, the breath is always there. It requires that you be very observant and very sensitive to what’s going on and how you’re relating to it, but otherwise, it’s with you all the time. So you want to think about the breath and your relationship to the breath. In the beginning, it’s pretty simple. The only thing you’ve … 
  20. Sensitive to the Mind
     … You’ve got the breath itself: which is bodily fabrication. All the different instructions—“I’ll breathe this way, I’ll breathe that way”: Those are verbal fabrications. Then there are mental fabrications: the perceptions that hold you with the breath, and then the feeling-tones that you give rise to by the way you breathe. These are all very explicit in the instructions … 
  21. Evaluation: The Voice of Heedfulness
    Take some long, deep in-and-out breaths, and get in touch with the feeling of the breath in the body. Here by “breath,” we don’t mean the air coming in and out of the lungs. We mean more the flow of energy in the body. And it’s important that you stay in contact with that direct experience. It’s the part … 
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