Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. The Power of Present Karma
     … working with the breath energies. He was able to pull himself together and, at the end of the Rains, walked out of the jungle. So the breath may not seem promising—just in, out; in, out. In fact, one of his fellow ajaans once questioned him about this: “What is there to see in the breath? There’s nothing but in and out.” And … 
  3. Trustworthy Judgment
     … It’s the same way with the breath. You try to make the breath as comfortable as possible, so that when the mind comes back, it feels good, feels right. In this way the mind becomes more and more your own mainstay, so that when you have to make big decisions about your life, you have a mind state that’s capable of making … 
  4. Some Assembly Required
     … trying to maintain your mindfulness, to be alert, to stay with the breath—several things you have to balance all at once. Staying with the breath, making it comfortable, evaluating it: This is what’s called verbal fabrication. You keep reminding yourself to stay, and you keep evaluating the breath to make sure that it’s comfortable. And if it’s not comfortable, what … 
  5. Five Strengths
     … Stay with the sensation of the breathing as consistently as you can all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out. Don’t let any distractions pull you away. If you find that you are pulled away, just drop whatever the distraction is and come back to the breath. Each time you come back, notice: Is the breath as comfortable … 
  6. Space for Sustained Contemplation
     … This kind of contemplation, on the one hand, helps get you to the breath, but the breath also helps with the contemplation. This is why Ajaan Lee said that the breath is your home base. It’s the safe object of meditation. It’s the place where the mind can really rest. And as you’re dealing with the types of fabrication around the … 
  7. Insight from Developing Concentration
     … You’re going to pay attention to the breath. You’re going to make it consistent so that you can observe how to breathe in a way that gives rise to a feeling of pleasure. Ajaan Lee recommends that you use, not the perception of air coming in and out of the lungs, but the perception of the energy in the body as your … 
  8. An Exercise in Sensitivity
     … You try to find a sense of well-being with the breath. This is why Ajaan Lee recommends that you play with the breath—long, short; fast, slow; or in long, out short; in short, out long; heavy, light; deep, shallow. You can play with these things to figure out what feels best for you right now. And who’s going to tell you … 
  9. Fabricated Path, Unfabricated Goal
     … You’ve got the breath, your awareness, and your thoughts, and you try to bring them together, keep them together. You’ve got to have some strategies for keeping them together once they’re there. Otherwise, they come together and then they go their separate ways. This is why we work with the breath. Experiment to see what kind of breathing feels good right … 
  10. A Post by the Ocean
     … This is why we’re practicing concentration, focusing on the breath, staying with the breath as it comes in, staying with the breath as it goes out, doing what we can to make it easy to stay with the breath. Part of that involves allowing the breath to be comfortable, and having the sense that the breath is not just air coming in and … 
  11. Death Is Normal
     … His first question for Ajaan Fuang was that he was a Christian; was that going to be any obstacle in his meditation? Ajaan Fuang said, “No, we’re going to be focusing on the breath. The breath doesn’t belong to Christianity; it doesn’t belong to Buddhism. It belongs to everybody. It’s common property all over the world.” When you focus on … 
  12. The Origination of Suffering
     … you stay with the body in and of itself, as when you’re focusing on the breath right now: letting the breath come in go out, having a sense of ease as it comes in, as it goes out. Deal with the breath on its own terms. All too often, it gets shunted off into the background as you feel you have more important … 
  13. Calm
     … Then think of the breath energy connecting everywhere throughout the body. There’s no need to pull the breath in or push the breath out. There’s a sense of sufficiency. It may happen that the breath stops. Don’t be afraid of its stopping. If you need to breathe, you’ll breathe. You’re not suppressing it. If you try to suppress it … 
  14. Choosing Your Allies
     … But when you actually sit down and sense the breath from inside—in other words, feel your body from inside—what does it feel like? Remember that, in the Buddha’s analysis, the breath element is actually the energy that allows the air to come in and go out. Where does that start? How does it spread through the body? What are the energy … 
  15. Don’t Be a Traitor to Yourself
     … He lists the breath as the last one in that particular list of concentration topics, advising you that you work with the topics that develop samvega first so that you’re chastened, realizing that if you’re going to leave the breath, you’re looking for trouble, whereas here at the breath is a good place to stay. Learn to appreciate it. That’s … 
  16. Mind Control
    Okay, time to focus on the breath. If you’re going to think, think about the breath. As for any other thoughts that might come into the mind right now, just let them go, no matter how important or how compelling they may seem. This is not the time and a place for them. One of the most important principles of the practice is … 
  17. Strength of Conviction
     … In the body, we work with the breath. The breath is the most basic of all the elements in the body; it’s what keeps us alive. And it’s through the breath that we know the other elements of the body. We tend to think of ourselves as being first aware of the hard part of the body, the solid part of the … 
  18. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … So on the one hand, we try to counteract that tendency by making the breath entertaining, getting sensitive to the fact that it’s not just in, out, in, out, but there are lots of ins and outs to the breath, different qualities of breathing, different depths of breathing, different ways of visualizing the breath coming in and going out of the body at … 
  19. True, Beneficial, Timely
     … You have to talk to yourself about what? You talk to yourself about the breath, because if you’re going to settle down with the breath, the breath has to be comfortable. It has to feel right in the body right now. It has to be clear enough for the mind to be able to watch it, but gentle enough so that it feels … 
  20. Reliable Action
     … Give the mind something to keep in mind, like the breath, and give it something to watch, like the breath, so that you can use your mindfulness and your alertness together right here, right where the mind and the body meet at the breath coming in, the breath going out. When you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present moment … 
  21. Guardian Meditations
     … Get back to the breath. So as you’re dealing with the breath and things don’t seem to be settling down, remind yourself: Sometimes the problem is with the way you’re approaching the breath. But other times there are other issues still gnawing away at the mind that don’t allow you to settle down. They create a sense of a fever … 
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