Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Dispassion Isn’t Depression
     … We use the breath as our topic because it’s right next to the mind and it’s our anchor in the present. As long as you’re with the breath, you’re in the present moment. You can’t watch a past or future breath. The only breath you can watch is in the present. As you stay focused here, you can watch … 
  3. A Tradition of Ingenuity
     … Is this the right time for it to go up or to go down? When I was translating Keeping the Breath in Mind, I found that there were various editions and that Ajaan Lee talked about the breath energy in the different editions in different ways. In one edition, he talked about the breath outside the body, like a cocoon around the body, which … 
  4. The Battle of Your Selves
    We sit here trying to get the mind into concentration, to get it focused on the breath, and all of a sudden we find it someplace else. By that I mean without any sense that we intended to go someplace else, it’s just that we’re there. This is a good lesson in how your self is pretty arbitrary, and how there are … 
  5. Always Willing to Learn
     … Let them do the breathing, and for the time being it’s fully for their benefit. If your brain feels foggy, you can think of the breath energy coming in and out of the brain, that the brain is doing the breathing. Or the spinal cord is doing the breathing. See what that does to the breath energy—if it helps to open things … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. Two Things to Keep in Mind
     … So when you’re dealing with the breath and thoughts come up about “Why can’t I stay with the breath?” or “What’s wrong with me?” you remember to reframe the issue: just the breath in and of itself. Take the “I” and the “me” out. You want to see, “What’s this breath like? How does it feel? When the breath comes … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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