Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Weathering Karma Storms
     … If you’re able to sit here without too much of an invasion from past actions, you can give all your attention to what you’re doing right now—focusing on the breath, talking to yourself about the breath, holding in mind a perception of the breath that makes it easy for feelings of well-being to spread through the body. There are other … 
  3. Karma for Freedom
     … Or just the idea that you’re “watching” the breath: Sometimes that creates an internal image of you like a bird perched on your shoulders, looking through your eyes down at the body. That has one effect. How about thinking the perception of wearing the breath, being bathed in the breath? It’s all around you, in the head, in the body. What does … 
  4. Your Gyroscope
    Your Gyroscope January 16, 2010 Bring your awareness to the breath. Think about the breath and then notice where you feel the breath—not just the air coming in and out of the lungs, through the nose, but any place in the body where there’s a sensation that corresponds to the breathing: the rise and fall of the abdomen, the rise and fall … 
  5. The Karma of Narratives
     … It’s in the evaluation that you develop discernment, so you’re trying to figure out how to get the mind out of everything that’s not related to the breath right now. That’s the purpose of your thinking right now. Try to make the breath as interesting as possible. Think of the breath not just as the air coming in and out … 
  6. Choiceful Awareness
     … Stay right here with the breath. Find a way to settle in. Start out with mindfulness, which leads to concentration. It’s not the case that these are two separate practices. Mindfulness gets you focused on body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities, in and of themselves, all of which are the basic components of concentration. “Body,” here, of course, is the breath. Feelings: The … 
  7. Sensitivity All the Time
     … when the breath is too long, when the breath is too short, when the breath energy in the body is too sluggish, when it’s too active. Being attentive is what enables you to notice these things, to be sensitive to them, to read what they’re telling you. So the insights you gain are not necessarily wise sayings that you can write down … 
  8. Worlds to Watch Out For
     … This is where it’s good to know some of the techniques for staying with the breath with a sense of confidence, a sense of ease, so that the breath feels good. Breathing in feels good. Breathing out feels good. If it doesn’t feel good, you can change the way you breathe. That’s another choice you can make. Try long breathing, short … 
  9. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … Hold on to the breath. Whatever else comes up in your mind, don’t let go of the sensation of the breathing as the breath comes in, the breath goes out. Try to make yourself interested in the breath, to see what kind of breathing feels good and what kind of breathing is good for the body and mind. If you’re tired, what … 
  10. Lessons in Fabrication
     … Perceive the breath coming in both sides of the body, to loosen up the pain, alleviate the pain. Tightness here, tightness there: Think of the breath flowing through those areas of tightness. So you learn how to breathe, learn how to perceive the breath, how to talk to yourself about the breath in ways that give rise to a sense of well-being. That … 
  11. Guardian Meditations
     … So sometimes just to get back to the breath and stay with the breath requires that you put the breath aside for a minute, or not worry about the breath for the time being, and use of the other techniques that the Buddha teaches for getting the mind back into shape. Four of them are called guardian meditations, in that they guard against defilement … 
  12. Creating a New Self
     … So one of the purposes of grounding you in the breath right here is to have the breath as a different world, your awareness with the breath as a different becoming, you in a different place. You’re right here. And as you get more and more a sense that this is the normal place to be, then the mind when it’s clearly … 
  13. Change Your Mind
     … First there’s establishing mindfulness in the body in and of itself, like we’re focusing on the breath right now. You try to be ardent, alert, and mindful in putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, you put aside any thoughts that would pull you away from the breath. You keep the breath in mind, you’re … 
  14. Exercising Discernment
     … If you’re meditating on the breath, you keep the breath in mind. If you’re meditating on goodwill, you keep goodwill in mind. Just keep remembering that, again and again and again. Every time you breathe in, every time you breathe out, this is where you want to be. Alertness means checking on what you’re actually doing. Are you with the breath … 
  15. Delusion
     … Even something as simple as the breath: As you’re sitting right here with the breath, you have certain beliefs about the breath. For me, one of the most liberating lessons in meditation was reading Ajaan Lee’s description of the breath and realizing it’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs, it’s the flow of energy throughout … 
  16. Crossing the River
     … It’s constant in that, as long as you’re alive, there’s always going to be the breath. Wherever you go, you’ve got the breath with you. You can take that as your foundation so that you’re not placing your happiness on things outside, people outside, situations outside, outside purposes. Your purpose is here to train the mind. And the breath … 
  17. Questioning & Conviction
     … Make up your mind to stay with the breath and see how long you can do it. You may find that you can stick with it pretty well, or that you’re suddenly off someplace else and you don’t know why. Well, you go back to the breath again. You do this over and over, and after a while you begin to realize … 
  18. Practicing from Gratitude
     … If it starts feeling like it’s too much, then you can calm down, make the breath shorter, more shallow, or keep it in long but out short, or in short and out long, depending on what you feel would be best for the body right now. Notice where the feeling of the breath is most prominent. It can be anywhere in the body … 
  19. Levels of Truth
    Levels of Truth October 7, 2010 Close your eyes, focus on the breath, notice where you feel the breathing. You might start off with a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths to emphasize where in the body you sense the breathing process. Then ask yourself: Is it comfortable? If it feels too long, too heavy, too whatever, you can change. Adjust … 
  20. Home Schooling Your Inner Children
     … focusing on the breath, being mindful to stay with the breath, being alert to the breath, and developing a quality called ardency, in which you see the disadvantages of having an untrained mind, so that you get earnest and active in doing your best to train it. Part of the skill, of course, is knowing how to do it. The other part is learning … 
  21. Nuts & Bolts
     … The thoughts don’t disturb the breath. Our problem is that we leave the breath to focus on the thoughts. If you find that happening, just drop the thought. Don’t try to finish it. Just let it go with its ends dangling. Come right back to the breath. No matter how many times you wander off, just keep coming back, coming back. Each … 
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