Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. Levels of Truth
     … Advanced Practice 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 … 
  7. The Path of Happiness
     … Is this going to be a problem meditating?” My teacher’s response was, “No, we’re going to be focusing on the breath. The breath isn’t Buddhist. It isn’t Christian. It doesn’t belong to any particular religion. It’s a common property all over the world. When you focus on the breath, then you get to your own mind. Once you … 
  8. For Your Good the Good of Others
     … Try to make your awareness of the breath as continuous as possible and think of it smoothing out any roughness in the breath, so that the breath feels good all the way in, all the way out. It can provide a good place for the mind to settle down with a sense of well-being. We come to a quiet place like this to … 
  9. True Friends
    You have a whole hour to work on this skill of staying with the breath. Approach it like a game: See how long you can stay with the breath. If you fall off, just get back on. Fall off again, get back on again. See if you can tell when you’re about to fall off and figure out how not to. Start with … 
  10. A Position of Strength
    One of the good things about the breath as a topic of meditation is that it’s always right here, wherever “here” is. Whether your “here” is at the monastery or at home or traveling from the monastery to home, or wherever you go, the breath is always right here. So it’s here as a friend if you learn how to make it … 
  11. Testing Karma
     … So you have keep reminding it, “Stay right here; stay with the breath,” and see how long you can do that. Push the envelope on inconstancy. You want to be as steadily with the breath as you can. Now, to be steadily with the breath, you have to try to make it pleasant, because if it’s unpleasant, you’re not going to stay … 
  12. A Good Independent Self
     … So here you’re talking to yourself about the breath. Talk to yourself about how well the mind is settling down with the breath. What can be done to fix the breath if they’re not settling down together? What can be done to the mind? That’s useful conversation, useful criticism. And finally, feelings and perceptions: We have our old perceptions that we … 
  13. The Knife of Discernment
     … This may require adjusting the breath now and then, because the needs of the body, as the mind begins to settle down, begin to change. The breath can grow more and more still, more and more refined. The less your mind jumps around thinking about this, that, and the other thing, the less oxygen you need. So, allow the rhythm of the breath to … 
  14. Vitakka & Vicara
     … The Buddha doesn’t explain how to work the rapture and pleasure through the body, but Ajaan Lee fills in this blank by framing the issue in terms of the breath energy. You’re thinking about the breath and you’re evaluating the breath: Where is it comfortable? Where is it not comfortable? If it’s not comfortable, what can you do to change … 
  15. Right Exertion at Play
     … In the same way, when you play with the breath, it’s not just playing. As you play around, you learn about bodily fabrication, the intentional element in the breath. You learn about verbal fabrication, the mind talking to itself about the breath. You begin to see basic patterns. You direct your thoughts to a particular topic and then you make comments on it … 
  16. Sucked into the Tube
     … Keeping things in mind, to begin with, means simply keeping the breath in mind. Then try to be alert to the breath. The more alert you are to the breath, the easier it is to keep it in mind. The more you start paying attention, the more you start getting interested in this energy flow in the body. You find, as you get more … 
  17. A Strong Sense of Self
     … So when we want to be anchored in the present moment, we anchor ourselves in the breath. Notice when the breath is coming in; notice when it’s going out. Notice how it feels. You can try long breathing for a while, to see how that feels, and if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. You can try … 
  18. Delight
     … You’ve got the breath coming in, going out. You’ve got the mind here thinking and aware. So learn how to think about the breath in a way that’s really helpful. Ajaan Fuang would often counsel two things: Learn how to be observant and learn how to use your ingenuity. As the Buddha said, being observant is one of the prime requisites … 
  19. Stepping Out of Yourself
     … You can even imagine the breath going all the way down to your feet. Notice where you feel the breathing process must clearly. When we focus on the breath, that’s what we’re focusing on: the feeling of the process, and not so much the air coming in and out through the nose. As the breath gets very subtle, we reach a point … 
  20. Mindful of Death
     … This is a necessary step in the breath meditation because if you start out with a very relaxed breath, it’s easy to drift off. So energize things a little bit. Breathe deeply. Think of the breath going all the way down through your torso, waking up the different elements in the body, and then all the way down the legs. Then allow things … 
  21. Seclusion
     … As you breathe out, don’t think that you’re squeezing the breath out of the body. After all, we’re trying to create a sense of fullness here, and if you keep squeezing the breath out, it’s not going to get full. Try to maintain a sense of fullness even as the breath goes out. Think of breath breathing breath. If you … 
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