Search results for: "The Breath"
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- Pain Is a Noble Truth… Don’t let the pain form a wall to the breath energy. Remember, the breath energy is prior. Your sense of the body, your sense of what’s going on in the body, is always filtered through the breath. Yet sometimes we get things backwards. We think that if there’s a pain or if there’s a solid feeling of blockage someplace, the …
- A Real Education… Either you’re going to stay with the breath or you’re going to wander off. So tell yourself to stay with the breath. If you have trouble staying with the breath, you might want to think first about good reasons to stay with the breath. Learn to talk to yourself. Give yourself pep-talks—encouraging yourself to see the importance of getting the …
- Learning by Doing… You focus on the breath—that’s bodily fabrication, and it’s also part of form. It’s part of the wind element. You think about the breath—that’s verbal fabrication. And you hold perceptions in mind—that comes under both name and mental fabrication. You’re trying to create a feeling of well-being—that comes under both name and mental fabrication …
- What You Don’t Like About Yourself… As for the breath meditation instructions, they’re are all about learning how to breathe in such a way that you create a really good place to be here in the present moment: being sensitive to how the breath feels, being sensitive to the entire body as you breathe in and breathe out, trying to calm the effect of the breath on the body …
- Equanimity Isn’t Everything… focusing on the breath, adjusting the breath. There’s verbal fabrication in the directed thought and evaluation as you direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath. Bodily fabrication is the in-and-out breathing itself, because that’s the process that fabricates your sense of the body. It’s one of the few bodily processes that you can actually control. You …
- Flexibility… So there are lots of different levels in the meditation, lots of different ways of comprehending the breath, perceiving the breath. Ajaan Fuang would often talk of the different levels of concentration not in terms of this jhāna or that jhana, but he would say to focus on the breath and feel it this way, then think of the breath that way, then experience …
- Treating the Diseases of the Mind… But you have to learn how to observe when you stay with the breath of a particular kind: Does it work? If you change the breath, does it work? If you figure out all the different ways you might be able to work with the breath and nothing seems to work, then there are other topics you can focus on: recollection of the Buddha …
- Sending Happiness… How do you direct your thoughts to the breath? How do you evaluate the breath? Or if you find that the mind isn’t willing to settle down with the breath, what other things could you be thinking about right now that would be in line with the Dhamma? One of the monks who stayed with Ajaan Lee toward the end of his life …
- Right Next to Ignorance… So what have we got? Right next to ignorance, you’ve got the breath—that’s bodily fabrication. You’ve got directed thought and evaluation—that’s verbal fabrication. And then you’ve got feelings and perceptions—mental fabrication. This is one of the reasons why we focus on the breath, thinking about the processes of how the breath is fabricated, and thinking about …
- What Am I Becoming?… You’re trying to develop mindfulness, keeping the breath in mind; and alertness, watching the breath: What’s it doing right now? And how is your mind relating to the breath? You’re also developing ardency: You want to do this well because it’s the only path out. So is the breath comfortable? If it’s not comfortable, you can change it. Is …
- Second Wind… You can play with the perceptions that are holding you here right now, to see which way of perceiving the breath is most helpful for staying here. You can perceive it as coming in from the outside, in which case you might want to think of it coming in and out through all the pores. Or you can perceive it as starting inside. You …
- How to Save the World… So, one really direct and visceral way of showing kindness to yourself is by watching the breath, getting to know the breath, learning how to make the most use of the breath in giving rise to a sense of well-being right here—starting at one spot in the body, wherever it’s easiest to focus on the breath, and then moving around to …
- Slings and Arrows of Ordinary Fortunes… The first step in meditation is to get settled in with the breath, settled in with the body. The more consistently you can stay with the breath, stay with the body, the more the mind will settle down. Mindfulness leads naturally into concentration this way. The concentration gives you a sense of well-being. And if you find yourself getting worked up about how …
- Independent Values… Watch over the breath to see how it feels, and watch over your mind to make sure it’s here. If it wanders off, bring it right back. While you’re with the breath, try to be sensitive to how your breath feels. Doing this requires a third quality: ardency. This is how you establish a foundation for yourself in the present moment. The …
- Living Forward, Understanding Backward… This is also a process that you learn how to master through the meditation as you perceive the breath, say, in the different parts of the body, perceive how it can be spread around, perceive how the breath can be a whole-body process, perceive various ways of visualizing the breath, visualizing the way you relate to the breath. If you learn how to …
- Respect… When the breath energy comes flowing in the body, where does it come from? You can think of the breath coming in and out every pore. What does that do to the way the breathing feels? What does that do to the way the body feels as a whole? There’s a lot to experiment with. And it’s through experimentation that we learn …
- Discernment Performs… When you focus on the breath, at first you try to develop a sense of oneness between your awareness and the breath. You try to cultivate that so you really can be solidly with it. But after a while, things begin to separate out, in the same way that when you put oil and vinegar into a bottle and just leave it there, they …
- Ingenuity… Try to stay with the breath and, on the one hand, be as fully aware of just the sensation of the breath as you can and then, on the other hand, evaluate things, noticing how things are going. Is the breath a comfortable place to stay? Is it an interesting place to stay? What can you do to make it more comfortable? What can …
- Afraid of Inner Pleasure… So try not to pinch the end of the breath, and don’t breathe in any more than you have to. But by the same token, as the Thais say, breathe with your whole abdomen. Let the breath go all the way down. And see how long you can maintain that sense of comfort. While you’re protecting it, try to make sure that …
- Mindfulness & Perception… You’re going to focus on the breath part, or the breath aspect. That comes under the aggregate of form. There are going to be feelings of pleasure and pain, so you learn how to cultivate the breath in such a way that gives rise to pleasure. Use a perception to remind yourself to stay here. Then there’s fabrication, especially in the first …
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