Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Succeeding at Happiness
     … You can also focus your desire on the breath. The breath energy is an important part of your experience of the body. Your health depends on it. Moods in the mind will be affected by the state of the breath energy in the body. So here’s something to explore, and this is your opportunity to explore it. What kind of breathing would feel … 
  3. Friendship Leading to Seclusion
     … But even getting it to settle down still requires some directed thought and evaluation, as you turn from those conversations to simple conversation about the breath: how to get the mind to settle down here with the breath. Even here, you want to hang around with those friends, too. As long as the work needs to be done, as long as you’re finding … 
  4. Practice in Dying Skillfully
     … Now we’re telling you to stay with the breath. But at that point, of course, the breath will be leaving. One of skills that’s really useful to have as you meditate is learning how to gain a sense of awareness on its own. You’re aware of the breath—in the beginning stages of the concentration, trying to become one with the … 
  5. The Most Important Thing to Be Doing
    Try to gather all your attention right here, right here at your present awareness, your awareness of the breath. And do what you can to keep any outliers from wandering away and unraveling your concentration. You’ve got to remind yourself that this is the most important thing you can be doing right now. As far as you’re concerned, this is the most … 
  6. The Heightened Mind
     … And the most prominent aspect of form is the breath. So when you’re with the breath, thinking about the breath, evaluating the breath, you’ve lifted the mind above ordinary everyday concerns. You’ve raised the level of your mind. Of course, when you’re up above things, you can see them more clearly. When the Buddha defines the first jhāna, it’s … 
  7. Asalha Puja
     … It’s right here with the breath, thinking about the breath, evaluating the breath. When there’s a sense of pleasure, let it spread through the body. Survey the body to see where there are any patterns of tension. Or if there’s any sense of blockage anywhere, think of the breath penetrating it and going right through until you can fill the body … 
  8. Mastering Causality
     … So how are you storming into the present moment? One way to find out is by checking on the breath. Exactly what are you doing with the breath right now? Is the breathing a totally passive, automatic process, or are you doing something to the breath? Is there some level of the mind that’s making decisions? One way to find out is to … 
  9. To Strengthen the Path
    Focus your desires on staying with the breath. All too often we hear that the Buddha bad-mouthed desire, calling it the cause of suffering. But not all desires cause suffering. Some desires are part of the path, like the desire to get the mind in a good state with a sense of well-being with the breath. Breathe in a way that feels … 
  10. Endurance
     … You’re going to be looking at your own mind as the mind is looking at the breath. In the beginning, you want to pay most attention to the breath, and pay attention to the mind mainly when it’s not with the breath. When it’s wandering off, bring it back. Try to breathe in a way that will make the mind want … 
  11. Peace vs. Clinging
     … Just stay with the breath. Allow the breath to come in, go out, in whatever way feels good for the body. This is one aspect of physical pleasure, physical ease, that’s really conducive to the path. As the Buddha said, when we practice, we don’t reject any sukha, pleasure, ease, that’s in line with the Dhamma. In other words, any pleasure … 
  12. To Understand the Path
     … As with the breath: Think about the breath and notice how the breath is coming in, how it’s going out, where it’s comfortable, where it’s not, what you can do to make it more comfortable so that there’s a sense of ease and well-being along with a sense of fullness or refreshment. It’s something you work on. When … 
  13. Look after Your Mind with Ease
     … So, right now, talk to yourself about the breath. How is the breath going? Is it comfortable? Where do you feel the breath right now? When you breathe in, does it feel like you’re fully nourishing your torso all the way down? Is it nourishing the nerves? Is it nourishing your eyes, your ears? Think of the breath as the flow of energy … 
  14. Bases for Success
     … In this case, it would be the breath filling the body, and that’s the one thing you’re working on. That’s what the effort is all about. Any hindrances that come up—in other words, anything that would distract you from this one object—you’ve got to put aside. You do everything you can to keep the mind with the breath … 
  15. To Know the Unconditioned
     … You start by directing your thoughts to the breath, evaluating the breath, using perceptions about the breath—like the perception that the breath is a whole-body process, along with perceptions about where it begins in the body. In the beginning, for concentration to last, you have to keep fabricating it on many levels. But as you begin to settle in, you start to … 
  16. A Happiness Based Inside
     … That’s why we look inside to work with the breath. To get beyond the sensual level, the Buddha says there’s a level of form, which is the way you sense your body from within. This, too, changes but you’re getting closer and closer to something that’s more and more under your control. You can adjust the breath. You can take … 
  17. The Sport of Wise People
     … Can you think of yourself as hovering outside the body? Can you be inside the body in different places? When the breath comes in, can it come in from the back? Can the breath begin in the body and not outside? And how about the breath energy around the body? There are a lot of things you can explore here. You can get your … 
  18. Afraid of Pleasure
     … You keep reminding yourself to stay with the breath. Then you evaluate it. This is where the real work of the meditation comes in. How does evaluation lead to pleasure? How does it lead to a sense of refreshment? You evaluate different ways of breathing until you come across one that begins to feel pleasant, begins to feel refreshing. This is why thinking plays … 
  19. Relaxing into the Body
    Sometimes it’s useful, before you focus on the breath, to just scan through the body. Notice where there’s any tension and relax the tension. What you might do if you don’t see clearly where the patterns of tension are—in other words, everything seems to be a mass of tension—is to compare different parts: your left hand with your right … 
  20. Discernment
     … Think of the breath coming in, going down the body; think of the breath coming in from the bottom—through the soles of your feet, up through the legs. See what that does. You can work with the breath, you can imagine the breath, in lots of different ways, and it’ll have an impact on how the breath energy flows in the body … 
  21. Discerning the Middle Way
     … Evaluating the breath and then, when the breath gets good, evaluating what you’re going to do with the pleasure you get from the breath. In other words, you don’t want to just wallow in the pleasure. You want to use it as a tool to create a place in the body where it’s easy to settle down, pleasant to settle down … 
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