Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Victory
     … We bring the mind to the present moment with the breath so that we can gain some strength from the breath and gain strength from getting the mind to settle down and be still. So gather your thoughts in right now. If you’re going to think about anything, think about the breath. Think about the mind being with the breath. Then pay attention … 
  3. To Take Danger in Stride
     … And the breath is the closest thing to the mind there is. It’s your basic experience of the body. Even before you experience the solidity of the body, there’s the energy of the breath that gets you in touch with it. Make that energy your home so that you’ll always have a safe place. Then reflect on that chant that we … 
  4. Right Inner Speech
     … Thoughts that pull you away from the breath, even if they’re true, you don’t need them right now. Just stay with this perception: the breath coming in, breath going out, the breath energy permeating the body. This is what we have to deal with, because how does the mind communicate with itself? It uses its perceptions. And how is it going to … 
  5. A Rare Gift
    When you’re meditating at the same time there’s a Dhamma talk, 99.5% of your attention should be with the breath and only half a percent with the Dhamma talk itself. The sound is here to act as a fence. If you find yourself losing touch with the breath, the sound of the talk is here to remind you to come back … 
  6. Focus on Your Skill
     … You’ve got to find the right balance, and one of the ways of doing that is to take a lot of interest in the breath—what the breath energy can do in the body—because the more clearly you can see the breath, the more refined your sensitivity to the breath, then the more refined your sensitivity to what’s going on in … 
  7. How to Read Yourself
     … In this case, the Buddha says, there are times when you to get the mind to stay with the breath but you run into a fever in the breath or a fever in your feelings, or a fever in the mind. In other words, the mind’s not willing to stay. It feels antsy, irritable. That’s when you have to stop and think … 
  8. Every Little Bit
     … Try to get more interested in the breath for instance. Try to be more precise in your observation of the breath. If things are getting stale, often it’s a sign that you’re not paying careful attention—because the breath, when it’s good, is really good. It really is nourishing. There really is a strong sense of well-being that comes as … 
  9. True to the Practice
     … So what we’re doing right here as we focus on the breath is to bring the mind into the present moment to see how it crafts things. At first it seems like tying it down, so it’s going to struggle, because the mind is used to traveling around. So to make the task easier, we give the mind something pleasant to stay … 
  10. Dependent Co-arising in Fifteen Minutes
     … Under the factor of fabrication, you have the breath: What are we looking at right now? We’re looking at the breath. You have directed thought and evaluation: That’s verbal fabrication—how you talk to yourself. You focus on a topic and then you make comments on it. Right now, you should be focusing on the breath, commenting on the breath. If you … 
  11. Persistence
     … You’ve got to keep this point in mind because it’s so easy to forget that you’re sitting here meditating and focusing on the breath: You’re off someplace else. Or you get distracted by something in the breath itself. Things get nice, things get comfortable, and as Ajaan Fuang would say, your hands and feet let go and you just fall … 
  12. Working from the Inside
     … Or do new things with the breath. Think of the breath as coming in different parts of the body that you don’t normally think of it. If there’s a pain in a particular part of the body, you may want to see what the breath can do for the pain. If you know that one of your organs is malfunctioning, see if … 
  13. Lust
     … This can either be directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating the breath, or thinking about the defilement simply as an event in the mind, and analyzing it, noticing what stress it creates in which parts of the body, and how it clouds the mind. In other words, instead of looking at the object of your lust or the object of the anger … 
  14. Inner Voice Lessons
     … Sometimes that means introducing new voices — like the meditating voice that says, “Hey, stay with the breath, stay with the breath, make the breath comfortable, allow the breath to be comfortable. Give us some room here.” This is why the Buddha didn’t encourage his monks to take a vow of silence. There’s a story in the Vinaya of a group of monks … 
  15. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … No one can force you to breathe in an uncomfortable way, and yet we’re always letting ourselves squeeze the breath, force the breath, because we’re interested in other things. It’s as if we’re stepping on the breath to see something else, trying to climb over the breath to see what we can see other places. As a result, this basic … 
  16. Look after Your Baby
    Look after Your Baby October 1, 2016 All too often it happens that when you sit down to concentrate on the breath, you stay with the breath for a little bit and then you’re off someplace else. You come back, you stay with it a little bit longer, but then you’re off again. This happens so many times that you begin to … 
  17. Discernment in Concentration
     … Can you learn how to stay at that spot and release the tension at the same time, and yet maintain your focus? And how do you figure out what way of breathing is best? How do you adjust the breath? If you put too much pressure on the breath to adjust it, then no matter how much you adjust it, it’s not going … 
  18. Momentum Through Restraint
     … Then, to keep the mind from feeling starved, you give it something good to focus on, which is why we work with the breath, trying to make the breath comfortable, trying to make the breath energy interesting in the body, realizing that, if you have any chronic illnesses or chronic pains, you can use the breath energy to help alleviate those illnesses and pains … 
  19. Honesty
     … For example, right now you’re going to keep the breath in mind. Each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, you remind yourself: Stay with the breath. You don’t go wandering off. Then you’re alert, both to what the breath is doing, and to whether you’re staying with the breath or not. If you find yourself leaning into … 
  20. Opportunities Everywhere
     … You look at how he taught breath meditation over the years after that, and you’ll see that he would change his ways of describing the levels of breath in the body, the directions of the breath would flow, different ways of conceiving the breath. All this came from his willingness to use the breath to deal with whatever diseases he had. So when … 
  21. Experimental Intelligence
    Experimental Intelligence August 7, 2007 One of the most important principles in meditating on the breath is learning how to experiment with it. Try different kinds of breathing to see which rhythm, which texture of breathing feels best for the body right now, and which is also best for the mind. Some ways of breathing can put you to sleep, other ways of breathing … 
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