Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. An Equanimity You Can Feed On
     … For instance, while we’re working with the breath, in the beginning you want to get the breath so that it’s pleasurable, with a sense of real refreshment that comes with staying with the breath. Otherwise, if you try to develop equanimity right away, the equanimity gets very dry and it’s hungry. When the mind is hungry, it’ll stay with equanimity … 
  3. Karma & Not-self
     … When you focus on the breath, what happens? When you have a particular idea about the breath, what happens? When you change that idea about the breath, what happens? When you have a sense of the observer inside the body, what happens if you move it around? Instead of being in the back of your head looking out your eyes, suppose you’re down … 
  4. The Five Aggregates
     … Use the breath to create feelings of ease, feelings of comfort. Think about the breath, picture it to yourself: That’s sañña, or perception. Direct your thoughts and your evaluation to the breath: Directed thought and evaluation are *sankharas, *fabrications. And be conscious of what you’re doing. In other words, you take these five khandhas, these five aggregates that you’ve got sitting … 
  5. Meditation as a Skill
     … Focus them on the steps of mastering this practice, like working with the breath. The Buddha lays it out in steps. Be aware of short breathing, he says, be aware of long breathing. Train yourself to be aware of the whole body as you breathe in and out. Allow the breath to grow calm. Be aware of any sensations of pleasure or rapture or … 
  6. Sensual Passion
     … You can breathe easily and have pleasure right there in the breathing. Try to breathe into all the little muscles that do a lot of work: say, the muscles of your hands, the muscles around your eyes, the muscles right at the breastbone. Let them do the breathing and let them get nourished by the breathing, with a sense of fullness as you breathe … 
  7. The Swinging Balance
     … If you look inside at the very beginning, you look at your mind, and your mind is a mess; you try to focus on the breath, and the breath and the body seem to be a mess. You don’t know where to go. This is where you have to take it on the Buddha’s word, and the word of all the people … 
  8. Breath Energies
     … You also notice that the more subtle your attention, the more subtle your awareness, the more the sense of well-being that comes from the breath and the pleasure that comes from the breath seeping into areas that used to be hardened inside. The fact that we’ve ignored this part of our awareness for so long allows us to treat it pretty poorly … 
  9. Working with Fabrication
     … So what we’re doing as we’re working with the breath here is working with all the different forms of fabrication. The breath itself is the bodily fabrication; you can adjust that any way you want. Then as you do the adjusting, you’re engaged in directed thought and evaluation, asking yourself if the breath is comfortable. If it’s not, what can … 
  10. Conviction & Persistence
     … But we focus on the breath. It’s by focusing the mind on the breath and keeping it there that we’re developing some really good qualities in the mind: qualities of persistence, ardency, mindfulness, alertness. It’s by staying consistently with the breath in all the ups and downs of our lives that we learn some important things about the mind at the … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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