Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Doubting the Buddha
     … As when you focus on the breath: Try to be very sensitive to how the breathing feels, figuring out which way of breathing feels right coming in, feels right going out, and then try to maintain that. It’s the maintaining that’s going to let this very ordinary-feeling breath become more and more refreshing. Try to breathe in a way that doesn … 
  3. Relationships
     … Be with the breath. The breath is already happening. There’s nothing much you have to do. You don’t have to breathe the body. The body will breathe on its own. All you have to do is tend it, nudge it a little bit in the right direction, so that the breath feels good coming in, feels good going out. You’re not … 
  4. Free Not to Suffer
    You’re free to spend the rest of the hour focusing on the breath, focusing on your mind, bringing the two together. Why would you want to do that? The Buddha explains an awful lot about why. Sometimes I’ve encountered people who just want to do the technique. They don’t want to hear the theory behind it, but the question is: What … 
  5. Questioning Everything
     … As you’re focusing on the breath, the only thoughts that are really relevant are the ones that help you stay focused on the breath, the thoughts that ask questions about: How is this breath? What’s going on with that breath? How’s the mind right now? Is it staying with the breath? What do I need to do in order to help … 
  6. Appropriate Attention Plus Admirable Friendship
    Bring your attention to the breath, and try to keep it here. Follow the breath in the same way that you’d follow a road: Just keep going, step, by step, by step, not wandering off to the forests and the fields on the left or the right, but staying right on the road. Because this is a road that goes someplace. Remember, this … 
  7. Getting Back on Your Feet
     … If he was with the breath, he would just go back to the breath. If you feel discouraged by the fact that you’ve got a relearn those old things, look at it as an opportunity to get a more solid foundation this time around. Maybe there were some things in your old foundation that weren’t good. It’s like the advantage of … 
  8. How We Cling
     … As you’re focusing here on the breath, the breath is form. You’re trying to create a feeling of pleasure. You do that by holding certain perceptions in mind about how the breath moves through the body, together with thought constructs or fabrications: how you talk to yourself, directed thought and evaluation—directing your thoughts to the breath, evaluating how the breath is … 
  9. Protect Your Energy
     … Then notice how the breath comes in, goes out, where you feel the breathing process, and to what extent it’s comfortable. If it’s not comfortable, you can change. You do have some control over the breath processes. This is why the Buddha calls it “bodily fabrication,” because it’s something you can shape and it has an impact on how you’re … 
  10. Being Your Own Teacher
     … While you’re here with the breath, how observant are you of how the breath is going, or how the mind begins to wander off away from the breath? Can you catch it before it goes? Can you learn how to read the signs? Do you have any techniques for bringing it right back? That’s a really useful exercise. Another useful exercise is … 
  11. Question Your Actions
     … What are you doing? Right now you’re trying to focus on the breath, trying to maintain the mind with the breath, trying to breathe in a way that feels good. And you’re talking to yourself about this: “How’s this breath? How’s the next breath? Where does it feel good in the body? Where does the breath feel clear in the … 
  12. The Joy of Curiosity
     … Here you can bring in the breath. Breathe in a way that dissolves whatever tension there may be in the body that’s related to that incident or related to that mood. Try to get as interested as you can in the breath. Try to figure it out. When you breathe in, where does the breath energy feel like it’s coming in? Does … 
  13. Ready for the Truth
     … focusing on the breath, trying to make the breath comfortable, putting the mind at ease with the breath, and seeing that this really is a good place to be. Then, the Buddha said, you would be ready for the four noble truths. So you can see what he’s doing: On the one hand, in many places the prerequisite for getting the mind to … 
  14. Choices
     … On the one hand, you keep track of something here in the present moment, like the breath. And you work with the breath. You don’t just watch whatever’s going to happen. You try to breathe in a comfortable way. You experiment with breathing in different ways. Find what feels comfortable. Try to be aware of the whole body. And then soothe the … 
  15. A Stranger to Your Thoughts
     … And you find that the breath is an ideal place to do this walking. Because you can use the breath as an object to settle down and be still with, and you can also use it as a grounding for your analysis. When a thought comes up, notice how it affects the breath. Or when you breathe in a certain way, notice what that … 
  16. The Truth of Perceptions
     … You’ve worked with the breath as it gets more and more refined, more and more subtle, to the point where the breath energy fills the body. All the breath channels in the body are connected, and the breath can grow still. Then he would have you think about fire, the warmth in the body. Where do you feel the warmth in the body … 
  17. A Positive-Sum Game
     … So just keep coming back to the breath. See how long you can maintain this intention. And make the breath comfortable. There’s no need to sit here with an uncomfortable breath. No one’s forcing you to breathe in an uncomfortable way, so explore to see what kind of breathing feels good. It might be longer or shorter, deeper, more shallow, heavier or … 
  18. Mindfulness over Time
     … You stay with the breath, stay with the breath, and then you ask yourself: Are you really staying with the breath? What’s going on? This ability to know things over time, to keep something in mind, to send a message to the future and then to watch over the mind as it’s doing that helps in all levels of the practice—as … 
  19. Mistakes
    Focus your attention on the breath and look after it: both the breath and your attention. Looking after the breath means noticing where you feel it, how it feels when it comes in, how it feels when it goes out, and checking to see if you can figure out what kind of breathing feels good, what kind of breathing is best for the body … 
  20. Taking Apart Suffering
     … In that case, use the breath to whatever extent you can to work through that pain, focusing on whichever parts of the body you can make comfortable through the rhythm of the breathing. Whether the breath is fast or slow, heavy or light, deep or shallow, you learn to adjust it so that it can help alleviate whatever pain there is in that part … 
  21. A Doctor’s Strategies
     … For instance, with the breath: You want the mind to stay with the breath so that it can settle down. You’re not here to get the breath. You’re here to get the mind. So you want the breath to be comfortable. Now, some people say that when you’re making the breath comfortable, you’re giving in to your defilements, your desires … 
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