Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Emotion
     … When an emotion arises, you can breathe through the tension, breathe through the irregularity of the breath, smooth it out. Often you find that by smoothing out the breath, the emotion starts to have less and less power. Then you can work on the other elements of fabrication. There’s verbal fabrication, which is directed thought and evaluation: what you tend to focus on … 
  3. Stand Your Ground
     … We start with the skills dealing with the breath, the skills in developing mindfulness and concentration, trying to develop a spot in the breath energy in the body where the breath feels good going in, feels good going out. The quality of the breath energy in the body feels good—everything is flowing smoothly. As you get to know the energy in the body … 
  4. Practicing Your Scales
     … the directed thought and evaluation, keeping your mind with the breath and learning to watch it, to see which ways of breathing help keep you there with the breath, alert and mindful; which ways of breathing make your restless. You learn this through the evaluation, i.e., evaluating times when the mind gets restless and wanders off. Go back and say, “Okay, gotta try … 
  5. Your Hair Is on Fire
     … This is one of the reasons why we stay with the breath. It’s a good place to stay so that when the mind moves away from the breath, you can recognize that something’s wrong and that you need to do something about it. So there’s an element of discernment that goes into concentration practice. You may remember, when the Buddha taught … 
  6. Our Variegated Minds
     … These are the things we’re trying to train here as we concentrate on the breath. Take the breath as your object; That’s bodily fabrication. You direct your thoughts repeatedly to the breath and you evaluate the breathing, so that it becomes more comfortable. In other words, you bring knowledge and awareness in terms of the four noble truths to the process of … 
  7. Meaningful Freedom
     … And whether you stay with the breath depends on your continuing with that intention. It also depends on being mindful to remember the intention so that you don’t forget and just start wandering off thoughtlessly. And you have to be alert to what you’re doing. If the mind is with the breath, you try to be very sensitive to the breath. You … 
  8. Rhythms of the Mind
     … There are ways of focusing on the breath that are just really, really still. Nothing much happens. You’re really plowed into the breath, focused in on the breath. Then there’s a lighter stage of concentration where you’re still with the breath and the breath energy in the body, and things can come up. When things come up, it’s not just … 
  9. Skilled in Leaving Concentration
     … Get up, be in the body totally as we bow down, stay with the breath as we bow down, stay with the breath as we get up, and ideally go back to our place and meditate some more. Ajaan Fuang said that one of the secrets to his success as a meditator was that he didn’t stop meditating when the group stopped—and … 
  10. Sweat the Small Stuff
     … The same principle applies to the breath. You keep coming back to the breath, back to the breath, and you begin to see more things over time. The process may be gradual, so gradual that you hardly notice. The image in the Canon is of a carpenter using a hammer. He knows that as he holds the hammer and uses it every day to … 
  11. The Broken Gong
     … Is it at all necessary? Can you breathe in and out without adding that tension? Can you think of the breath energy penetrating parts of the body that have been pretty impervious or shut off from the breathing process? See what happens. When you do all this, the breath can become very satisfying, very gratifying, and it gives you a good place to stand … 
  12. Remember This
    Remember This January 16, 2014 One of the really useful qualities we’re developing as we stay with the breath is mindfulness. If you’re going to stay with the breath, you have to keep the breath in mind. As soon as you forget the breath, you’re off someplace else. This training in remembering plays a huge part in the practice—and it … 
  13. Questioning the Hindrances
     … Make a really detailed catalogue of all the little parts of the body and how the breath energy is working in each. Or you can experiment on parts of the body you haven’t focused on before: the breath in your knees, say, or the breath in the base of your spine; the breath at your elbows; the breath in between your fingers; the … 
  14. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … Remind it of why it’s a good thing to be here, a good thing to be with the breath, how you don’t have to be responsible for anything else right now. Take some joy in that fact. Give it pep talks when it’s discouraged, rein it in when it’s getting a little bit too carried away, so that finally it … 
  15. How to Be Alone
     … Mind states all have an effect on the breath, but the breath can also have an effect on them. If you’re not skillful, this could become a vicious circle. You start breathing in weird ways, and that puts you in a bad mood, and then the bad mood makes the breathing get even stranger, and you go spiraling down. Working with the techniques … 
  16. In Touch with Your Fabrications
     … You focus on the breath and you talk to yourself about the breath. That’s two fabrications right there. The Buddha gives you some ideas on how to fabricate, how to talk to yourself, how to breathe. Breathe, he says, in a way that’s conducive to pleasure. Breathe in a way that’s conducive to rapture, try to be aware of the whole … 
  17. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … So evaluation is not just a matter of analyzing the breath coming in and out, it also analyzes how you’re relating to the breath. How are you thinking about the breath? What’s pulling you away? Because sometimes in order to stay with the breath, you really do have to do some brush-clearing. If you see that there’s a particular concern … 
  18. Scramble the Image
     … You comb it out with the breath and with your powers of perception. You may begin to notice that there’s a word associated with that little knot or a little picture. And you can attack it either from the side of the breath or you can attack it from the side of being a picture or a word. Either way, scramble it. You … 
  19. You Can Make a Difference
     … The right way is to create a sense of comfort and then to realize that the comfort’s going to depend on maintaining the proper conditions, i.e., staying focused on the breath. You let the comfort do its work, but your main focus stays with the breath coming in, going out, and the breath energies running through the body. That’s how you … 
  20. Reflect
     … Sometimes you work on the breath—changing the way you breathe, changing the way you focus on the breath, changing the different ways of directing the breath energy through the different parts of the body. Other times, you work on the mind. If you find that the mind doesn’t want to settle down with the breath, okay, what’s the problem? Maybe you … 
  21. Unattractiveness
     … As with all the other guardian meditations, you use it to the point where you’re ready to get back to the breath. If you’re really inclined to be with the breath, it’s a good place to be and the practice of meditation is a good thing to do. But, this contemplation also warns you that you can’t take the breath … 
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