Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Control
     … A simple place to watch this is with the breath: the way you tense up around the breath, your idea of what you have to do in order to make the breath come in. Actually you don’t have to do anything at all. The breath is going to come in and out on its own. If you had to do the breathing all … 
  3. Generating Good Energy
     … And you can learn these qualities in learning to relate to the breath. We’re here to become friends with the breath. You want to be an admirable friend to your breath, not one of those false friends described in the passage we chant every now and then. You want to look after the breath well. The breath needs care. If you don’t … 
  4. Breath Energies
     … But also, the breath is the medium through which you can make the body move and through which you’re sensitive to pleasure and pain in the body. So you’re already there with it. If you have any sense of your body at all, it’s because of the breath. A lot of the ability to adjust the breath has to do with … 
  5. Distractive Thoughts
     … In other words, you’ve been with the breath, suddenly you realized you’re off the breath, so first thing, come right back to the breath. This is the first approach. When you come back—this is not written in the texts—you might ask yourself, “Why did I slip off the breath to begin with?” One common reason is that the breath isn … 
  6. Look in the Mirror
    Ajaan Lee talks about using the breath as a mirror for the mind. As you focus on the breath, you’ll notice that if you’re putting too much pressure on the breath, the breath feels uncomfortable. You want to give the breath as much freedom as possible to flow throughout the body—and that requires a light touch. Even though he talks about … 
  7. Decisions
     … Be aware of the breath coming in, aware of the breath going out. Be aware of when the mind is with the breath and when it’s wandering away. If it wanders away, bring it back. If it wanders away again, bring it back again. And be aware of the quality of the breathing. If the breathing is uncomfortable, you can make it more … 
  8. An Inner Revolution
     … So as you’re with the breath, you’ve got the comfortable feeling that comes with the breath, you’ve got the perceptions that holds you with the breath, you’re talking to yourself about how the breath is going and you’re adjusting it—trying to make the most of the sense of pleasure, getting the right balance so that your focus keeps … 
  9. Choiceful Awareness
     … How do you breathe and how do you hold a perception of the breath in mind that allows things to work together, so that when the breath energy comes in, the whole body feels like it’s being nourished, with no sense of conflict? As you stay with the breath, you begin to notice that the breath energy in some parts of the body … 
  10. The Message of Mindfulness
     … When you’re able to stay well with the breath, the breath feels good. There’s a sense that the mind begins to dissolve into the breath. The mind and the breath become one. Your awareness fills the body. The breath fills the body. At that point, you can drop the verbal fabrication. But this doesn’t mean you drop mindfulness. At that stage … 
  11. No Resistance
    Sometimes it seems that when you try to focus on the breath, the distracting sounds around you, other distracting things around you, impinge even more on the mind. But that’s simply because when you’re with the breath, there are not a lot of complications. When you’re thinking a complex thought, you have to block things out. The mind is very good … 
  12. Pleasure on the Path
     … This principle applies to the pleasure that begins to develop in the body as you work with the breath. You stay with the breath. You don’t leave the breath to go to the pleasure. As the pleasure gets more intense, you want to make sure that your awareness fills the whole body and that you take that as your frame of reference. This … 
  13. The Four Jhanas
    The Four Jhanas January 30, 2009 As you sit here with your eyes closed, where do you feel the breathing? You may feel it in lots of places in the body, because the breath isn’t just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s an energy flow. It’s part of the breath element that fills the entire body. Your … 
  14. There’s Work to Be Done
     … You have to evaluate the breath, while you keep your thoughts focused here on the breath. So there’s work to be done. The Buddha recommends three qualities that you bring to the breath. One is that you’re mindful. You keep remembering to stay with the breath each time it comes in, each time it goes out. Each time a thought presents itself … 
  15. Farming Your Body & Mind
    We focus on the breath so that we can observe the mind. But begin by giving your full attention to the breath. Try to make the breath something you find interesting. Be sensitive to how it feels as you breathe in, as you breathe out. Where in the body do you feel the sensations around breathing? And not just the air coming in and … 
  16. Indulge in the Pleasure of Jhana
    Focusing on the breath; evaluating the breath so that you get on good terms with it: Ajaan Lee calls this concentration work. And there is work involved. You have to figure out how to get your mind to stay with the breath, exactly what to do with the breath. How do you adjust the breath in a way that’s comfortable, that allows it … 
  17. Calm & Insight
     … Look at the way you talk to yourself about the breath. Or if you’re talking about something else, how you can stop talking about something else and come back and talk about the breath? What perceptions are you holding in mind? Like the image of the breath as a whole body process or using the word ‘bathing in the breath’, ‘wearing the breath … 
  18. A Load Off the Mind
     … Then come back to the breath and notice: How is the breath while you’re focusing on goodwill? How is the breath when you’re focusing on compassion or on recollection of the Buddha? As soon as you tell yourself to stay with the breath, what happens? What did you change? That’s one way of catching yourself adding unnecessary stress and suffering. It … 
  19. Befriending the Breath
    We have a whole hour here to make friends with the breath, which requires two things: one, that you be observant; and two, that you spend a lot of time with it. Otherwise, you don’t really get to know it. So you try to make a firm intention that you’re going to stay right here and be consistently with the breath. And … 
  20. A Private Matter
     … So try to spend the whole hour staying with the breath, no matter what. Be really sensitive to how the breath feels, and to what you’re doing to the breath. The breath is a fabrication, which means that there’s an intentional element in the way you breathe. You want to be very sensitive to that, to what you’re adding to the … 
  21. Sensitive to the Breath
    Sensitive to the Breath December 25, 2011 When you work with the breath, it’s good to not have too many preconceived notions about what a good breath is going to be, or the general direction that you’re breathing should go. I was reading a letter recently from someone who’d picked up the idea someplace that, as the mind settles down, your … 
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