Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Separate
     … This is why we focus on our awareness in the present moment, directing it first to the breath, so that we can leave thoughts of past and future, and get all the mind gathered around one thing. Try to expand the breath—your sense of the breath—so that it fills the whole body and feels good throughout the whole body. They talk about … 
  3. The Six Properties
     … So how are you going to fabricate the body? If there are feelings of tension in the body, sometimes that’s a sign of too much earth property, so you can think of the breath. This is one of the reasons we start with the breath. It’s the property that’s most easily manipulated — classically it’s called the kaya-sankhara, the factor … 
  4. Unlearning Unskillful Behavior
     … If you know you have certain problems focusing on the breath, focusing on getting the breath to be comfortable, ask yourself, “In what ways am my conceiving this problem in a way that’s keeping me trapped?” I was talking recently to someone who was of the opinion that you had to get the breath energy really nice all the way throughout the body … 
  5. Correcting, Fostering, Cutting Away
     … For example, you focus on the breath, but the mind is not settling down with the breath. The question is, what can you correct? Is the problem with the mind, or is the problem with the breath? What attitudes are you carrying in from the day? What can you do to drop them? This is one of the reasons why we have the chanting … 
  6. Worth
     … This is why it’s so important that we learn how to master this technique of just staying here with the breath. Once you learn how to stay with the breath, then you can stay with whatever you know is important in your life and not let yourself get waylaid. So it’s important that we keep on making the effort to come back … 
  7. Testing Insights
     … In other words, a state may seem really comfortable for a while, but if you stick at it long enough, you may begin to see, “Ah, there is some discomfort here.” So as when you’re dealing with the breath, you have a certain way of conceiving the breath, it helps you settle down, and you can stay there for a while. But then … 
  8. Events as Events
     … In this case, it’s the breath. If you focus on the breath coming in and going out, it’s an instance of what they call the wind element, the energy that flows through the body. Address it on its own terms. Does it feel good? Does it not feel good? If it doesn’t feel good, you can change it. As the Buddha … 
  9. The Fires of Sensuality
     … Instead, it looks for pleasure right here with the breath. How can you relate to the sensation of the body in a way that allows that sensation to feel good? Some people have trouble focusing on the breath and getting the breath to move through the body, so if the concept breath energy in the body doesn’t help, what way of conceiving the … 
  10. Open Door Meditation
     … If it’s one of the spots that Ajaan Lee talks about, it’s an area where the breath energy there connects with the breath energy throughout the body. So if you keep watch over that one spot, you’ve pretty much got the breath energy problems in the body covered, at least in a very general way. Because the spots are sensitive, if … 
  11. Building Concentration
     … The first is simply the stage of establishing a frame of reference, as when we stay with the breath—that’s the body in the body—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. This means that any other topic that comes up in the mind, we’re not going to go there; we’re going to stay right with the breath … 
  12. The Observer
     … Are you not clear about the lengths of the breaths? Are you not clear about whether the breath is comfortable? Are you not spreading the comfortable breath sensations? Do you not have a resting place for the mind, for the breath in the body? Just go down the list, and if you find that any of the component factors are missing, try to make … 
  13. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … Learn how to develop the potentials you have here, because the breath does have a lot of potentials. You’ll find that the use of your perceptions will make a big difference: how you visualize the breath to yourself, how you pay attention to the different parts of the body, how you react to the parts of the body where there are patterns of … 
  14. In the Mood to Meditate
     … After you’ve thought about these themes for a while and you finally get to a point when you really do feel inclined to be with the breath and to stick with the breath regardless, then you can put those recollections aside and settle down here with the breath with a sense of well-being.
  15. sBeyond Acceptance
     … There are the perceptions that you use to think of the breath flowing through the body. If your perception of the breath doesn’t allow it to flow, you can change it. We’re not talking about the air coming in and out of the lungs when we say “breath,” by the way. We’re talking about the energy flow. So, what would feel … 
  16. Shelter Through Restraint
     … You don’t leave the breath, but you’re looking in two directions: at the breath and also at the tendency for anything else to come up and disturb it. Because what you’ll find as you catch your thoughts more and more quickly, is that they begin with a little knot of tension in the breath, at a point where it’s hard … 
  17. Luminous
     … The Buddha says that as you breathe in and breathe out, there’s the potential for pleasure in the breath. There’s the potential for rapture or refreshment in the breath. How do you find those? Well, you experiment. Just keep in mind the fact that these things are possible, and that it’s okay to experiment. If the meditation were all laid out … 
  18. The Missing Fabrication
     … The question may arise, “Why does the Buddha talk in terms of fabrication?” Especially with the in-and-out breath, why doesn’t he just say calming the in-and-out breath? The answer seems to be that he wants to call attention to the role that your intentions play in shaping the breath, shaping your sense of the body, and in shaping your … 
  19. The Karma of Ideas
     … In this case, what picture do you have of the breathing process? When the breath comes in, what’s coming in? How does it come in? What’s making it come in? Have you stop to examine it? One way to examine it is to give yourself a new perception, consciously, intentionally. Think of the body as a big sponge. It’s got holes … 
  20. The Dhamma Mirror
     … After all, you’re focused on the breath. What is that? Form. Feelings—you’re trying to give rise to a feeling of ease, pleasure, refreshment. Perception—what’s the image you have of the breath as it flows in the body? What image would be best, most conducive, to a sense of ease and well-being? Thought fabrications—your intention to stay here … 
  21. The Perception of Inconstancy
     … Which are the skillful potentials? Which are the unskillful ones? Like right now, as you’re meditating, there’s a potential in the breath for there to be a sense of ease, a sense of fullness. It’s there someplace in the body. You have to know how to provoke it, to bring it out. The question is, how do you relate to the … 
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