Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 88
  2. Beyond Imagination
     … As you breathe in, think of the breath energy going into that line and then coming out of that line. See what that does. ** You can imagine the breath coming in and out of the bones. You can imagine the breath coming up from the seat on which you’re sitting right now. As you breathe in, it comes up and spreads up the … 
  3. From Dependence to Independence
     … Are you going to stay with the breath? Develop your concentration? Develop your mindfulness? Or are you going to flow off someplace else? If you keep coming back to the breath, given the complexity of the mind, it might be a while before it can see the benefits that the Buddha talks about. But when they do come, they’re really rewarding. And there … 
  4. You’re Doing Something Wrong
     … So use the evaluation to read the state of your mind, and of course to read the breath. In fact, you’re reading all three kinds of fabrication. This is where the concentration practice begins to shade into insight practice. You’re looking at the breath, which is bodily fabrication. The directed thought and evaluation itself are verbal fabrication, and then your perceptions and … 
  5. Dhammacentric
     … So when he has us focus on the breath in and of itself, he’s trying to take us out of the center and put the breath in the center: just the body in and of itself—not in terms of whether we like our body or don’t like our body, or the history of our body—but just what we’ve got … 
  6. Gratification
     … Try to get more and more sensitive to the breath, so that you can really get absorbed. When you get absorbed in the breath, there can be a sense of sense of ease that you’ve got a place to settle down. The breath itself becomes more and more pleasant. This gives you strength. It helps to lubricate the practice. That’s the next … 
  7. Pleasure & Pain
     … We give rise to an inner sense of pleasure as we work with the breath. This is why we emphasize this point so much over and over again: You’ve got to get the breath so that it’s comfortable. Notice what way of breathing can maintain comfortable sensations in the body and then learn how to maintain those sensations without getting drowsy or … 
  8. Oppressed by Old Kamma
     … You’re sitting here determined to stay with the breath, and something else comes into the mind—completely unintended. Well, that’s coming from your past kamma. So when you consider the source, you realize it’s not necessarily something you have to believe. The problem is that certain thoughts keep coming in again and again and again. And as advertisers and propagandists have … 
  9. The Evening News
     … For instance, in the first tetrad, you want to get sensitive to the breath. Notice when it’s long; notice when it’s short. That, apparently, is a shorthand for all the other things the breath can be: fast or slow, heavy or light, broad or narrow, comfortable or uncomfortable. Then the Buddha has you be aware of the whole body breathing in, the … 
  10. Appropriate Attention, Appropriate Intention
     … focusing on the breath, trying to give rise to a state of right concentration—and, once it’s there, trying to maintain it so that it develops. So we’re applying appropriate attention and trying to develop appropriate intentions around this, too. These two qualities have to go together. The fact that we’re focusing on the problem of suffering is because we want … 
  11. Noble Treasures
     … working with the breath energies in the body. When you read the instructions he gives of how to work with the breath energies, you notice that it’s very clearly based on what a person who is suffering heart problems will need. You start with the breath coming in through the back of the neck, going down through the spine, because the back of … 
  12. Your Sketches vs. the Buddha’s
     … Is this a good time to be taking long breathing, or short breathing? Or in long, out short; in short, out long? And how long, how short? Sometimes you might want to forget about the breath in the different parts of the body. Just focus on the length of the breathing, the rhythm of the breathing. See if it can get you out of … 
  13. What Should & Shouldn’t Be Done
    Focus on your breath and think of the breathing as a whole-body process. Let your conscious awareness spread out and fill the body. And then from the enlarged perspective, ask yourself, “What kind of breathing would feel good?” If there are parts of the body that are tight and tense, that are not participating in the breath, allow them to relax. And anything … 
  14. Basic Wisdom
     … The Buddha gets you sensitive to the breathing and then sensitive to the effect that the breathing has in the body. He gets you sensitive to feelings of pleasure, the energy of rapture, and the perceptions that go around rapture. Sometimes rapture can be perceived as something really pleasant and positive, and sometimes the same sensation can freak people out. You’ll notice the … 
  15. In the Driver’s Seat
     … What you’re doing right now is going to have an effect right now, so the way you’re focusing on the breath, for instance, will have an impact on how you experience the breath. Where you focus, how strong your focus is, what kind of image you have in the mind of how the breath is going to go—that will have an … 
  16. The Middle Way
     … You’re going to keep the breath in mind. As for alertness, you watch what you’re doing. In other words, you watch how the breathing is going—noticing when it’s coming in, when it’s going out, when it’s comfortable, when it’s not—and, at the same time, you notice how the mind is reacting. Keep watch over it so … 
  17. Precarious Knowledge
     … While you’re cooking, while you’re packing persimmons, while you’re driving around, whatever, you’ve got your opportunity to develop as much mindfulness and concentration focused on the breath as you can, to make the breath as comfortable as possible, to explore how breath energy works in the body. These are things you can learn, these are things you can observe while … 
  18. Stick with It
     … Then I realized, “The fact that I have to stop and think means that there was no one thing that was obvious.” There were difficulties, but just the idea of learning about the breath, learning about the breath energy in the body, trying to master this skill, had captured my imagination. I kept finding new things going on, new things that I was learning … 
  19. Reflect on What You’re Doing
     … One, you focus on an object in and of itself, like the body in and of itself or the breath in and of itself. And two, you put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, you focus exclusively on the breath, as it is right now, without reference to anything outside at all. Just what have you got here … 
  20. A Friend to the World, A Friend to Yourself
     … directing your thoughts to the breath, working with the breath, evaluating the breath in a way that makes it really good, something you really like to breathe. It feels good; it feels nourishing. There you’ve got bodily fabrication and verbal fabrication. As you hold images of the breath in mind that help the comfort of the breath to spread around through the body … 
  21. Skillful Thinking
     … Here you direct your thoughts to the breath, the sensation of breathing in the body. Try to broaden your concept of the breathing, so that it’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs, but it’s the whole energy flow in the body. It’s part of what’s called the wind element, which includes the in-and-out … 
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