Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 93
  2. Caring Enough to Doubt
     … But here you’ve got the breath. You’ve got the body sitting here, being energized by the breath. Can you use that energy to create a sense of pleasure right now? What would feel really good right now? Now, this may take work, and it may require energy as well. But you begin to realize that the pleasure that comes from focusing well … 
  3. Pulling Out of the Narratives
     … Get back to the breath.” You’ll find that the breath at the middle of the day is not that much different from the breath at any other time of the day. You may feel sweaty, you may feel the heat, but you don’t have to focus on those things. Get really focused on the breath. It’s like that music school I … 
  4. An Examined Life
     … But if you can have at least part of your awareness with the breath, that gives you an outside standpoint. That’s your tower for watching these thoughts. Even if you can’t keep all of your awareness or all your attention on the breath, at least have some of it with the breath. That helps keep you anchored in the present moment. And … 
  5. The Goldsmith
     … You can control the mind by making the breath as comfortable as you can and think of the breath suffusing throughout the body. But at the same time, you have to be strict with it. If it’s going to wander off, you bring it right back. Try to bring it back as quickly as you can, because otherwise it gets used to wandering … 
  6. Getting Connected Inside
     … And as the needs of the body are better nourished, better met, then the breath can become more gentle. And you don’t even have to think about making it more gentle. It just becomes gentler on its own. You may have read that the breath stops when you get to the fourth jhana, but you don’t try to stop it. Just keep … 
  7. Sit with It
     … You’ll realize that there are times when you have to change the breathing and other times when you have to change the posture or change the place you’re focused. Sometimes you have to drop the breath and do some contemplations: contemplating goodwill, contemplating death. Some people might say, “Why contemplate death?” Well, it reminds you that you don’t have much time … 
  8. Effortlessness Through Effort
     … What does it need, in terms of the breath? Get used to looking at the particulars as you focus on the breath. And then you’ll start getting used to looking at the particulars of the thoughts that pull you away. This will take a while, which is why we practice. We have to spend so much time because the mind is very complex … 
  9. The Spider on the Web
     … Your awareness, the breath, a sense of well-being, all fill the body. Then you stay there, alert. If anything comes—any slight disturbance in the breath energy—you want to zap it. You’ll notice that there are lapses in your awareness, lapses in your alertness when those little stirrings actually do become thoughts. Well, however far the thought has gone, drop it … 
  10. The Strength to See
     … But when you can learn to focus on the breath, make the breath comfortable, give the mind a good place to stay that you can create at will, as you get more and more sensitive to the different levels of breathing, the in-and-out breath, the breath that flows throughout the body, the still breath: This gives you a good foundation for looking … 
  11. Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge
     … You’ve got the feeling of pleasure that comes from staying with the breath. There are perceptions that hold you with the breath and allow the breath energy to get more evenly spread throughout the body with a sense of well-being. There are fabrications—directed thought and evaluation—and there’s consciousness. You’ve got all the aggregates right here. But you’re … 
  12. Dhamma Medicine
     … for example, the breath in and of itself. In other words, you don’t think about it in relationship to anything else, just the fact that you’ve got the sensation of breathing right now. Ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. You’ve got two activities there. One is the focus, and then the other is the … 
  13. Cross-questioning
     … I had one student one time who said he came to practice with the idea that he’d have to get his breath totally still before he could spread the breath sensations through his body. He had a picture in his mind about how the practice was supposed to go, even though I had told him many, many times, that as soon as the … 
  14. Samvega First
    It’s a common pattern that when you clear out some time to meditate, sit down, make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath, there’s a part of the mind that sees this time as an opportunity to think about all kinds of other things. So you’ve got to nip that tendency in the bud. That’s one … 
  15. Stillness & Clear Seeing
     … That’s why we practice concentration, focusing on the breath. Take some good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. And if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t feel good, you can change. Find a level of breathing—fast, slow, heavy, light, deep, shallow—that’s just right. The breath is the most responsive of all the elements in the … 
  16. Where the Brightness Is
     … When you can get the mind to stay with the breath, you’ll be finding that throughout the hour there will be distracting thoughts, saying that you’ve got to think about this, you’ve got to think about that. You have the choice either to go with those thoughts or to stay with the breath. These old thoughts are simply your old ways … 
  17. Three Parts of Right View
     … As we’re staying with the breath, we’re fostering mindfulness and alertness. As we look at the process of fabrication in the breathing, and the perceptions that go around the breath, that’s the beginning of discernment. We’re showing compassion for ourselves and for others. We’re looking for true happiness, and we’re doing it in a way that doesn’t … 
  18. One Step at a Time
     … So learn to watch for any tightness or tension that may appear in the breath. Watch out for the tendency to lose focus in between the breaths. See what you can do to counteract those tendencies. Ask yourself how you recognize the point where the out-breath turns into an in-breath. In some cases it’s very subtle. And we have a tendency … 
  19. How to Talk to Yourself
    Focus your attention on the breath. Take a couple of good long, deep in-and-out breaths. And notice where you feel the sensation of breathing in the body. Focus your attention there. And then ask yourself if it’s comfortable. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Make it shorter, deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower … 
  20. Arising & Passing Away
     … The most standard one is to focus on the breath, to watch the breath to gain a sense of when it’s long, when it’s short, and how it feels when it’s long, when it’s short so that you can adjust it to be comfortable. From there you can go to deep or shallow, heavy or light. There are lots of … 
  21. Raise Your Standards
     … We’re making a choice to stay with the breath, to make the breath comfortable. We’re doing that so that the mind can have a good place to settle down and see its actions more clearly—in particular, to see where we’re creating unnecessary stress and suffering so that we can put a stop to it. One of the ways of doing … 
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