Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 95
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. Alertness: What Are You Doing?
     … You use those mental activities to shape the breath, to shape your experience of the breath. If you shape it well, then there’s going to be a sense of ease and well-being, a sense of rapture. The mind can settle down. You’re doing something good here. Now there are cases where you simply drop your affairs of the day and the … 
  8. Learning from Determination
     … You see that your sense of the body really does dissolve away when the breath stops. It stops not because you force it to stop. It’s simply that the breath energy feels so full in the body. You’ve learned how to breathe in and breathe out without squeezing the breath out, without squeezing it between the in-breath and the out-breath … 
  9. The Questions of Suffering
     … You learn how to perceive the breath continually. You direct your thoughts to the breath. You evaluate the breath—that’s fabrication—so that you can create a feeling of well-being. The breath feels smooth, silken, diffuse throughout the body, energizing the body, nourishing the body. The sense of the body from within changes because you’ve changed your intention. You’ve developed … 
  10. Skillful Attachments
     … Explore how the breathing feels in the back, how it feels in your legs, because it does relate to every part of your nervous system. The breath is what keeps the nerves going, keeps them sensitive, and there are many levels and layers of breath in the body. There’s the in-and-out breath. There’s a sense of energy that flows up … 
  11. Hobo Mind
     … This is one of the advantages of having the breath as a meditation topic, because it’s not a thought. It’s a physical sensation. Whatever trains of thought come roaring through our heads, we don’t have to go with them. Hold on to the sensations of simply the body sitting here right now, breathing in and breathing out. You can focus your … 
  12. The Five Hindrances
     … In case you slip off the breath, we’re right here to say, “No, you missed the turnoff. You missed that little turn in the breath. Let’s go back.” Try to make sure that the talk is not a hindrance to your meditation, because the mind has enough hindrances on its own. The traditional list is five. Those are five large categories. As … 
  13. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … So we begin by focusing on the breath, and learning to manipulate the breath. One of the main misunderstandings about breath meditation is that, whereas, in yoga they manipulate the breath, in the Buddhist way of doing things you don’t manipulate the breath. Where that idea came from, I have no idea, because the Buddha’s instructions tell you to breathe in certain … 
  14. The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites
     … You’re taking the breath—your sense of the body as you feel it from within—and as you start out, you notice that it’s inconstant and stressful. As you try to get the mind to settle with the breath, there are a lot of things going on that you don’t control. But you’re going to try to work with the … 
  15. A Meditator is a Good Friend to Have
     … Have the sense that the breath is sweeping through your whole body, from the top of the head down to the tips of your toes. Try to notice where there are any patterns of tension in the body. Allow them to relax and let the breath sweep right through them. Then allow the breath to find a rhythm that feels really comfortable. You can … 
  16. To Delight in the Path
     … So you give the mind something good to focus on, like the breath. You can work with the breath. You can do all kinds of things with the breath. Think of the breath coming in the base of the spine, going up the spine, coming in the soles of the feet, coming in the palms of the hands, coming in through the eyes and … 
  17. Happiness is a Skill
     … the form of the body in the breath; the feeling of pleasure that comes when the breath feels good; the perception—the mental image of the breath being the energy going throughout the body—that holds the breath in mind; fabrication, the conversation you hold with yourself about the breath as you’re evaluating it; and then consciousness, which is aware of all these … 
  18. Recognizing Fools
     … Anything that’s not related to the breath, that’s not related to getting the mind settled down with the breath or whatever your topic is, is— for the time being —the voice of a fool. But the concentration on its own is not enough to guarantee wisdom. There are what they call vipassanupakilesas, the corruptions of insight: either visions you might have or … 
  19. In Harmlessness Is Strength
     … Now, it’s important that you have the right attitude toward it, as you’re focused on the breath. In other words, you should stay focused on the breath and not on the pleasure. You focus on the breath in a way that gives rise to that sense of pleasure, but then you let the pleasure do its work, you don’t have to … 
  20. Disposable Worlds
    Settle in with the breath. Learn to relate to the breath in such a way that you feel at ease. Sometimes this means simply allowing the breath to come in and out as it has been, noticing where it’s already comfortable and then protecting those little comfortable spots. Other times it means actively making the spots more comfortable. We try to do it … 
  21. Developing Discernment
     … There’s the sound of the crickets starting and stopping, there’s the arising of the breath, passing away of the breath, the arising of a feeling, the passing away of a feeling. But the purpose of seeing these things arise and pass away is to see what we’re doing as they arise and pass away, so that we can learn to act … 
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