Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Taking Stock
     … Put everything else aside and just be with the breath. That’s it: awareness and breath. As for the thoughts that may be buzzing around in the mind, just let them buzz away. You don’t have to chase them down; you don’t have to do anything to them. Just don’t get involved with them, that’s all. After someone has died … 
  3. Pushing the Three Characteristics
     … And the way of testing the principle of not-self is to see how much control you can exert over the breath and the mind. The Buddha often brings up the issue of control as a central part of your sense of self. If something is really yours, you have control over it. He never said that the five aggregates are totally stressful, totally … 
  4. Fear of Death
     … This is one of the reasons why we work on adjusting the breath, taking the sense of well-being that comes from the breathing and spreading it around the body, so that we can have an alternative pleasure. This pleasure that we have in the meditation is called the pleasure of form. It’s not a sensual pleasure; it’s the pleasure of being … 
  5. Bases for Success
     … So as you’re practicing, you want to do your best to overcome any dislike, any disinclination you might have to get the mind to settle with the breath, to settle with the meditation word, whatever the object is that you’re focused on. If the mind is not settling down, stop and ask yourself: What is it that you don’t like about … 
  6. Dealing with Confusion
     … the energy of the breathing and whatever other energy there may be there. Think of everything being coordinated, everything getting along. Each breath as it comes in mingles harmoniously with the breath energy already there. You can focus your attention on any one spot in the body that seems convenient or you can focus on the body as a whole right from the start … 
  7. Be Prepared
     … And how do you prepare for them now? Getting to know your breath really well, getting to know your sense of the body, the breath energies in the body, and what Ajaan Lee calls the resting spots of the breath. In developing and using that knowledge, you can be prepared.
  8. Rivers of Craving
    What are you doing right now? If you’ve made up your mind to meditate, try to stay with the breath, all the way in, all the way out. Sometimes you find that other thoughts come up. In fact, it’s rare that other thoughts don’t come up. One of the skills you want to learn is how not to go with those … 
  9. A Refuge in Quiescence
     … You focus on say, the breath in and of itself. You watch your mind as it’s close to the breath. And whatever lessons you learn about what’s skillful and unskillful, and how to encourage skillful qualities and discourage unskillful ones, you file them away right here. That way, whenever you focus on the breath, you’re right next to where the file … 
  10. Working with Nature
     … If your mind is with the breath, you know. If it’s not with the breath, you know. You bring it back. And you bring it back again. And bring it back again. You find over time that it gets more and more inclined to come if you do it right—in other words, if you don’t berate it for going off. Just … 
  11. New Feeding Habits
     … You get a good place to stay, like with the breath. You breathe in a way that feels really good. Again, you’re free to do this. All of the Buddha’s teachings are based on the principle that you have choices available to you in the present moment. Take advantage of them. So, given that nobody’s forcing you to breathe in an … 
  12. May You Forever Be Well
     … Work with the breath, trying to breathe in a way that feels good all the way down through the body, giving rise to a sense of ease, a sense of fullness, and then allowing that sense of ease and fullness to grow quiet and calm. You can even get the mind to the point where it’s so still that the breath grows quiet … 
  13. The Four Biases
     … So this exercise we’re doing here, focusing on the breath, getting the breath to be comfortable, letting that comfortable breath sensation spread throughout the body, bringing all the different strands of the breath energy in the body into alignment: It’s a gift not only to ourselves, but also to the people around us. It’s our protection. They talk about taking refuge … 
  14. The Arrow in the Heart
     … the breath coming in, the breath going out. Even though there’s still clinging and craving in the process of staying with the breath, it’s the kind of clinging and craving that will lead you out. As we create a sense of concentration, a sense of being settled and established here, it’s called a state of becoming. As that word becoming indicates … 
  15. The Food of Feelings
     … Someplace in the body there has to be a pleasant feeling that can be associated with the breath. It may not seem like much to begin with, but find something that at lease feels fairly pleasant, or relatively pleasant, compared to the rest of the body, and then focus there. Focus in such way that you don’t destroy the feeling but instead you … 
  16. Two Kinds of Cross-Questioning
     … We focus on the breath, learn to be sensitive to when it’s long, when it’s short, and how it feels when it’s long and it’s short, to see which feels better. Then you can try working with deep and shallow, heavy or light, focusing the breath energy in different parts of the body. There’s lots to play with here … 
  17. Worry vs. Heedfulness
     … Heedfulness November 16, 2019 Bring your attention to the breath. Try to breathe in a way that feels good. And try to stay with the breath all the way in, all the way out, each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out. What often happens, though, is that you stay with the breath a couple of times, and then another thought comes … 
  18. Worldly Equanimity & Its Uses
     … This equanimity also puts the mind in a position where you can be a good judge of what’s going on, because as you settle down with the breath, there are days when you find the breath is very responsive, and other days when it’s not. So you have to put the mind on an even keel to figure out, “Okay, what’s … 
  19. Judging Your Thoughts by What They Do
     … So we work with the breath to create a sense of well-being that gives us strength, and a stillness of mind that allows us to see things clearly for what they are. The concentration will also sensitize us to disturbances in the mind. The more you get in touch with the breath energy in the body, the more you begin to see that … 
  20. Matters of Life & Death
     … Notice what the breath is like when it’s really pleasurable. There will be a sense of fullness, a sense of ease in the breathing. Note that fact. There will be a sense that you really don’t have to do that much to the breath after all. Once you get that sense of the right touch, the light touch, that keeps you balanced … 
  21. Equanimity
     … After telling Rahula to make his mind like earth, he then taught him the steps for breath meditation, which involve a lot of proactive involvement with the breath, a lot of experimentation where you have to learn how to judge the results of your experiments in a reliable way. You’re not just sitting there letting the breath come in and go out any … 
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