Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Dimensions of Right Effort
     … On the one hand, there’s the breath, which is bodily fabrication. This is one of the reasons why we focus on the breath. The breath is an intentional process, and we look at the breath so that we can gain a sense of our own intentions. Then, when we learn how to modulate them and adjust them so that we can breathe in … 
  3. Dhamma Is a Quality of the Heart
     … We’re going to talk about the breath. The breath doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s not Buddhist. It’s not Christian. It doesn’t belong to anybody in particular. It’s common property throughout the world. We talk about the breath so that we can use the breath to catch the mind. And then we can talk about the mind: in other … 
  4. Wise About Pleasure
     … And as you’re adjusting the breath, try not to put any pressure on it, because if you apply pressure to the breath, then no matter what kind of breathing you’re engaged in, it’s not going to feel comfortable. It’s more a question of allowing the breath to feel good, allowing the body to breathe in a way that feels refreshing … 
  5. Concentration Develops Right View
     … Becoming is also another one, as you begin to notice that when you leave the breath, you go into another thought world. And in that world, it’s as if the breath doesn’t exist, as if the body doesn’t exist. You’re entirely someplace else. How did that happen? And what part of the mind wanted it to happen? You’re not … 
  6. Freedom, Conditioned & Not
     … Your present actions take the potentials from past actions and turn them into what you’re experiencing right now—as when you’re choosing to stay with the breath. The fact that you’ve chosen to stay with the breath changes the breath right there. If you do it right, there’s going to be a sense of ease that comes with the act … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. A Home of Your Own
     … If there is any one part of the body where the breath doesn’t feel comfortable, you can change it. Think of the breath as just the energy that courses through the body as you breathe in, breathe out. In some areas it’s going to be more obvious than others. But as the mind settles down, the more obvious areas calm down, and … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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.
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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