… We’re already shaping our experience—through the
way we breathe, through the way we think about things, the perceptions
we apply to things, the labels, the ideas we impose on our experience.
These are all active processes. And as the Buddha said, we do these
things out of ignorance for the most part, and as a result, even
though we’re looking for …
… With some pains, if you breathe in
a particular way, the pains get worse. If you breathe in another way,
they go away. With other pains, the breath has nothing to do with
them. They’re just there.
How do you learn this? You learn by experimenting; you learn by trial
and error, by trial and success. We’re bringing the mind into a …
… This, combined with mindfulness, is probably your best guarantee of getting the mind into balance, so that when things aren’t going the way you’d like them to, you don’t get upset, you don’t get flustered. You simply take it into account and see what you can do to balance it out.
So try to think in ways that are encouraging …
… But it’s a good hypothesis, because if it is
true that your actions can accomplish a lot, this is a hypothesis that
doesn’t get in the way of your potential for genuine happiness. It
actually opens the way to accomplishing as much as you can. So why
choose the hypothesis that closes off the doors?
The problem is that our desires go …
… in the middle of
the jungle just using his breath. There was no one there to tell him
how to do it. He had to use his own ingenuity. So when you find
troubles coming up in your meditation, don’t just give up. Tell
yourself: There must be a way around this. When you believe that there
is a way, you’re going …
… Those are some of the ways you can release it, ultimately on the way to total release.
It’s in this way that you can use the mind to train the mind—to read its moods, to make it glad to be abandoning unskillful thoughts and developing skillful ones, to get it more concentrated, and to release it, step by step, from its various …
… Whether you’re focused on the chest, the
middle of the head, wherever, there’s some spot in the body where you
should feel most natural in your focus. And some ways of breathing are
particularly conducive to get your mind to settle down. If you notice
that, make a note of it. As you sit down to meditate the next time,
remember what …
Take a couple of good, long deep in-and-out breaths, and then try to
breathe in a way that feels good and refreshing for the body. If long
breathing doesn’t feel good, you could change the rhythm. Try to find
a rhythm and texture that feels right for you. Or ask yourself, “What
parts of the body need energizing? What parts of …
… That’s another translation of the
way the Thais understand the word kusala: it’s intelligent, *chalaad.
*You combine your desire for happiness with your intelligence. That
way, you find the right motivation, the right gift, the right person
to receive the gift, the right motivation for your precepts, the right
ways to observe the precepts in ways that don’t offend other people …
… If the new sensations aren’t helpful in that way, you can throw the new tool aside.
For example, if you have a sense of being on one side of a blockage, try thinking of being on the other side. Try being on both. Think of the breath as coming into the body, not through the nose or mouth, but through the middle of …
… middle, admirable in the end. But the best is saved for last.
In the beginning, you’re making a gamble. You don’t know if the
Buddha’s right or wrong about things like rebirth or karma. But you do
know that they’re good things to believe, in the sense that they
affirm your power to shape your life in a good way …
… You have your ways of shaping this experience and if you’re
not paying careful attention to what you’re doing, middle-level
management takes over—in other words, your old habits. You can find
yourself tensing up over a little pain here and there without even
realizing that it’s happening. It’s almost like somebody else is
giving the orders. Part of …
… That’s not a good way to live. A
much better way is to think of garbage pail as having a big hole in
the bottom, so that everything just goes right through, right through.
In other words, you know what people are saying, you know what they’re
doing, but you don’t take that as something to focus on. You keep
breathing …
… Starting in the middle of the chest right at the heart and
then going down through the stomach and the intestines. This is good
nourishment, because you don’t have to fight anybody for it. It’s
right there, it’s free, and it’s very immediate. When you get familiar
with the breath and the different ways of breathing, you find that you …
… for the protection of those within and to ward off those without; in the same way, the disciple of the noble ones has heard much, has retained what he has heard, has stored what he has heard. Whatever teachings are admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end, that—in their meaning & expression—proclaim the holy life that is entirely …
… That’s one way of thinking about death.
The other way is to realize that there are things you can do to
prepare. In other words, there are skillful and unskillful ways of
living, skillful and unskillful ways of dying. I’ve seen this in my
own life. I’ve seen two teachers of mine approach death, and I’ve also
seen my father …
… After all, the path is one that’s admirable in the beginning,
admirable in the middle, admirable in the end—admirable not just in
the sense that it’s noble, but also in the sense that it’s a good path
to follow. Even when you don’t get all the way to happiness, you
realize that being on this path is a good …
… impact on the
breath—because that’s another way of adjusting the breath: simply
changing your perception of it.
Visualizing the body as a sponge is one perception that can be helpful
in opening up the breath energy. Or as Ajaan Fuang once recommended,
you can visualize a column of breath energy in the middle of the body,
from the head on down. Then …
… So when you think in these ways, holding these perceptions in mind, you can develop a more and more genuine feeling of goodwill, a feeling that’s not threatened by the fact that other people are going to continue to act in sometimes really outrageous and horrible ways. Because when you see them acting in horrible ways, you’ve got to have compassion for …
… But if you learn how to settle in here well in advance, you have a sense of how the awareness in the present moment can relate to the body in such a way that it doesn’t have to suffer from the issues in the body. That way, aging, illness, and death are not much of a problem. They’re simply issues of the …
Mindfulness of Breathing: Mind | Facing Aging, Illness, & Death
… Those are some of the ways you can release it, ultimately on the way to total release. It’s in this way that you can use the mind to train the mind—to read its moods, to make it glad to be abandoning unskillful thoughts and developing skillful ones, to get it more concentrated, and to release it, step by step, from its various …
