You focus on the breath. Stay with it all the way in, all the way out, and notice what feels comfortable. Learn how to read the needs of your body, and see the extent to which you can fulfill those needs by the way you breathe.

"You focus on the breath. Stay with it all the way in, all the way out, and notice what feels comfortable. As the Buddha says, you try to make yourself sensitive to the whole body and then try to breathe in a way that gives rise to feelings of ease.

So that’s what you experiment with as you meditate — sometimes feelings of ease, sometimes feelings of more energy, depending on the body needs. Learn how to read the needs of your body, and see the extent to which you can fulfill those needs by the way you breathe. Sometimes you want good deep breathing, especially when you’re tired: good long deep in-breaths, less emphasis on the out-breath, again and again and again. That will help energize the body. In the other direction, if you find yourself tense, you may need to relax, so try a short in-breath and a long relaxed out-breath. Think of the out-breath carrying away all the tension in the body. And then try to maintain that sense of ease."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Even Shame Can Be Skillful"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the breath do that.

 "When you focus on the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels really refreshing. Think of the breath energizing your entire torso all the way down, and then even beyond the torso down through the legs, down the back. Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the breath do that." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt"
Read more

You can float and be buoyant, but stay in place. There’s a sense of lightness and buoyancy, so keep that sense of lightness, but stay where you are.

"Breathe in such a way that there’s no holding on, so that things are allowed to flow smoothly. The breath flows smoothly, the blood flows smoothly, and there’s a sense of ease all the way through the breathing process. Some people at this point begin to get a sense of floating, but try not to drift out. You can float and be buoyant, but stay in place. There’s a sense of lightness and buoyancy, so keep that sense of lightness, but stay where you are. You’ve learned to breathe in such a way that the whole body feels at ease throughout the in-breath and out-breath. Try to maintain that sense of awareness of the whole body, and let the pleasure radiate out through the body. Just learn how to maintain that, to stick with it. If you find yourself losing focus when you open up your range of awareness to the whole body, go back to surveying the body spot by spot, section by section, and then try settling down with the whole body again. You may find yourself going back and forth like this
Read more

Keep the sense of relaxation in your feet and hands as steady as possible by comparing one side to the other

"No matter how the breath is cycling through the rest of the body, keep the sense of relaxation in your feet and your hands as steady as possible. It doesn’t have to be an enormous relaxation, just enough for you to know that it’s more relaxed than before. One way of checking it is to compare one hand to the other, one foot to the other. See which one is more tense and then allow it to relax as much as the other one." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Grass at the Gate" (Meditations3)
Read more