Make it a habit to breathe through any tension in the body, and make that your default mode as you go through the day. Can you go through the day with a sense of your spot in the body where you stay focused? Keep that open and relaxed.

"When you get angry, you breathe in a certain way, and it’s become habitual. It builds up tension, builds up pressure in different parts of the body. When that gets unbearable, and you decide, “I can’t stand this any longer, I’ve got to get it out of my system,” the anger has hijacked your breath.

So you want to learn how to get it back, to reclaim the breath, make it yours. Breathe in a way that breathes through the tension, that releases the pressure. If pressure builds up in the neck or the head, think of it dissipating down the shoulders. Think of Hakuin’s image of a big ball of butter on top of your head, melting, and the butter is going down your head, down your neck, down your shoulders. If the pressure builds up in your chest, think of it going out the arms, out through the palms of the hands. We’ve had our habitual ways of working with the breath energies in the body, even when we didn’t think of them as breath energies, that relate to the flow of the blood in the body, the pressure we put on the body as we breathe in.

We can learn how to undo those habits, to reclaim the breath. This also helps us deal with feelings. Like the feeling of irritability, something unpleasant someplace in the body, that aggravates the anger: All too often, we carry around a lot of tension in the body, so that when little things happen, they seem much bigger than they are. It’s like a person carrying a huge load, and then someone puts another box or two on top. Ordinarily the box would not be too much, but placing the boxes on top of the load that the first person is already carrying makes the load too much. So the person weighed down just throws everything back at the other person: “How do you expect me to carry all this?” The second person didn’t know the first person was carrying so much. If you carry a lot of tension around in the body, a lot of irritability, your fuse gets shorter.

So make it a habit to breathe through any tension in the body, and make that your default mode as you go through the day. Can you go through the day with a sense of your spot in the body where you stay focused? Keep that open and relaxed."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Question Your Actions"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breathe in a way that feels refreshing, soothing and comfortable to find a deep and lasting happiness

"So spend some time right here. Breathe in, breathe out, in a way that feels refreshing, that feels soothing, that feels comfortable — whatever the body needs right now, whatever the mind needs right now. Give it some good breathing. That way, you’ll be able to find the peace that comes when you’re not constantly being pulled into paying attention outside. And from that peace comes a deep and lasting happiness." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Paying Attention Inside"
Read more

There’s a kind of gentle massage that goes through the body as you breathe, and then there’s a quicker movement of breath energy that goes through the body immediately. As soon as you start breathing in, it’s already gone through the whole body. Then there’s the breath energy that’s very still.

"For the time being, focus on the breath, because, of the different properties of the body, it’s the one closest to your awareness. It’s what keeps the body and mind together. It’s your glue. And it can be a very subtle glue because there are many levels of the breath. There’s the obvious breath coming in and out, and then there are subtler breath energies that move through the body at different speeds. There’s a kind of gentle massage that goes through the body as you breathe in, breathe out, and then there’s a quicker movement of breath energy that goes through the body immediately. As soon as you start breathing in, it’s already gone through the whole body. Then there’s the breath energy that’s very still. You can contact it at different spots in the body. Ajaan Lee talks of contacting it at the diaphragm. Other people find other spots where there’s a sense of stillness in the midst of the movement of the in-and-out breath. So try to bring all of your thoughts and awareness her...
Read more

The pleasure we're working toward when we're meditating is a noble, worthwhile pleasure

"Everything we do is for the sake of pleasure, physical or mental. So when we’re meditating, we’re doing it for pleasure, too. And it’s good to think about what kind of pleasure we’re working toward and why this is a worthwhile activity — why the Buddha says the pursuit of this pleasure, or the use of this pleasure, is part of a noble path, whereas a lot of other pleasures in the world are anything but noble. We work with the breath, trying to find a comfortable breath, and then we learn how to use that sense of comfort, that sense of ease, and spread it around the body. We’re working with pleasure here that’s both mental and physical. The breath feels good when you allow it to find a good rhythm and when you allow it to spread around. And there’s a mental pleasure that comes as well. The mind has a good place to stay. It feels at ease. It can rest. It can put down a lot of its guard, a lot of its tendency to be ready to jump of at any moment — because that’s what it’s learned fro...
Read more