Gently Pulling Back From Thoughts, Feelings & Emotions

A breath meditation taken from Collection 4: Compassion Meditation, Forgiveness, Contemplation of Not-Self.

Transcript

The sitting posture,

Being aware,

Aware of the sitting posture.

Feeling a sense,

Feeling your bottom,

The mat underneath the cushion or the chair.

Using the feelings,

The feelings in the physical body as an object of mindfulness.

Feeling your bottom,

Feeling your thighs,

Pressing against the mat,

The chair,

The cushion.

A sense of being grounded and coming into this present moment.

So this awareness that we all have,

It's a faculty of the mind,

It's simply there.

Awareness is that which knows.

And throughout the day we're knowing all sorts of things,

Visual phenomena,

Sounds.

And for modern people,

Especially a lot of information and then thinking,

Concepts.

So this awareness gets somewhat diffused,

Scattered and absorbed into many things.

This is normal.

But for those people who are interested in experiencing some peacefulness,

Some clarity,

Then we practice putting down objects,

Putting down complexity,

Putting down concepts,

Putting down the past,

Putting down the future,

Putting down self,

Putting down others.

To be able to do that we need tools,

We need objects.

So we understand that the mind is awareness,

We understand that awareness has objects.

So in order to drop many objects,

Various objects,

Then we have to pick one up initially.

And then we train in staying with that object.

So here we come to feelings in the body and then the physical feelings of the breath.

So we train,

We're picking up the feelings of the breath as a meditation object.

So we don't need to think about it,

Just coming back to this awareness of it as it is,

The natural breath.

So trying to be aware of the feeling.

First of all trying to feel,

So just feeling that breath as it comes in at the nose,

Down through the chest,

Into the abdomen,

And then knowing the feeling of the out-breath.

Sometimes it's helpful to take a deeper breath,

Establishing awareness in those areas,

And feeling the out-breath,

Abdomen,

Chest,

Nose.

So the breath is occurring all the time.

There are spaces of course,

There's an in-breath and then there's a space,

And there's an out-breath and there's a space.

And we're often not aware of the breath in our waking hours,

But it's always there.

So we come to our meditation session,

We place awareness on the breath and drop the other objects to the degree that we can.

And this takes patience,

And it's good to have an attitude of gentleness.

So we really have this sincere intention,

Know that breath,

Know that in-breath,

And know that out-breath.

And when the thoughts come crashing in,

We understand that that's normal,

Because we've been thinking a lot.

And try not to follow the thoughts,

And start again.

One more in-breath,

One more out-breath.

Breathing in,

Put,

Breathing out,

Do.

Breathing in,

Breathe in,

Breathe out,

Do.

Breathing in,

Breathe out,

Do.

The Buddha,

The one who knew ultimate truth,

The one who was awake to the truth in the present moment,

Unconfused,

No delusion.

We can use the word buddho,

Which has all of those connotations,

Aware,

Awake,

Unconfused.

Knowing,

Knowing the in-breath,

Put,

Knowing the out-breath,

Do.

So we have this sincere intention,

Know that breath,

Know that out-breath,

And know that because that's all clean air websating.

Breathing in,

Put.

Breathing out,

Do.

Breathing out,

Do.

Breathing in,

Do.

And often times it's not just thoughts that impinge on this awareness,

It's feelings,

Emotions.

We think in certain ways then emotions arise.

Sometimes something triggers an emotion and then thoughts follow.

This is also normal.

When you practice our breath meditation,

Try not to be caught in emotion,

Try not to follow emotion.

That doesn't mean we need to destroy it either.

In fact you can't destroy emotion.

You just have to understand its nature.

Its nature is that it will stay for some time and then it will go.

And we can use the breath.

Use the breath to ventilate around the feeling in the area of the heart often.

Breathing in,

Put,

And breathing out,

Do.

Whatever feelings there are,

Whatever emotions,

Allowing them to be just as they are without making anything out of them.

Giving the attention,

Giving the interest to the breath.

Breathing in,

Put,

And breathing out,

Do.

And then we often find if we can stay with the breath,

Train our mindfulness to be interested in the breath.

These feelings can just drop away.

There might be a feeling of spaciousness throughout the entire body.

And that feeling of spaciousness or emptiness or clarity,

Openness,

Is simply a mind which is putting down the objects that it's brought in,

That it's picked up.

So we're just gently putting down these objects,

These mind objects,

By placing the mind on the breath and holding the breath in mind consistently and gently.

Breathing in,

Put,

Breathing out,

Do.

And then we often find if we can stay with the breath,

Train our mindfulness to be interested in the breath.

And then we often find if we can stay with the breath,

Train our mindfulness to be interested in the breath.

And at times when there's illness,

This is also a part of nature,

Something to be understood.

Bodies are of the nature to sicken.

Sometimes they're healthy,

Sometimes they're sick.

Sometimes there's pleasant feelings in a body,

Sometimes there's pain.

And even when we're sick,

We do try to continue to meditate,

Training our mindfulness to be aware of things as they are.

It's actually very helpful to do this.

We can bring mindfulness to the various types of fatigue,

Pain,

Unpleasant feelings.

We might not have the extra suffering we might have.

When we don't want to feel something,

We don't want to experience something.

We're training in mindfulness,

We're just allowing it to be as it is.

An itchy throat,

A runny nose,

A fever,

A pain in the bones,

Sore muscles,

All feelings,

Physical feelings,

Pleasant feelings,

Neutral feelings,

Unpleasant feelings,

Arising,

Staying for some time,

Passing,

Always changing.

Continuing with that breath to keep some awareness in the center of experience.

Very important.

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Breathing in may I be well,

Breathing out may I be happy.

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Reviews

I really enjoyed this and will return to it again. Thank you, I am grateful for your teaching.

Great instruction with nice periods of silence. Recommend this meditation 🧘🏻

Helpful, clear and easy to follow, as with all your teachings. That was a beautiful session, thank you 🙏🏽

Thank you.

Always great guidance by the Venerable Ajahn Achalo 🙏🏼😌
Thank you, Ajahn. Your wisdom and guidance have helped transform my life. May you realize the deathless 🧘‍♂️✨

Wow! This is truly a guided meditation in ways thay most of the ones I listen to are not His voice is so present and invites you into presence with him. I loved the mindfulness cues, and commentary about letting go of identity, the past and the future. Truly profound.

Wonderful meditation! Thank you, Ajahn Achalo, for your gentle guidance and just the right space of silence 🙏♥️

Thank you for your kindness :)

Clear instructions. Supportive explanations. Spacious.
Thank you. 🙏🏻🕉️

Ajahn Achalo leads the most wonderful meditations that I keep coming back to.

Language around gender is no longer acceptable. There are many genders, not just male and female. I didn’t feel represented and didn’t expect to be thrown backwards into a gender binary world in a meditation aimed at relaxing the mind. Please update your knowledge in this area.

The practice of a single focused behavior: simply one-derful.

Good spaces in between instructions and very helpful, gentle, frequent reminders. Helped me too come back to the body.

A very focused meditation. Made me aware of my breathing. A good experience.

This is a wonderful and very useful guided meditation.
Thank you a lot for this gift

The meditation helped me be aware that my challenges are understood. It helps me feel more clearly connected, and then more trusting of my wishes and my particular ways of being.

Lovely focus on the breath. Please remind us what focusing on Budt Do means? Thank you 🙏🏽

Very useful. Thank You Kindly for sharing this guidance.

Very gentle, loving, peacefully unfolding experience. Namaste🙏

I appreciated the pauses Allie’s me time to sink in. Hi see voice is soothing yet practical that did not jar me when he spoke after the pauses. Thank you