Breathe! You Are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing

But when we practice meditation, we know that we can transform neutral feelings into pleasant ones, and nourish ourselves. Pleasant feelings transformed from neutral ones are more healthy and lasting than other pleasant feelings. When we are constantly nourished by the happiness of meditation, we become at ease with ourselves and others. We become

Seeing that there is a precious jewel in our pocket, we give up every attitude of craving or coveting like one who is deprived. Seeing that we are lions, we do not long to nurse from a mother deer. Seeing that we are the sun, we give up the candle’s habit of fearing the wind will blow us out. Seeing that life has no boundaries, we give up all impri

The intelligent practitioner knows how to regulate and master his or her breath, body, and mind, in order to enhance the power of concentration before proceeding in the work of observation to shed light. Meditation practice is nourishing for body and mind, and can also expand our vision. Expanded vision enables us to go beyond passionate attachment

Once our mind is able to identify what is happening, we will be able to see it clearly and make it calm, and we can feel peace and joy in its stillness.

The ninth method helps us identify the functions of the mind (other than the feelings, which were treated in methods seven and eight), such as perception, thinking, reasoning, discriminating, imagining, and all the activities of the subconscious as well. As soon as one of these psychological phenomena arises, we should identify it while breathing w

When a feeling of irritation or fear is present, we can be aware of it, nourishing this awareness through breathing. Fully aware of our breathing, with patience, we come to see more deeply into the true nature of this feeling. In seeing, we come to understand. With understanding, there is freedom.

The initial joy of meditation is like leaving the city, with its hyperactivity and all its disturbing encounters, going off to the countryside to sit beneath a tree, alone. We feel totally at ease, peaceful and joyful. What a joy, what a relief, like when you complete a difficult examination and feel that you have laid aside all anxiety forevermore

Under the light of awareness, the energy of irritation can be transformed into an energy which nourishes.

We see that we are that very irritation in the present moment. Thanks to this approach, we no longer need to make an effort to oppose, expel, or destroy the irritation. When we practice observation meditation, we do not set up barriers between good and bad in ourselves and transform ourselves into a battlefield. That is the main thing Buddhism seek

The eighth method aims at the transformation of the energy of feelings. By observing the true nature of any feeling, we can transform its energy into the energy of peace and joy. When we understand someone, we can accept and love him. Once we have accepted him, there is no longer any feeling of reproach or irritation against him. The energy of the