Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

The Out Breath: Unlocking Concentration

With Toby Sola recorded on June 16, 2024.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

Shodo Harada Roshi is known as a “teacher of teachers”, with masters from various lineages coming to sit with him in Japan. If you went to Harada’s monastery, the main meditation technique you’d learn involves slowing the out breath to last one minute. This drastically slows down your physiology, which in turn settles the mind.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Stephen Fulder

    From Mindfulness to Dharma: The Fourth Foundation

    The huge popularity of mindfulness is accompanied by a lot of confusion in relation to mindfulness in and of itself and how much it embodies the wider teachings of the Buddha. What is dharma? When, if and how is mindfulness the same as or different from dharma? This topic will be discussed in relation to…

    Read More

  • The dangers of selfie mindfulness.

    There is a growing tendency to imply or assume that all suffering is self-created. This is a naïve, even dangerous, view, removed from the middle way. The view ignores the teachings of non-self and the emptiness of self. Does self-inquiry, self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-interest and promotion of the Self promote self-indulgence? Is it any wonder that…

    Read More

  • Leslie Booker

    Faith in the Three Jewels

    Booker writes: “Growing up in the Baptist faith, I was taught to believe what I was taught, and to not have my own experience or exploration; to not know for myself. This didn’t sit well with me as a child! During this teaching, I will share my spiritual journey from Bright Faith to Verified Faith….

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of Sept 25, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Getting A Feel For Feeling”. As we perceive, we add a feeling (vedanā) to our experience. When we are unaware of this process and react to the projected feeling, it causes unnecessary suffering (dukkha). However, understanding this process and responding skilfully leads to one of the deepest senses of freedom available. Let’s explore this freedom through our daily meditations this week.

    Read More

  • Daigan Gaither

    Living by Vow

    If we start with the understanding that everyone is living by vow, how can we examine what vows we are following and change to follow the ones that lead to liberation?

    Read More

  • Vimalasara Mason-John

    Let’s Talk about Meditation

    This class is an opportunity to explore our meditation practice, on and off the cushions. Meditation can be everything we do. It’s up to us whether we have a life of meditation or a life of daydreaming. Meditation will lead to freedom of your mind and daydreaming will lead to the enslavement of the mind….

    Read More