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

  • Joy as an Act of Resistance & Resilience

    What brings you joy? How does joy affect you? What is your relationship to joy? Experiencing joys, small and large, helps keep us connected to what is meaningful, nourishing, and enlivening. Come explore the many aspects of dharma joy as an intentional everyday practice, and how it informs and supports not only your own well-being,…

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of Jan 23 – 27, 2023

    This week’s theme is “5 Doorways to Love”. What hinders our love? Where are we blocked? Desire, anger, dullness, restlessness and doubt are the so-called 5 hindrances: qualities in the mind which obstruct mindfulness and love. At the same time, when we approach them wisely, they can serve as a beautiful guide towards liberation. During this week we will explore the treasures of these qualities for our meditation and our daily life.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of June 26, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Living in Sacredness”. Meditation is more than a practice of being present. The way in which we are present determines whether we reinforce habits of separation, or re-weave the fabric of sacredness. During this week we will explore the sacredness of body, breath, consciousness, emotions and beliefs. Returned to the embrace of sacredness, we plant seeds of Love in a world of separation.

    Read More

  • Kate Johnson

    Radical Friendship – Practicing Freedom in Unfree Places

    In these times of isolation and uprising, how can wise relationships be a refuge? Join us for an exploration of the Buddha’s teachings on spiritual friendship, and how they can help us embody freedom in all our relationships as we navigate the path to collective liberation.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ayala Gill – Week of December 11, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Embracing challenging emotions”. There are no negative emotions, only ones that we find challenging to embrace, like anxiety, anger, grief and fear. When we relate to them in distorted ways, their expression is indeed negative. Over this week (at a time of year where they may be particularly triggered!) we will explore how to come into a sacred relationship with each of these challenging emotions.

    Read More

  • Jessica Morey

    Befriending your body.

    Worldwide Insight talk from Jessica Morey: “Befriending your Body”. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A. Additional description not available. Guided meditation, Dharma talk and Q&A.

    Read More

  • George Haas

    The meaningful life

    How can we use our meditation practice to repair attachment disturbances caused by our early conditioning, so that we can be completely ourselves in our relationships with others and in our work, as we pursue the path of awakening?

    Read More

  • Ronya Banks

    Inner Peace in a Chaotic World

    In this session Ronya leads us on a journey of exploring the Buddhist principles and practices specifically designed to promote “inner peace” – even amidst a chaotic world. “Everybody wants a happy life. This goal is entirely dependent on our inner peace… We are trying to seek a joyful, happy life from the outside —…

    Read More