Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 100
  2. Encourage Yourself
     … It’s to focus our attention on what’s really important right now, which is the intentions we’re thinking right now, the intentions we’re following through with right now. He has many stories about the cycles of the universe, past lives, future results of present actions. They seem to point far away from the present. But actually they’re pointing right back … 
  3. Discernment Fosters Concentration
     … It gets concentrated—in other words, solidly focused—and you maintain that focus. As the sense of rapture begins to get too strong, you tune in to a more refined level of energy right at the same spot. You don’t have to move. If the rapture’s going to do its thing, it can do its thing. You don’t try to hold … 
  4. Concentration Food
    One of the reasons why we focus on the breath is because it’s so responsive to your thoughts and perceptions. You tell yourself to breathe in long, and it goes long. Tell it to be shorter, it becomes shorter. Deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter: The breath responds. You can tell it to go to different parts of the body. Here, of course, we … 
  5. To Comprehend Pain
     … To get the mind concentrated, you first have to focus on an area of the body that’s not in pain. That gives you a home base. Then you can work with the breath energy in that part of the body, to make it even more pleasant. It’s one of the steps of breath meditation: breathing in and out, sensitive to pleasure, finding … 
  6. Think Like a Thief
     … You focus on the ones that are good, or at least seem good to you. Give them a try. And it starts with everything. All the things we do around the monastery are opportunities to learn how to be skillful, to learn how to be observant—even simple things like putting things away. Where is the best place to put away plastic so that … 
  7. In the Context of the Path
     … So whenever you read a teaching of the Buddha’s, ask yourself, “Where does it fit in the training? Where does it fit in this course of action?” There is a tendency, sometimes, to focus on the three characteristics as the Buddha’s primary description of reality. And then, into the framework of that description, everything else gets squeezed. But what are you to … 
  8. Producing Discernment
     … When things are not going well, what alternatives do you have? There may be alternative ways of breathing, alternative places to focus, alternative ways of perceiving the breath, imaging the breath to yourself. Or there are times when you need to use another meditation theme altogether. The mind isn’t willing to settle down with the breath. There’s something going on in the … 
  9. Calm
     … Things are very solidly centered right here, and they’re going to be centered well because you’ve created a good place to stay—through the way you breathe, through the feelings you focus on, and the feelings you create, and the perceptions you create. Again, it’s not the case that you have to just put up with whatever you have. You’re … 
  10. The Primacy of the Mind (2)
     … This way, you keep your focus at the right spot. Of course, you’re aware of what other people are doing, aware of what’s going on outside, but you don’t let that awareness obscure your knowledge of what you’re doing inside—because that’s where the real problem is. As long as you allow this inside area to be obscured, you … 
  11. The Opportunity to Be Quiet
     … Ajaan Suwat used to like to focus on the fact that the Buddha said that there are so many things that are not-self, not-self, but then he says we’re the owners of our actions. This is something we are responsible for. This is another reason why you should be focusing on getting the mind really still. Because actions come out of … 
  12. The Rewards of Right View
     … So focus your main protective energies here.
  13. The Wisdom of Incongruity
     … The ability to step out of your thought worlds is what saves you from getting pulled into all the defilements that created those thought worlds to begin with—that picked and chose and decided that this detail you’re going to focus on and that other detail you’re going to ignore. You have to remember that all of our defilements are based on … 
  14. Metta & Merit
     … You can spread goodwill to all beings everywhere, or you can focus it on particular people you know are suffering or are going through a difficult period. They don’t have to know, and you do it both for them and for you. There are stories in the Canon of the Buddha spreading goodwill to people and its changing them. There was a Mallan … 
  15. Overcoming Complacency
     … After all, the mind is going to focus on where it is and what it has to do. Even up through the state of non-returning, there’s going to be a vague sense of “I” around those actions. At that point, it’s not identified with the khandhas, but there’s still that sense of “I” that somehow lingers around them. So if … 
  16. The Buddha Respects Your Potential
    Try to focus on your breath, and bring the attitude that something good will come of it. In other words, it’s not just a game. It’s not just a pastime. The ability to get the mind concentrated can do an awful lot for the mind, for your life, and for the people around you, so bring an attitude of respect to what … 
  17. Hold on to Right View
     … So, to work in that direction, what do you do? You focus right here, on your choices. Try to make them as skillful as you can. Choose to bring the mind to a state of concentration, realize how things are fabricated, and then calm the processes of fabrication—like the Buddha explains in his instructions on breath meditation. That’s how things begin to … 
  18. When Ill Will Is in Fashion
     … The Buddha basically says there are eight topics you can focus on. You’ve got the four establishings of mindfulness: the body in and of itself, feelings, mind states, mental qualities in and of themselves—ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Here’s where he says, “you develop this concentration.” Mindfulness here is a concentration practice … 
  19. The Basic Pattern
     … So it’s good to keep reflecting on those instructions to Rahula, because they focus on the basic principle that underlies everything in the practice: Your actions are important, so be very careful. At the end of the Buddha’s teaching career, he closed with the words, “Bring your practice to completion through heedfulness.” What does it mean to be heedful? It means that … 
  20. True Protection for the World
     … That way you can focus your time and energy on areas where you can make a difference. This is one of the reasons why we have that chant on the four brahmaviharas every evening before meditation, to remind us of our motivation in the practice. We need those attitudes, both to help immediately in the course of the meditation, and to carry into our … 
  21. Training Your Inner Teacher
     … Today it likes to explore the breath sensations in the different parts of the body, other days it wants to focus in really strongly just on one spot. You’ve got to learn how to read it, and in that way, the mind gets to rest as it likes. You can maintain that sense of desire to practice. There are other times when you … 
  22. Load next page...