Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 101
  2. Make the Most of Right Now
     … Either you take it as an object of contemplation, or you focus on the breath: contemplating the thirty-two parts of the body or focusing on the breath to develop a sense of relative well-being. You know that you’re going to have to give it up anyway, but it’s better to give it up understanding why you took it up to … 
  3. Don’t Just Fatten Your Mind
     … Then focus on the pleasures and pains that are skillful, i.e., that lead you to act in skillful ways. That’s how you stay on the path and keep yourself from sliding back.
  4. Universal Truths
     … So as you focus on the breath, try to do it in a virtuous way. In other words, do it with restraint. Remind yourself, you can’t go wandering off, dabbling in this, dabbling in that. You’ve really got to be true to the theme of your concentration. And your concentration should be discerning: Which ways of focusing on the breath make the … 
  5. A Conglomeration of Germs
     … Now it’s the raw material with which you create new kamma, which is something you want to focus on because kamma is what really belongs to you. That’s what goes with you when you go, and that’s what shapes your mind as you stay here. As the Buddha said, the things you do again and again and again bend the mind … 
  6. Admirable Friendship
     … If you focus only on the things you don’t like, or if you get too distracted with extraneous issues, they get in the way. So we’re here to look, as the Buddha said, at the craving in our minds. The craving and the ignorance: Those are the main causes. We try to develop qualities of mind that can develop a sense of … 
  7. Strategic Wisdom
     … You can focus on the feeling of the breath anywhere at all in the body, any spot where it’s convenient, where the sensation of the breath is clear, that lets you know that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. Try to stay there. Keep it up. This is the difficult part in the meditation: the maintaining. That … 
  8. Cherish Your Friends
     … hear something very subtle you have to sit very quietly, if you want to hear the subtle things going on in your mind you have to make the mind quiet, too. Focus it on the breath. Try to cut down on all the chatter. If you want to talk to yourself, talk about one thing. Talk about the breath. Ask yourself: Is the breath … 
  9. The Mind’s Song
     … neck, the middle of the head — any place where all the different pressures of the breath coming in and going out and the pressures of your blood circulation feel right together. Focus right there and allow the breath to find whatever rhythm feels good, feels gratifying. If the mind wanders off, bring it right back. If it wanders off again, bring it back again … 
  10. Patience
     … You focus on those. And then you gradually try to expand the range. If there’s no spot in the body that’s obviously pleasant, you say, “I’ll content myself with what’s okay.” Or you can try a perception of the breath energy around the body. That doesn’t have anything in the way, doesn’t have anything forcing it to be … 
  11. Fangs in the Static
     … The final perception he has you focus on is the mastery of perception that comes from breath meditation. When you do breath meditation, you get more sensitive to how the mind creates its perceptions, where the allure of those perceptions is, what the drawbacks of the perceptions are. In other words, you get a better sense of what’s actually happening in the mind … 
  12. Goodwill in Action
     … That’s your primary focus. Your ability to influence other people depends on a lot on other factors beyond your control. But there will be times when you can have a good influence, so let that thought keep you going. Make sure that your metta in terms of seeing yourself as an agent with free choice, and seeing other people as agents with free … 
  13. The Path Is and Isn’t the Goal
     … But until you reach that point, you’ve got to focus on the path. Don’t worry about the goal. You’ve got to give the path your undivided attention because it’s in the developing of the path that the realization of the end of suffering is going to be found. That’s one of the paradoxes of the practice. As you’re … 
  14. Wherever You Go, There You Aren’t
     … She didn’t have much education, but when she finally realized that right here is where the problem is, i.e., right here in the mind, she was willing to turn around and focus right here and see clear through the problem. That’s the only place you’re going to see through the problem: right here. So even though right here may not … 
  15. Persistence
     … what strategies, what objects you focus on, what ways of focusing, how you look after the mind. Mindfulness keeps these things in mind and gives directions to your efforts: What do you need to do right now? One of the things you learn pretty quickly after you’ve been meditating is that what you do right at the beginning of the meditation session is … 
  16. Throughout the Day
     … Even if you lose focus on the body as a whole, make sure that you’re sensitive to those spots. Then as soon as anything tightens up inside them, relax. Tightens up again, relax. At first, you don’t have to ask yourself why it’s tightening up. Just take it as a sign: Something came into the mind—an old habitual way of … 
  17. The Acrobat
     … You focus on the issue, “What do these people really need? How can I help them?” not with the idea that you might get something out of them, but because it’s part of your own training. If you can maintain this frame of reference inside, with this issue of what’s the skillful thing to do, that can then translate into, “What’s … 
  18. The Larger View
     … Karma is what causes these things to happen, so you’ve got to focus on what you’re doing right now because this is where you’re making your choices. The script is being written right here, and the way the storyline is going to go is dependent on the choices you’re making right here. And you always do have the freedom that … 
  19. Timeless Practice
     … But is that healthy for the mind? If you see someone who’s attractive, there’s a tendency to focus on whatever is attractive about them, and to ignore the fact the human body, every human body, has a lot of unattractive features. Last week on our way to Zion, we happened to go through Las Vegas, and there was a sign for the … 
  20. Saying No to Distraction
     … The more you can take that surround-awareness and keep it going, the harder it will be for the mind to focus on a little thought and run away. So learn to say No to your random thoughts by saying Yes to the breath, Yes to concentration, and you find that you learn a lot, both about the random thoughts and about the mind … 
  21. Groundwork
     … But in the beginning, focus on the areas that are most obvious to you and try to find a rhythm of breathing that feels good. This double process of paying attention to the breath and then evaluating how it’s going: The technical terms for that are direct thought and evaluation. Directed thought is focusing your mind in a particular direction, and then continually … 
  22. Load next page...