Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 102
  2. Worldly Effort
     … The question is, which effort are you going to focus on? Just keeping alive or putting an end to suffering? Of course, keeping alive requires dealing with suffering, trying to minimize it. But the question is, how far are you going to go? We like to think that if we get skillful enough in the way we lead our lives, then we can get … 
  3. Noble Standards
     … Work harder and meditate longer.” When emergencies of various kinds came, I had to learn how to drop whatever I thought was important and focus on the emergency. Sometimes it was his health, sometimes it was another problem in the monastery: a fire on the hillside, a sudden building or repair project that needed to be done right away. And there was a willingness … 
  4. Time Well Spent
     … He said that all good things that the mind can do come back to this ability to just keep the mind coming back, coming back, coming back to what it wants to focus attention on. So try to have a continuous attention, try to have a continuous practice, developing your attention. Mindfulness is an essential to that in the sense of keeping something in … 
  5. Survival Dhamma
     … The Buddha doesn’t have us focus too much on the “what,” aside from assuring us that things don’t end when the body ends, that even after death there’s more coming. So you’ll want to make sure, at the very least, that that “more” is heading in the right direction. That’s why we have the precepts. They’re clear. There … 
  6. Happy to Be Here
     … When you focus them on the causes, the desired effects will have to come.
  7. Think
     … Notice where the breathing is most prominent in the body and focus your attention there. Try to make that spot comfortable, then see how far the sense of comfort can spread. You’re going to need this as your foundation because it’s inevitable that when you’re sitting and meditating, especially for a long time, pains will come up. If you’re going … 
  8. Bringing Right resolve
     … So you develop equanimity for the conditions you can’t change, and you focus your compassion on the areas where you can make a change. And again, it’s important to have wise, mature compassion for yourself, to help yourself in ways that really do advance the cause for true happiness. So if you find that the path is getting dry, and things aren … 
  9. Discernment
     … You need the large overview so that you know how to break it down into manageable pieces, but when you actually do the work, you focus on the little bits and pieces. This job we have here of tackling suffering is the same sort of thing. It seems overwhelming. You can think of it as this huge big mass, and the Buddha sometimes talks … 
  10. Training Your Desires
     … We have to learn to choose what we really want more than anything else and focus on that. As the Buddha says, if you see that a greater happiness comes from letting go of a lesser happiness—and if you’re wise—you’re willing to let go of the lesser happiness for the sake of the greater. There was an English scholar who … 
  11. Peace Requires Character
     … Sometimes we hear that the Buddha wanted to get rid of all forms of suffering, but actually he was looking at, “Where does suffering come from? Focus on the cause.” Stop setting fires that you then have to put out. Find a place where you’re setting a fire, stop doing it, and then you’re done. The suffering out there in the world … 
  12. The Power is in Your Hands
     … So focus right here. That’s your entry into all of this. Breathe in a way that feels really good so that you have alternative ways of dealing with the different kinds of fabrication, the different manifestations of what the Buddha calls “name and form.” You’re developing a new relationship inside. That’s where the problem is, and that’s where the solution … 
  13. For When the World Can’t Help You
     … If they had a practice, they could focus on that. If they didn’t, their minds would be all over the place. It’s good to think about that. There will be a time when people with the best will in the world, people with the most capabilities, can’t help you, when the body reaches the point where it’s too sick, too … 
  14. Mud Houses
     … That’s what you’ve got to focus on. But first you’ve got to see yourself—the being you’ve created out of these aggregates—in those terms. You have to get familiar with what an aggregate is. In other words, before you make them unfit for play, you’ve got to play with your aggregates to get to know them. That’s … 
  15. The Buddha’s Vipassana
     … But ideally, the two processes go together, because you’re not going to get the mind into good solid concentration until you understand the processes of fabrication that are going on, here in the present moment; and you won’t be able to analyze what’s going on in the present moment unless you steady your focus. The way you breathe is a kind … 
  16. Marshalling the Emotions
     … What can be done with the mind as you focus it on the breath? What can be done with the breath? How can you learn to relate to the breath in a way that allows you to settle down and see what’s going on in the mind? Be curious. Find out. When you meet up with obstacles, you need the sort of inquisitive … 
  17. The Four Precepts
     … The restraints you place on the way you look for pleasures outside help maintain that focus. Purity of livelihood reminds you that you’ve got to consider the consequences of how you go about trying to maintain this body. For again, if there’s any dishonesty in the way you maintain your livelihood, or if there’s any harm in the way you do … 
  18. Befriending the Breath
     … It’s something you can focus on continually. It’s an object you can really melt into. Otherwise, you’re always tensed up, pulling back, poised to leap. As soon as a thought gets uninteresting or unpleasant, or you just get tired of it, you jump. And as soon as you land on another thought, part of you has already tensed up to make … 
  19. At Play
     … with a light touch and not throw things away heedlessly. So, when the meditation begins to get tedious, remind yourself: You’re here to play. You’ve got a whole hour to be at play. Focus on having a good time, and you’ll find that you gain knowledge painlessly. Even in the midst of physical pain, the mind can have a good time.
  20. The Noble Pursuit of Happiness
     … As for things that you can’t change for the time being, develop some equanimity—so that you can focus on the areas where you can make a difference. So a large part of the practice is not just in the techniques of the meditation, but it’s also in the values lying behind the meditation. And one of the primary values is gaining … 
  21. Deconstructing Suffering
     … You find that by staying with the breath, you can create a sense of ease, you can create a sense of fullness, just by keeping your focus steady, just by adjusting the breath, paying careful attention to what the breath is doing, paying careful attention to what the mind is doing, and learning how to disband any thoughts that come up, either by not … 
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