Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 103
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. Happy to Be Here
     … When you focus them on the causes, the desired effects will have to come.
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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