Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 104
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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.
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. Kill Your Anger
     … Many of them focus on how outrageous something is. But is it really that outrageous? The Buddha has you remember that people do displeasing things, say displeasing things, and think displeasing things all over the world all the time. This doesn’t excuse those people from doing that, but it does mean that when you run across something that’s really bad, it’s … 
  12. Pain & Patience
     … So regardless of what your pain is or how you experience it, the Buddha is not so much concerned with defining it as with pointing out the aspect of the pain you can focus on that can help you get past it. Again, it comes down to the question, “What am I doing? How am I relating to this in a way that’s … 
  13. Papañca
     … remind yourself, “Okay, those places where it’s more pleasant, do they last forever? Are they safe? Can you trust the happiness that comes there?” Well, no. Bring yourself back then. Focus on the fact that if you don’t get the work done now, when are you going to do it? You’ve got the ideal opportunity. Even if it doesn’t seem … 
  14. Greed & Distress with Reference to the World
     … You realize that all you have to do is be with the breath and get a sensitivity to what kind of breathing feels good and how heavily to focus on the breath so that you don’t put too much pressure on it, but you don’t put too little pressure on it. When you get that sense of the right touch, you see … 
  15. Consistently on the Path
     … bodily fabrication, the way you breathe; verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself; and mental fabrication, the feelings you focus on and the perceptions you hold in mind, the images you give to yourself of the world and of yourself. As long as we do these things in ignorance, they’re going to cause suffering. If we bring some knowledge to them, they … 
  16. Abandoning Effluents (3)
     … So appreciate the fact that you’re in an environment where you’ve got some seclusion, and you can focus on the issues of what you need to develop in the mind, what you need to abandon in the mind—and that these things take top priority. If you don’t have an environment like this, well, look for one, because it makes things … 
  17. Heedfulness
     … As your body allows you less and less time and energy, focus on the things that you can do. Squeeze as much goodness out of your body as you can. All of us, as long was we’re breathing, have the power of choice. So try to learn which choices are the good ones and follow through with that knowledge. That’s how you … 
  18. The Reflective Self
     … So focus on how you reflect on yourself and on this reflective self: How far has it come? It may sound like you’re falling into a hall of mirrors, reflecting on the reflector, but you can get a sense of what’s working, what’s not working, and your willingness to engage in trial and error is what gets you to trial and … 
  19. The Complexity of Pain
     … But two, it just takes the focus away from “me and my pain.” You don’t feel like you’re being singled out to be treated in an unjust manner. The question of fairness doesn’t come into it at all. Then you make your mind like earth, big like the Earth. Make your goodwill big like the Earth. This is the other way … 
  20. You’re Already Dead
     … You’ve let yourself focus on the things that are really important. In that way you’re alive—more alive than normal. You’re living your life well.
  21. Serial Clinging Is Still Clinging
     … That way, you can focus on a goal and work all the way to that goal. The solution is not to keep changing your views. The solution is finding views that get you to act in the right way consistently until you reach the threshold to the deathless. This is what the Buddha calls the kamma that leads to the end of kamma, and … 
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