Search results for: "Focus"
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- The Flamethrowing Mind… So this is where you focus your efforts to put out the fire: to see what you’re feeding on, what you’re clinging to. I’ve been looking into the question of the meanings of the words mind and consciousness and awareness in the Pali Canon, and it turns out that in different suttas, they mean different things. It’s as if the …
- The Psychology of Harmlessness… Mental fabrications, the perceptions and feelings you focus on, will shape your mind. You want to be sensitive to what you’re doing right now in these terms because that gets into the question of values as to what’s worth doing. But first you want to see what you’re doing. Sometimes you hear it said that breath meditation, especially the way the …
- The Duties of Compassion… You try to find ways of maintaining your focus, regardless of how well the body is or how sick the body may be; regardless of whether it’s daytime or nighttime; regardless of any situation outside. You want to learn how to apply yourself to the appropriate duty at any time, in any situation. Because that’s the compassionate thing to do at any …
- Practicing from Gratitude… These are the main things we focus on. This is how we train ourselves. All of these are a form of generosity. The Buddha also talks about the precepts as gifts, in that we’re giving protection to all beings. You decide that you’re not going to kill anybody, not even little insects. No stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of …
- Practicing Meditation to Perform at Death… That’s one of the contemplations the Buddha has you focus on while you’re sick, just in case you happen to die of the illness. Remind yourself: This illness you have is not a chance thing. It’s been waiting for you. Every part of the body has a disease waiting for you. Not just one disease, many diseases. In fact, as Ajaan …
- Doubt… This is how you focus on the doubt, to see which doubts are actually useful and peel away the doubts that are harmful. This is one of those hindrances that the Buddha takes really seriously. After all, if you die with doubt, you might get cynical: “All that good that I did doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.” That’s going to …
- Gratification… If you can access a sense of ease anyplace in the body, focus on it. If you’re having trouble, learn how to give yourself pep talks. Don’t be the sort of person who’s constantly negative about what you’re doing, saying, “See? You can’t do that. See? You can’t do this.” What kind of advice is that? It’s …
- Doing the Practice… Tell yourself to focus on the breath, and you can immediately do it. The issue is staying with the breath, staying with each present moment as it comes. That requires practice. You need to know how to encourage yourself to stay, as well as the various techniques for staying. Encouragement comes from the chanting we did just now. As the chant on goodwill says …
- Concentration Nurtured by Virtue… Years back, when Ajaan Suwat was teaching in Massachusetts, at the end of the retreat one of the questions was, “How do we go about maintaining meditation in our daily life?” Ajaan Suwat’s response was to focus on the five precepts. The person who had organized the retreat was upset, because he thought that Ajaan Suwat was saying that lay people can’t …
- Motivation… So focus on giving it top priority. Or you can think of the meditation as a gift, not only to yourself but to the people around you. When you come out of meditation, you’re in a much better mood. As Ajaan Lee says, when the meditation is going well, they can curse your mother and you won’t get angry. Even though you …
- Good Fences All Around You… concentration here. We establish ourselves in one of the frames of reference—the body in and of itself, or feelings, mind states in and of themselves—although primarily though the body. Focus on the breath. Any thought that doesn’t relate to the breath, just drop it. Realize that it’s a thought that’s run up against the fence, and you don’t …
- Looking Inward… We give our inner gaze the proper focus. Because until this particular issue is taken care of, it’s just going to linger in there and keep coming back at you again and again and again. No matter how much you try to deny it, no matter how much you try to run away from it, it’s always going to be there. And …
- Training in Right Resolve… top of the head down to the toes. Then take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing most clearly in the body. Focus your attention there, then ask yourself if the breath is comfortable. If you’re not sure, you can experiment with different kinds of breathing. See what the body needs right now, see …
- Opening Your World… This may be why the Buddha focused on the problem of suffering as the main focus of his teaching. It’s when you know that there’s suffering or stress inside: That’s when you’re willing to look outside and gain lessons from others. This is what makes us teachable. After all, the Buddha didn’t say he came to save all beings …
- Take Good Aim… This is one of the reasons why we’re working on concentration—to develop that steady, constant, unwavering quality of focus that enables our discernment to do its work. And what is the work of discernment? To understand our cravings. As we chanted just now, the mind is usually a slave to craving. We’re slaves to cravings because we don’t understand them …
- Training Your Intentions… We choose the ones we want to focus on and pay attention to, and we turn them into the actual experience of an aggregate. So we’re playing a very intentional and purposeful role in our engagement with these things—in fact, with our engagement of all our senses. It’s not the case that we’re just sitting here passively being bombarded by …
- Learning How to Learn… But, to do it well, you have to focus on the causes. Then, based on that desire, you develop your persistence: You actually do your best. Anything that comes up in the meditation that’s not skillful, you try to get rid of it. Anything that’s skillful, you try to give rise to it, then nurture it, nourish it, maintain it, help it …
- Right Speech… You’re reminding yourself, “Now stay here,” commenting on how the breath is, and trying to think up ways that the breath could be better, where to focus, what you find interesting, what you find useful. This inner conversation is actually an important part of the meditation. It’s called verbal fabrication: the way the mind chatters to itself. What you’re trying to …
- Cause & Effect… This is why, when we meditate, we focus on developing a sense of ease, a sense of rapture. It’s not simply a matter of being able to do it once and say, “Okay I’m no longer attached to that, I’m no longer excited by that. I can move on to other things.” These are your basic nourishment as a meditator. You …
- Gratitude & Trust… We’re indebted to the people who’ve made this possible, and so the best way to repay that debt is to focus on the practice. The Thai way of expressing this is that other people have started weaving something and so you continue the weaving. You don’t let the edges get all frayed. This is what gratitude is all about: It’s …
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