Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 113
  2. Leaving Distractions Alone
     … You have to learn how to maintain your focus, ultimately, in all kinds of situations, peaceful and not. One of the reasons we come into physical seclusion like this is so that we can deal with the distractions in the mind—learn how not to be pulled away by thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future, or thoughts of other places right now … 
  3. The Fires of Sensuality
     … As you focus on the drawbacks of whatever object it is you’re desiring, it makes it easier to look at the desire itself. Do you really want to stay involved with this desire? Look at the physical side: You’re just sitting here desiring. Look at the way the mind burns. This is not the flame of jhana. This is the flame of … 
  4. Respect for the Mind
     … You focus on an object when you meditate. The Pali word for object, arammana, means support. The image is of a place where you put the mind. Think of the mind as something valuable. It’s like having gold in your house. You want to put the gold in a very good place where it’s safe. Or if you have an expensive heirloom … 
  5. Pain Is a Noble Truth
     … Pain is one of the things we focus on. Of course, we don’t go jumping right into the pain. Nobody, without the proper mental skills, can stay with it long enough to see it clearly. Our usual response to pain is that we want it to go away. Either we run away from it or we try to push it out of where … 
  6. The Buddha’s Conventions
     … As the Buddha said, you can focus on any one of these activities and try to understand where it’s coming from, how it’s causing suffering, what its allure is—why you like doing it—and then compare the allure with the drawbacks until you really see there’s no worth to what you’ve been clinging to. The allure is often just … 
  7. Trust Your Desire for Happiness
    There are many reasons why we focus on the breath, but one of them is that when you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present moment. You can’t watch your future breath. You can’t watch your past breath. That sensation in the present moment is what keeps you anchored, keeps you confident that you’re here in the … 
  8. The Humane Quality of the Path
     … In other words, when you’re greedy, you have to focus only on the aspects of what you like about the thing you’re greedy for, and you have to forget about how long it’s going to last, and about the bad karmic results of the actions you may have to do in order to get that thing. What’s happening is that … 
  9. Heedfulness All the Way Through
     … You lose your focus, and nothing gets developed. But if you stay with your one object, you begin to see the movements of the mind around that. This is where insight comes in. The Buddha never taught separate insight and tranquility styles of meditation. He taught one kind of meditation, which is right concentration. He said you can develop both tranquility and insight if … 
  10. Goodwill Without Limits
     … Now, part of the mind may say, “But I’d like to see so-and-so suffer first”—but why? Is that a part of your heart and mind you want to encourage? So by holding yourself to an unlimited standard like this, you help to expose areas of the heart and of the mind that tend to get missed when you simply focus … 
  11. Three More Recollections
     … When that happens, then, as the Buddha says, you focus on an inspiring theme—something that will make you happy to be here, confident that you’re doing something good, and you’re capable of doing something good. The sutta in which he says this doesn’t list any specific inspiring themes. But other suttas talk about getting inspired by what are called the … 
  12. The Body Doesn’t Care
     … There have been some people who’ve asked, “Why do you focus on the breath? After all, when you die, the breath is going to end, and where will that lead you?” Well, if all we learned about was the breath, then we would be in trouble. But the fact is that, as you’re getting the mind to stay with the breath, the … 
  13. How to Save the World
     … So, one really direct and visceral way of showing kindness to yourself is by watching the breath, getting to know the breath, learning how to make the most use of the breath in giving rise to a sense of well-being right here—starting at one spot in the body, wherever it’s easiest to focus on the breath, and then moving around to … 
  14. Directing the Flow
     … This takes effort, because the mind has a tendency to shrink the range of its awareness and focus on one little spot: this spot here, then that spot there. It’s kind of like a spotlight that moves around, like those crazy spotlights you sometimes see aimed up at the sky, moving in all directions—only that the mind is crazier, jumping here, jumping … 
  15. Skills of the Dhamma Wheel
     … So focus on learning how to distinguish these things, in the same way you have to distinguish between the kind of craving that causes stress and the kind of craving or desire that develops the skillful factors of the path. All of this requires skill. In fact, one way of translating ignorance, avijja,is “lack of skill.” The knowledge that replaces it, vijja, is … 
  16. Like a River Full of Water
     … So those are the two things you want to focus on. The first is developing these attitudes called the brahamaviharas, the sublime attitudes. You want to practice making them limitless. It’s not just that you can feel goodwill, sometimes, or compassion, sometimes, for some people. You want to train the mind so that you can feel these attitudes for everybody—people, animals—always … 
  17. The Wear & Tear of Life
     … So think about that as you focus on the breath. Try to breathe in a way that feels healing for the body and refreshing for the mind—smoothing over any rough spots, and helping to fill up some of the gaps. Life has a lot of other reflections to remind us that it’s unsure, full of aging, illness, death, and separation. And we … 
  18. sBeyond Acceptance
     … The question is, how to make the best use of it? You can focus on the breath and you can breathe in ways that feel good, or you can breathe in ways that don’t feel good. So you ask yourself, “Why breathe in ways that don’t feel good?” You’ve got this opportunity right here. You read in Ajaan Lee how you … 
  19. Admirable Friendship
     … Does it encourage you to put out more effort? Does it encourage you to be less entangled with people? Does it encourage you to be more content with your material surroundings? Does it encourage you to be less burdensome? These qualities deal with the way to the goal and they focus on two things: one, how you practice on your own; and two, how … 
  20. Over the Pass
     … We’re narrowing down our focus for the purpose of something really large. Ajaan Lee makes a comparison. He says, “The Buddha made himself large in terms of his thoughts, his words, and his deeds. But before he made himself large, he had to make himself very small.” Think of him out in the forest, first suffering through all those austerities, and who was … 
  21. In the Mood
     … It’s a good path; you get to sit here and focus on your breath, to work with the breath energy in the body so that it nourishes the body along with the mind, so that the mind has a greater sense of well-being. Even as you’re on the way, even though you haven’t reached the end yet, you can still … 
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