Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 114
  2. Get Real
     … But the things you’re going to see depend on your own powers of observation as you adjust the breath, as you adjust your focus. That act of adjusting is the beginning of discernment. You begin to see connections: cause and effect. When you choose to breathe in a certain way, certain sensations are going to result, either pleasurable or painful. That’s the … 
  3. Modest in Manner, but Not in Goals
     … able to sit here with no thoughts of ill-will for anybody. Have no grudges. Just let things be—because you have work to do inside. That’s the next step. Focus on your breath and keep watch over the mind to make sure that it stays with the breath. It’s almost as if you have two minds here: the one focused on … 
  4. Respect Opens Possibilities
     … Our education narrows our focus, and they’re threatening to make it more narrow—devoting all education to helping the economy. The Buddha offers a different kind of education—an education that opens possibilities of what a human being can do. So as you respect those possibilities and explore them, it’s the respect that allows you to explore them. Otherwise you wouldn’t … 
  5. Against Your Type
     … The Buddha’s teachings focus primarily not on types of people but on types of actions: the types of action that gives rise to suffering, the types of action that can put an end to suffering. Dependent co- arising, the four noble truths, emptiness: All the really big basic teachings are questions of action and result. That’s how the Buddha wants us to … 
  6. The Brahmaviharas Are Not a Complete Practice
     … As for other people—as in the instructions to Rahula, the Buddha’s son—once you spread thoughts of goodwill in all directions, then you focus on the breath. We’re here both to gain the sense of well-being that comes from concentration and to use that concentration to give rise to more mindfulness, more alertness, and more discernment. That’s the part … 
  7. Free from Animosity
     … That’s where we have to focus our attention. But first we have to understand, what does it mean to hold on to something, to cling to something? Because we also chant, *pañc’upādānakkhandā—*we’re suffering because of our clinging to those five aggregates. As a psychologist once said, your strongest sense of self is when you feel you’ve been wronged, you … 
  8. Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence
     … We look at our memory and ask, “What in my memory is useful for right now? What’s not useful?” Focus only on the things that are useful, and those good memories will help you recognize: What right now is skillful? How do you recognize what’s skillful coming up in the mind? How do you recognize what’s not skillful? How do you … 
  9. Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt
    When you focus on the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels really refreshing. Think of the breath energizing your entire torso all the way down, and then even beyond the torso down through the legs, down the back. Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the … 
  10. Appreciating Dispassion
     … The body seems to be a mist of sensation dots, and you focus on the space between the dots. You realize that that space has no boundary at all. It permeates the body, extends outside the body, goes through the walls of the sālā, out through everything in the world. You can maintain that perception—very spacious, very light. That’s where you go … 
  11. Fighting Spirit
     … Even if physical pain doesn’t go away, you really want to focus on the mental pain. That’s the difference between the suffering in the three characteristics and suffering in the four noble truths. In the three characteristics, the simple fact that things change leads to stress. As long as you’re experiencing a body and experiencing the human world around that body … 
  12. The Karma Snake
     … And although it may seem as if the teachings on karma focus your attention a lot on the past and future, the Buddha would always bring the issue back into the present, because the future and past are very much intimately connected with what you’re doing in the present. It’s not as if the present is something that stands outside of time … 
  13. Ānāpānasati Day
     … way I breathe make me feel overwhelmed? How does the way I talk to myself make me feel overwhelmed? The way I image things in my mind and the feelings I focus on: How does that make me feel overwhelmed? I don’t need that. I can construct these things in a different way.” This is why we have all those texts by the … 
  14. A Legacy of Strengths
     … And these are actualized by your present karma, which is another reason why we focus in the present moment. Not only is this the best time to do what needs to be done, but this is the place where the work gets done. So we’re convinced in the fact that our actions do matter. And where do our actions come from? They come … 
  15. Over-informed
     … He didn’t tell them they could become stream-enterers, or once-returners, or non-returners, or arahants. He basically said, This is the path for putting an end to suffering. Focus on the suffering you’re doing right now. Notice that you’re doing it. You’re clinging to things. It’s not simply that you’re on the receiving end of the … 
  16. Step Outside the World
     … A lot of people focus on how horrible it was that Prince Siddhartha left his wife and his son, but they forget to notice that he came back and taught his wife to be an arahant. He raised his son, and when his son became mature, reached adulthood, he became an arahant as well. Very few fathers can do that for their family. So … 
  17. Healthy Conceit
     … You have to learn how to use conceit skillfully as part of the path to focus you on getting to the goal. Once you’ve gotten to the goal, then you abandon it. Here the skillful conceit is, “Other people can do this, why can’t I?” An important part of healthy conceit is recognizing that it’s not the case that you’re … 
  18. Thinking Your Way to Stillness
     … There’s a tendency in modern literature to focus on antiheroes, people whose virtue lies in their being frank about their weaknesses—which is a kind of virtue, but not the whole story of virtue. For the sake of the practice, it’s more useful to read about people who’ve succeeded in doing what’s difficult. They’re our friends from the past … 
  19. Endurance Made Easier
     … The first step is to focus on the mind. To what extent is the mind making it harder to endure these things? The Buddha gives the example of a person shot by an arrow. And being shot by one arrow isn’t enough: He shoots himself with more arrows. The first arrow is the actual pain; the extra arrows are all his mental flailing … 
  20. Equanimity in Heart & Mind
     … So focus on your breath, something that’s right here. You don’t have to go looking anyplace else for it. It’s about as close to the mind as you can get in the world. Of the various properties in the body, it’s also the one that’s most responsive to the heart and mind. You can tell yourself to breathe long … 
  21. The Triple Training
     … Because we’re people who practice the Dhamma, that’s where our primary focus has to be: What are we doing, to what extent are we committed to the path, and to what extent are we actually learning from it? The Buddha said there are two big obstacles to gaining the Dhamma. One is not being committed, and other is not reflecting. In other … 
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