Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Things As They Function
     … of the coolness of water. That’s a good perception to hold your mind right now: which parts of the body are cooler than the other parts, wherever that might be. Focus your attention there, and then think of that coolness seeping through the rest of the body. If you can hold to the perception strongly enough, consistently enough, you see that it actually … 
  3. The Context for No Context
     … As you focus on the breath and on the body, that sense of “you” sitting there is going to get pared away, too, as you begin to recognize more and more the factors of mind that keep you with the breath, keep you with the body, and the factors of the mind that pull you away. If anything pulls you away, learn how not … 
  4. Seclusion
     … If the topic is not interesting, you’re going to find other things to focus on. But then what are you focusing on? It’s the same old stuff you’ve usually thought about in the past. Here you’re trying to develop a new kind of skill: the skill of making up your mind to stay with one thing and really following through … 
  5. Willing to Question Yourself
     … It’s a process of doing and gauging the results and then doing again and gauging the results again, as with the questions that the Buddha told the Kalamas to ask: “What when I put into practice, is actually going to give rise to results that are skillful; results that are blameless?” You start with questions and then you move in to focus on … 
  6. Wisdom Through Training
    When you focus on the breath, know when it’s coming in and when it’s going out, and keep watch over your mind at the same time, noticing if it’s staying with the breath or not. If you catch it slipping off, bring it back. Slips off again, bring it back again. Slips off ten times, a hundred times, bring it back … 
  7. Radiating Goodness
     … After all, the Buddha encourages you to find a quiet place, a secluded place, out in the wilderness or an empty building, where you can get away from other people and really focus on your own mind, and get a sense of what your issues are, as opposed to what the issues that everybody else shouts at you are. That’s one kind of … 
  8. A Larger Perspective
     … This is why the Buddha says that mindfulness practice can focus both internally and externally. And remember here that “mindfulness” means keeping something in mind. Being mindful of somebody else’s breath, say, is not a matter of sitting next to them and listening to their breath. It’s keeping in mind the fact that we all have breath. The same with mindfulness of … 
  9. Refuge & Strength
     … So you focus here to keep yourself safe everywhere. After all, what does it mean to be safe? It means you have something of value inside and you can protect it. Fortunately, it’s something that no one else can take—but you can throw it away, so you have to be careful. This is why these strengths, the Buddha said, are supported by … 
  10. The Dhamma Wheel Shakes Up the World
     … You want to focus in on your breath. Work on your Dhamma wheel inside. It’s December 12th, the twelfth day of the twelfth month, a good day to chant the Dhammacakka because the Dhamma wheel has twelve spokes. You may have noticed that passage where the Buddha talks about the four noble truths and the three levels of knowledge with regard to each … 
  11. Tranquility & Insight
     … You want to focus in on the breath, try to understand the breath in all the various ways it moves around in the body. But after a while, as you get good at that, you begin to develop the ability to step back a bit and watch the mind in action around all of this, to see the power of your perceptions, to see … 
  12. A Private Matter
     … It may take time to focus on it, time to get a sense of what helps it, what doesn’t help it. But the sense of inner refreshment that comes: You want that to be as continuous as possible. The more continuous it is, the more strength it develops. The more resilient it becomes, the more you can rely on it, even in very … 
  13. Tranquility & Insight in Tandem
     … As you get more solid in your concentration, then the theme of inconstancy begins to focus on the quality of your concentration itself. How does it go up? How does it go down? And what do you do when it goes up? What do you do when it goes down? Try to figure this out so that you can make the concentration steadier and … 
  14. Inconstant, Stressful, Not-self
     … Where are you going to put your energy, where are you going to focus your time, however much time you have left? Because you don’t really know how much time you have. The Buddha says that the only people who are really heedful are the ones who say, “May I have one more in-and-out-breath. I’ll try to make the … 
  15. Brahmaviharas on the Path
     … You have to accept that, learn how to develop equanimity in all cases, so that you can focus your energies on areas where you can make a change. Making these attitudes unlimited is not easy. It’s easy to feel goodwill for some people but not for others, and so on down the line. It takes some work to try to make our attitudes … 
  16. Taking Responsibility
     … if something new comes up, you won’t just go running for it just because you want anything but where you are. You want to put yourself in a good place. Focus on the breath; allow it to be comfortable. Learn to investigate the breath. Let the breath capture your imagination—realizing that the breath energy in the body has all kinds of dimensions … 
  17. Independent Values
     … other thoughts and concerns drop away for the time being. It’s time to give the mind some time to be its own self, not be pushed around by outside events. Focus on your breath. Know when it’s coming in, know when it’s going out. Try to remember that. This quality is called mindfulness. Try to be with each breath. If you … 
  18. Heedfulness
    When you focus on your breath, you want to be with each breath as it comes in, each breath as it goes out, as continually as possible. The Buddha once asked the monks if they were heedful. He asked them, “How often do you think about death?” One monk said, “I think about death once every day, thinking that today I can do something … 
  19. Can Do
     … How do you breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of refreshment? Remember, there are lots of different ways you can conceive of the breath, and already you’re beginning to use mental fabrication, i.e., perceptions, as you focus on the breath, because these will be the big issues: your perceptions around the pain. They start with your perceptions of … 
  20. Refuge for All Beings
     … When you’re sitting here, you learn how to deal with the pains in the body as you get the mind to settle down—working with the breath, working with your attitude, working with the places you focus so that you can live with pain and not suffer from it. That way, you’re not overcome by pain. It’s the same with pleasure … 
  21. The Time & Place to Let Go
    Close your eyes and focus on the breath. Watch it as it comes in; watch it as it goes out. Notice how it feels. Notice where you feel it most predominantly. It might be at the nose, the rising and falling of the chest, the rise and fall of the abdomen, or anywhere in the body where you can clearly sense: Now the breath … 
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