Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. The Lightning Bolt
     … So these are all ways of generating desire to focus on the practice so that you can take delight in seeing an unskillful quality slough away, and seeing skillful qualities growing. No matter how slowly they may seem to grow, they are there. You’ve got something in the mind that’s worth treasuring, worth protecting, worth nurturing. So these four qualities—finding a … 
  3. The Four Noble Truths from Within
     … The Buddha’s approach is to focus precisely on this area of your awareness: how you experience things from within, how you experience experience from within. And to find, also within, a solution to the problems that come from within. In teaching this path that we’re following, he gives us a vocabulary to understand how we experience things from within. Our culture doesn … 
  4. Determined on Awakening
     … You focus on the space between the dots. That’s even more calm. So what you’re doing, you’re refining your sense of what counts as calm, and that’s what you’re training for, until finally you get to the point where you say, “Fabricating any state of mind at all, no matter how easeful, no matter how blissful, is work. Wouldn … 
  5. The Noble Truths Come First
     … So focus on what your mind is doing. See if you can bring the mind to a state of stillness, so that you can have a sense of satisfaction being here. One of the reasons we feel so hungry for everything and so overwhelmed by all the choices out there is that we have this limitless sense of dissatisfaction inside. As the Buddha said … 
  6. Respect for Emptiness
     … Instead of focusing on the figures in the foreground, you focus on the still space around them. You realize that this space is an appealing space. It’s quiet, undisturbed. “There’s only this modicum of disturbance”: the singleness of mind focused on the breath, or whatever your topic of meditation is. You let go of all other concerns. When you do that, you … 
  7. Two Things to Keep in Mind
     … But if you focus on them, that’s not going to solve the problem. We’re not here to assign who’s to blame and who’s not to blame for your suffering. We’re here to find a way out. And the way out is by looking into the mind. How do you shape things? When you go about looking and listening, thinking … 
  8. The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless
     … He gets you to focus on something far away. You think you’re paying careful attention to where he’s paying careful attention, but actually he’s doing something else. That’s the nature of consciousness overcome by ignorance. So we want to look into these areas where we think we know. Ask yourself: Does this knowledge really put an end to suffering? If … 
  9. Forgiveness
     … You want to focus instead on your own mind, making sure that you have no ill will for anybody and that, at the very least, you’re harmless in your behavior. When you understand forgiveness in this way, then the practice of forgiveness is a lot easier. And it’s a lot more conducive to becoming free.
  10. Choosing Your Allies
     … One of the reasons why we focus on the breath is because, of the various elements or properties of the body, it’s the one that we can manipulate most easily. You can breathe long, short; deep, shallow; heavy, light; or long in, short out; short in, long out in a way that gives rise to a sense of ease. So whichever type of … 
  11. See Yourself as Active Verbs
     … As you focus on the breath, you notice that a perception helps you stay there—an image you hold in mind. What kind of image do you have? Is it a useful one? One that’s really useful, as the mind begins to settle down, is not so much that the breath is coming in from the outside but that there’s a breath … 
  12. The Dhamma Eye
     … So, you focus your energy on the path. The other discussion of how to get to stream-entry, of course, is the four factors for stream-entry: You find a person of integrity, you listen to the true Dhamma, you apply appropriate attention, and you practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. That’s how you get there. It’s all very plain … 
  13. Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge
     … So what’s going on here? If it’s not your self, then why focus on it?” You’re focusing on it because simply being told that it’s not your self is not enough to make you get rid of your attachments to it. You’ve got to explore it. To what extent can you really control the breath? Push it and see … 
  14. Nuclear Thinking
     … When you realize that you always have another place to focus, you can have control over your thinking. You just switch back to that mode of that enlarged awareness and stay, leaving the thoughts to pass away on their own. Now don’t think that that enlarged awareness is the Buddha’s unconditioned. It’s more like his reference to the word “dhatu,” which … 
  15. All Three Functions of Mindfulness
     … And that response—that that one sutta contains everything you need to know about vipassana or even about mindfulness—has led to what’s now the modern mindfulness movement, where the focus is totally on the first two functions of mindfulness: to be in the present moment and to recognize what’s happening. But the sutta’s not complete. It’s not even a … 
  16. Protection
     … Now, at the same time that you focus on the breath, you’re also putting aside any thoughts that would pull you out into the world. This is your frame of reference right here. Again, sometimes we hear that mindfulness doesn’t mean just non-judging awareness. It’s also all-encompassing, allowing you to go wherever you want. But the Buddha says that … 
  17. Understanding Through Developing
     … As you get the mind to settle down, you learn a lot about it—you learn that you need to have something to focus on and you’re going to have to talk to yourself to stay. If you want to give rise to a sense of well-being to reinforce your original intention, you have to talk about what kind of breathing would … 
  18. To Escape the Prison of Time
     … Finally, from the third knowledge, there’s the principle that if we focus on the problem of suffering and its cause, and if we learn the path of action that can put an end to its cause, we’ll find true happiness. And a large part of that path of action is right view. When the Buddha gave the most succinct statement of his … 
  19. Abandoning & Developing
     … On the way to your goal, you focus on these issues. Instead of taking the path of your dreams of the goal, you take a path of specific actions that the Buddha said will take you there, step by step by step. And remind yourself, however many steps it’s going to take, it’s always going to be less than the path of … 
  20. Training Your Selves
     … You’ve got the agent who’s trying to focus on the breath. You’ve got the part of you that wants to enjoy the sense of well-being that comes when the mind settles down and has a sense of ease, a sense of fullness. And you’ve got that commentator who’s trying to train the other two, but the commentator itself … 
  21. The Path of Mistakes
     … When there’s a sense of tension anywhere in the body, learn how to breathe around it, or breathe through it, to relieve as much of the tension as you can without totally losing focus. You direct your thoughts to the breath. You evaluate the breath: “What kind of breathing feels good right now?” This is an important part of the practice because it … 
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