Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Healing & Protection
     … Wherever it seems most prominent or easiest to follow, focus your attention there. Then notice if it’s comfortable. At what point does the breath get too long? Or when does it feel too short? You can experiment. There are lots of ways to experiment. You can make it long in and short out, or short in and long out, and then tweak the … 
  3. Insight into Pain
     … As you focus on that aspect of your body, you find that there are also feelings of pain or pleasure. It’s important that you learn how to distinguish those pain and pleasure sensations from the four properties, because otherwise they get glommed together, especially with the earth, the solid aspect of the body. When there’s a pain, you tend to glom it … 
  4. Becoming
     … You can choose instead to focus on the perception of space permeating the mist. That’s when you experience the infinitude of that space — and at that point you begin to realize that even the perception of form or the experience of form contains an element of intention. You then begin to see this process in relation to the formless realms as well: When … 
  5. Pride in Your Craft
     … So as we meditate, we focus first on what we can do in the present moment to make things better. This is why the breath-meditation method of Ajaan Lee taught focuses on breathing in a comfortable way. At the same time, you learn from what you’re doing. You can observe your breath and you can learn from uncomfortable breathing. Fortunately, there’s … 
  6. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … This in particular is one of the paradoxes that Ajaan Lee liked to focus on. As he said, before the Buddha let go of everything as stressful, inconstant, and not-self, he first took what was stressful and turned it into something pleasant—as in the way we’re working with the breath right now. He took what’s inconstant—this changeable mind—and … 
  7. Deconstruct Your Emotions
     … in other words, what topics you focus on and what you tell yourself about them. Someone does something and it triggers all your anger triggers. But what are those triggers? The sense of oppression, the sense of being wronged: What are the issues that you tend to carry around in this way? A lot of us go around, as Ajaan Lee says, with exposed … 
  8. A Committed Relationship
     … You want to be able to maintain that same sense of purpose, that same sense of focus. So there’s work to be done. We’re not here just for the pleasure of the concentration. We’re here because the concentration gives us a framework, a foundation where we can do really serious work on the mind. This is why we have to be … 
  9. Questioning & Acceptance
     … You focus, say, on the sense of form here in the concentration: the form of the body, the breath, the earth property, the wind property, the water property. You ask: Is this constant? The states of concentration can seem very constant, but you’ve got to look very carefully, and you’ll see that there is a slight bit of inconstancy. The level of … 
  10. Free from Buddha Nature
     … Directed thought is when you focus your attention on a particular topic to keep it there. Evaluation is checking to see: “How does this feel? Does this feel good? Does this feel right? Is this a comfortable place to stay? Is it an uncomfortable place to stay? How about my mind? Is it ready to settle down right now, or does it need a … 
  11. The Fourth Frame of Reference
     … Get the mind to focus on easing the breath, calming the breath down, working through tension in the body, until the mind gets more solid and can come to a state of equanimity and equipoise. So, again, these frameworks of the five hindrances and the seven factors for awakening are not just guidelines for bare awareness. They’re frameworks telling you what to do … 
  12. The Same but Different, but the Same
     … Other people find it more congenial to focus on the breath and to make the breath comfortable, easeful, filling. Other people find that they need to contemplate the parts of the body in order for the mind to settle down: visualizing where the bones are, or visualizing the different parts of the body, taking them apart one by one, and putting them in piles … 
  13. Breath Meditation: The Third Tetrad
     … The Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation in the first three tetrads give you some handles on how to figure out, “Okay, what am I doing as I create a state of mind and how can I do it better?” You focus on the issues of the way you breathe, the perceptions you hold in mind, the feelings that these things give rise to … 
  14. The Fourth Noble Truth
     … How is the mind relating to the breath? In the beginning, the main focus is on the breath. When you’re trying to get the mind into jhana, you don’t take jhana as your object. You take the breath as your object. If you approach the breath properly, the jhana will come without your having to think about it. You simply think about … 
  15. The Reality of Your Thoughts
     … What are the perceptions that underlie that particular emotion? What are the ways of thinking and evaluating? Are they useful or are they not? What are they accomplishing? And again, if you can keep reminding yourself that even the emotion is only just a sketch of reality, it helps you loosen up your attachments to the particular details that you tend to focus on … 
  16. When it’s Hard to Settle Down
     … Sometimes you have lots of issues that are unresolved, and simply putting them aside and trying to focus on the breath is not enough to get past them. You have to think them through. This means thinking about them in a way that’s not your usual way of thinking about them, because your usual way of thinking about them is what’s causing … 
  17. Adjusting the Flame
     … Instead, focus on the body. Think of all the possible channels in your neck where that excess energy can flow down. What’s happening is that most of us carry a lot of thinking around in our heads, thinking that restricts the blood flow. The little muscles and the blood vessels get tightened up as we think. And we have lots of thoughts to … 
  18. Negotiating with Death
     … If there’s desire, the object that you focus on really is desirable. Even if someone else were to look in on your fantasies about what’s desirable and say, “Good grief. How could you desire that?” But you’re not thinking in those terms. You’re just thinking about how much it really is desirable. Well, the Buddha helps you to step back … 
  19. Change Your Perceptions
     … In other words, ignorance has an impetus that has an impact on fabrication, and then ignorance is out of the picture as you focus on what fabrication does, when the next factor and what the next factor does, and the next. Ignorance is there all the time. It sustains the whole process, but ignorance is something that can be changed by knowledge. Learn to … 
  20. Skills for Awakening
     … This means that we practice concentration, we get the mind calm, we focus on the present moment as nourishment, as strength, as materials that we then fashion with our skills, so that we can find the object of our search—and find an object at the end of the search that really puts an end to searches. That’s the point where the craftsman … 
  21. Generosity First
     … At the same time, the spaciousness that comes from generosity gives you the right mindset for the concentration practice, gives you the right mindset for insight practice — because when you sit down and focus on the breath, what kind of mind do you have? The mind you’ve been creating through your generous and virtuous actions. A spacious mind, not the narrow mind of … 
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