Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Comprehending Suffering
     … the breath going to those parts of the body until you find a part of the body that’s extremely sensitive and is very gratified when the breath feels good there. Focus there. Let that be your gauge for what kind of breathing would be best for the body right now. Then think of that sense of well-being spreading from that spot with … 
  3. Beyond Inter-eating
     … that regardless of the conditions of your life, if you focus on acting skillfully, things are going to improve. But conviction also strengthens you in the sense that it alerts you to the fact that there’s a danger here as well. If you look at your intentions in your untrained mind, then you realize how precarious a thing it is—depending for your … 
  4. The Best News in the World
     … So that’s what we’re trying to do now. When the Buddha finally found the path to awakening, he started with right concentration. So let’s start with right concentration. Focus on your breath. Keep your thoughts connected to the breath. Then evaluate the breath. How does it feel? You might try some long breathing for a while to see if long breathing … 
  5. Discipline
     … But is it good for anything more than that? If we focus more on what we find beautiful in the body, it’s going to pull us away from our center here. But you can take the body apart in your mind. Think about all the different parts of the body. We have that list of the 32, and that’s just a beginning … 
  6. Free Not to Suffer
     … how well you’re doing. It’s in this way that you take advantage of that freedom to choose in the present moment, to choose what you’re going to do. Focus in on doing the most skillful thing possible, and that way you get sensitive to the mind. The mind is a lot easier to watch when you’re trying to do skillful … 
  7. Toughen & Tenderize the Mind
     … If the body needs it, you focus on the breath and there it is. Its intensity will change over time, depending on how much wear and tear the body and the mind have been through. But there will come a point when you just have to let it fade away on its own so that the mind can get down to a sense of … 
  8. Lessons from Jhana
     … where are you holding on? Some of these states require a very precise focus on exactly what perception you’re going to hold onto and which perceptions you’re going to let go. There is a part of the mind that realizes. “Okay, I could leave this perception at any time, and hold onto other perceptions.” So it seems rather arbitrary. Why stay here … 
  9. Always in Training
     … Otherwise, try and have one spot in the body that’s particularly sensitive, that reacts very quickly to changes in your mood, and focus your attention there. Always breathe in a way that keeps it open, relaxed, spacious so that when something comes up and it constricts, you’ll know immediately, and you’ll have a technique for stopping it in its tracks. Just … 
  10. Anapanasati Day
     … As you focus on the breath, you find the all the frames of reference are here. There’s the body, of which the breath is a part, and there are feelings that go along with the breath, the mind states, and then the individual qualities within the mind: skillful and unskillful. They’re all right here. This is why the Buddha makes a point … 
  11. Rebirth is Relevant
     … But he showed that if you focus not on what gets reborn—something for which you’re not responsible—but on how it happens—something for which you are responsible—you can learn to handle the process in a way that can either alleviate a lot of the suffering or put an end to it altogether. In this way, the issues of rebirth are … 
  12. Restraint
     … And here, he said, the measure of your discernment is how well you can convince yourself to do the right thing—in other words, to forget about your likes and dislikes, and to focus on the results. So even though you don’t like to do something but it gives good results, you’re able to talk yourself into wanting to do it: finding … 
  13. Attention to Your Potentials
     … But that’s basically what we have to focus on. You realize that there are skillful qualities in the mind, and when you act on them, you get good results. When you act on the unskillful qualities, you get bad results. And by seeing that, you can overcome your doubts. As for appropriate attention applied to the path, the duty there, of course, is … 
  14. Mindful of the Buddha’s Shoulds
     … You focus on the breath—you have to remind yourself to stay with the breath. In some cases, you actively have to talk to yourself, especially if the mind finds it hard to settle down. You have to ask yourself, “Why?” Try to figure it out. There will be an inner conversation, and when you figure out the problems, you can settle in more … 
  15. Kindfulness
     … Look at the ways you think, the ways you focus on things, the ways you understand things, the ways you interpret things, the intentions you have, the ways you pay attention to things. These are all actions that might be skillful or not. As your sensitivity develops, you begin to see more and more where you’re acting in an unskillful way, thinking, interpreting … 
  16. Days Fly Past
     … So what is your intention right now? Focus on the breath, get the mind to settle down. And in the process of settling down, learn to see what’s going on, to see more and more clearly what you are doing. The whole point of the practice is to get clearer on what it is to act. What does it mean to do something … 
  17. Cleaning up Your Personal Environment
     … The trick here is to focus on areas where you can make a difference, where you can create a better environment for your meditation, a better environment for your practice. And the practice itself, if you really do it in all its dimensions, does create a different environment. In other words, you’re not simply trying to squeeze your meditation time into the rest … 
  18. Stern Kindness
    As we focus on the breath, two important qualities are being developed. One is mindfulness. That’s the ability to keep something in mind, like reminding yourself to stay with the breath. The other’s alertness, watching what’s going on. But mindfulness and alertness on their own are not enough. You also have to have the quality of ardency, the motivation that you … 
  19. Intent
     … This is why you want to focus intently right here. In fact, according to dependent co-arising, what you’re doing right now, your intentions right now, are something you sense prior to the input from the senses. That means you’re priming yourself. So you want to look into the mind to see the nature of its priming, where its pushing you. And … 
  20. Clinging & Feeding
     … So you want to focus your views on things that are really conducive to the end of stress, and not hold on to the kind of views that just keep you tied down. The third kind of clinging is to habits and practices. The word habit, here, is the translation of sila. Sometimes it’s translated as precepts or rites and rituals but it … 
  21. Right View
     … You concentrate the mind in a particular way, focus in a particular way, and see: Does it really get concentrated? Does it really have a sense of well-being that’s not tense and constricted? And once you gain a sense of well-being, how do you maintain that? What can you do with it? As you get used to it, it’s like … 
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