Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. The Prison Break
     … Or think of adjusting your focus, so that instead of focusing on the gross energies in the body, you focus on the subtler ones that are right there in the same place. Try to erase any perception you have of the skin of the body holding things in. Remember, the skin is full of pores. The atoms of the skin are largely space. Hold … 
  3. Meditation as a Skill
     … In other words, you take your desire for awakening and you focus it on your breath, because desiring awakening is like desiring something really far, far away. The desire is there, it’s why you’re practicing, but you want to focus it on something nearby, something you can actually observe. It’s like going to a city on the horizon. If you focus … 
  4. Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Space
     … As you get a sense of the breath, you can focus on those properties, and you can get them into balance, too. Ajaan Fuang would often have his students, as soon as the breath calmed down and was very still in the body, focus first on fire, the warmth in the body. Where in the body is the warmest spot right now? Focus on … 
  5. Beyond Nature
     … There are lots of different potentials from your past kamma that you can focus on in any given moment. Your choice of what to focus on is going to determine what you experience. For instance, there are potentials for different kinds of feelings. There are places in the body that, if you focused on them, could get you really tied up in anguish or … 
  6. Many Desires, Many Selves
    As we practice, we try to focus our desires on one thing—the ending of suffering—but the nature of the mind is that it desires tend to head off in lots of different directions, like the man who jumped on a horse and rode off in four directions all at once. Our desires to pull us here, pull us there, and we try … 
  7. Look after the Source
     … And that’s where you should focus your attention: on the good qualities you’re developing, both because they’ll lead to your true happiness, and also because a mind that’s imbued with these good qualities is going to come up with words and actions that are more conducive to well-being all around. Still, the focus has to be in here. You … 
  8. Allies
     … The second one is not the kind of focus you want to develop. You want to have an open focus that creates a sense of well-being where your attention is focused, where your attention is placed. Once you’ve developed that kind of focus, then you can move it around the body and you’re not going to cause any harm. Ultimately, though … 
  9. The Kamma of Meditation
     … That’s why we focus on training the mind. The beginning of the training, of course, is with the precepts, to train you to want to act in ways that are skillful—no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no intoxicants. You take these precepts on, not simply to be obedient, but to focus on the quality of your intention. You’ll … 
  10. Persistence
     … You focus on the steadiness of your gaze. You don’t want to focus on anticipating things. I got a call this evening from someone who wanted to know how long it was going to take to attain stream-entry. She was hoping that it would be a matter of months. And as I told her, you can’t focus on that. Where are … 
  11. The Prison Break
     … Some things are coming in from your past karma, but you have the choice to decide which potentials you’re going to focus on, how you’re going to focus on them, and how you’re going to shape them in the present. If you couldn’t do this, there’d be no point in focusing on the present moment in the meditation. We … 
  12. The Return of Chickens from Hell
     … You can focus on these things in different ways and make something different out of them. There are also potentials for pleasures and pains right now. You could focus on a painful part of the body and make yourself really miserable for the hour, or you could focus on something pleasant—and depending on how unskillful you are, you can even make yourself miserable … 
  13. Goodwill & Kamma
     … If there’s pain in your back, pain in your hips, pain in your legs, how can you learn how not to focus on it? If you find that focusing on it actually makes it worse, you’ve got to stay away from it for a while. If you find that focusing on it helps you understand the process of pain, then focus on … 
  14. Judging Just Right
     … Cast around in the body; see if you can find any sensations that feel light and focus on them. See if that lightens things when they’re too heavy. Or if you’re feeling giddy or light-headed, where in the body is a sensation of solidity, weight? Focus in on that. One of the reasons we have instructions for developing your discernment is … 
  15. Clinging
     … You can focus on something and disperse the tension wherever you’re focused. It may be because of this reason that some people object to the idea of calling samadhi “concentration,” because they think concentration has to be tense. It doesn’t. It’s centered. The trick is to focus on something and disperse the energy there at the same time. Wherever you notice … 
  16. In Times of Danger and Fear
     … The perceptions you hold in mind and the feelings you focus on all have an impact on how you relate to the breath and whether the mind can become calm, have a sense of well-being, happy to be with the breath. In other words, as you focus on getting comfortable with the breath, you’re going to begin to notice the mind as … 
  17. Not Resolved on Self
     … So you focus on that issue. That becomes central. You try to develop the qualities that will make that focus as solid as possible. It’s as if you’re doing your own Copernican revolution. Copernicus took the center of the universe and moved it from the Earth to the Sun, which solved a lot of problems in understanding the movement of the planets … 
  18. Large Perspective, Small Focus
     … Only then was he able to focus in on his own mind and figure out what the problem was—what was keeping all of this activity going and creating a lot of suffering—and how to put an end to it. That’s a pattern we can take to heart, too, in our own practice. We don’t necessarily have to get those particular … 
  19. Dignity in the Face of Hardship
     … So focus your energy, focus your attention on the areas where you do have power, where you do have control both in your relationships with other people—where you treat them with generosity and virtue—and in your relationship to your own mind. Remember that a sense of dignity will sustain you. You may not be able to eat it, it may not be … 
  20. Proving the Teachings
     … So focus on the breath. As we bring the mind in to the present moment, that’s giving the mind a good place to stay from which you can see things very clearly. When you stay here, you begin to see the shape of your life in new ways. You can get out of the old narratives, that “This person did that to me … 
  21. To Practice Dying
     … The Buddha has you focus on what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing. The same principle applies when you approached death. He doesn’t talk about what dies, what gets reborn, or what goes in between, aside from explaining the process by which it happens, and focusing specifically on what you’re doing. What happens at death is very … 
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