Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. Space for Sustained Contemplation
     … That’s eventually what you want to focus on: Why is the mind creating these issues for itself? In other words, you focus on the object that you’ve been feeding on to the point where you realize the problem that, one, it’s not worth feeding on, but then two, the real problem is still inside. You can think about this for a … 
  7. Mindfulness of Death
     … This means that these reflections don’t focus on death. They focus on the importance of the mind and your ability to make something good out of the mind. This is why recollection of death is not depressing. It’s encouraging. There’s work to be done with each breath; work to be done with each heartbeat. Good work. So if you find yourself … 
  8. How to Look, How to Listen
     … the awareness you usually bring to focus on an issue, on what you’re trying to read, on what you’re trying to listen to, or on one spot in the body. Try to bring the same intensity to everything. Now, that doesn’t mean you blot out the rest of your body with your eye-focus. Just the opposite. You try to let … 
  9. Evaluation
     … He says to focus your powers of evaluation here, and then he has you apply that same principle to the practice of meditation. You focus on the breath. Think about the breath and evaluate it. Is this a good comfortable breath to stay with? Does it feel good being with the breath? If it doesn’t, you can change. No one is standing over … 
  10. The Middle Way
     … So focus right now on what you’re doing right now. There are all kinds of things you can focus on, but to be on the path, you want to focus on actions in the present moment. As for anything else that would come up and change your frame of reference, you can say, “No, thanks, not right now.” That leaves open the possibility … 
  11. Befriending the Breath
     … You can focus on the breath anywhere in the body that seems comfortable—it might be the tip of the nose, the base of the throat, the middle of the chest, down in your abdomen, any part of the body that lets you know clearly that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. You can sense it, and it … 
  12. The Skills of a Hunter
     … When we focus, we tend to tense up. But here the focus has to be relaxed. When we’re trying to be alert, we tense up. Here again, alertness has to be relaxed. When we’re relaxed, we tend to fall asleep. And here we have to stay awake. So work on combining those skills, finding the right balance. It’s something you have … 
  13. A Strong Mind
    We’ve got a whole hour now, so focus on developing the mind. That’s what the Pali term citta-bhavana, the word for meditation, actually means: You’re developing the mind. The question is, what do you want to develop? You could sit here and develop all kinds of thoughts. But that’s not what the word means. The word really means developing … 
  14. Constant, Easeful, Self
     … There’s a feedback loop between the constancy of your focus and the pleasure that comes as a result. In other words, if you can keep your focus steady and calm, the breath tends to become more comfortable just on its own. And then as it gets more comfortable, it gets easier to stay focused. So the two qualities of being more constant and … 
  15. Giving to the Meditation
     … What are you bringing to the meditation? You may be bringing a day full of scattered thoughts, worries about this, that, the other thing, and as you focus on the negative things you’re bringing to the meditation it makes it difficult. Focus on the positive things: You’ve got a body; you’ve got the breath; you’ve got a certain amount of … 
  16. The Larger Picture
     … When you focus on the present moment like this, this is how things have an opportunity to grow. After all, where did the Buddha find his awakening? In the present moment. After having taken the larger view, he was able to focus down on what he actually had, right here right now. The large view gives you perspective, reminds you that this is a … 
  17. A Matter of Life & Death
     … This is why your focus has to be very close. It’s so easy to focus on the problems outside, but then focusing on the problems outside is one the reasons why you’re suffering. So you learn to look at what you’re doing. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha has us focus on the breath, to be sensitive about … 
  18. Not Pained by Pain
    When the Buddha teaches how to focus on feelings as you meditate, there are four steps: Focused on the breath, you learn how to breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of rapture and refreshment; that’s the first step. The second step, you breathe in and out giving rise to a sense of pleasure. The third is that you breathe … 
  19. Consciousness, Awakened & Not
     … That’s his strategy Which is why people who don’t focus on the precepts, don’t focus on mastering them as skills, tend to mistake your present-moment awareness for something unconditioned. They say, “It’s there all the time, always present. It seems unconditioned. Has no social conditioning, no sense of a person in there if you don’t apply it.” In … 
  20. Wandering Aimlessly
     … That was the Buddha’s focus. He was primarily a problem-solver. He wasn’t trying to map everything out, because the more you map things out, the more states of becoming you create. Even a basic sense of place is a part of a state of becoming. You situate yourself in a feeling, and then you build a world around it. You build … 
  21. Discernment in Concentration
     … As we focus on the breath, what’s the best image to hold in mind? Where is the best place to focus? And how do you focus? Some people, when they focus on a spot in the body, tend to tense it up. Can you learn how to stay at that spot and release the tension at the same time, and yet maintain your … 
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