Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Assumptions
     … This is what the Buddha focused on again and again: the unnecessary stress we cause ourselves. All too often we think we have to do the things that cause stress, for one reason or another—whatever the reasons are we’ve picked up from our families, our schools, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet. There are all kinds of crazy assumptions out there about … 
  3. Meditate Because You Have To
     … You just keep focused on the path. When the goal is going to come, it’s going to come without any forewarning. But it’s going to appear right at this point where you’re paying full attention to the path, where you’re putting together all the right causes, being mindful to stay with the breath, being alert to how the breath feels … 
  4. Three Levels of Effort
     … Keep focused on the path. If you stay focused on the path, the goal will come because the path leads you there. This means that you give your full attention to what you’re doing right here, right now, because everything that you need to know is happening right here, right now. And the goal, when it comes, will open up right here, right … 
  5. Mindful All Day Long
     … And then, for whatever tasks you have to do, try to be really focused on them and focused on doing them well. This is one of the basic principles of the training in the forest tradition. That’s why, with Ajaan Fuang, I had to learn how to wash spittoons, how to place things so they didn’t make noise, how to put things … 
  6. Discernment in Concentration
     … The comments that the inner commentator is making—focusing on this issue, focusing on that—making comments, asking questions, evaluating. And then, just intending to stay. Even when you drop the directed thought and evaluation, you have to maintain an intention to keep this going. Then of course, there’s consciousness, which is the awareness of all these things. So, there you are: You … 
  7. Trust in Heedfulness
     … So it’s a gradual process of focusing in, focusing in. In the beginning, you may not be too sure, “Well, can I really trust this person or can I not?” “How about inside? Which voices inside can I trust and which ones can I not?” There’s no absolute guarantee from the beginning. But as you really focus on this task—and this … 
  8. How to Leave Concentration
     … When did the mind settle down? When was the concentration strongest? When was the sense of well-being strongest? Where were you focused? What was the breath like? What had you done leading up to that? Can you remember? If you’ve been ardent, alert, and mindful as you get the mind into concentration, you should be able to remember at least something about … 
  9. The Right Place to Look
     … He attacked his own mind—“attacked” in the sense of focusing his attention there—and really tried to straighten things out inside. Sometimes we hear that the Buddha wanted to put a stop to all suffering, regardless of whether it was caused by things inside or outside. But as he said, the real cause for the suffering is your own craving and ignorance. That … 
  10. A Simple Path Through a Complex Map
     … When he formulated dependent co-arising, he focused more on the complexity. There are other teachings that are simpler, but when he wanted to give a full picture of the causes of suffering, he laid them out in dependent co-arising. Many people comment on how complex it is. Different factors keep reappearing again and again: Feeling appears at least four times; in some … 
  11. Four Noble Questions
     … The ignorance that the Buddha says is the cause of suffering is a particular kind of delusion, in that it’s focused on the issues of suffering: not knowing suffering, not knowing its cause, not knowing its cessation, and not knowing the path to its cessation. We might think, “I’ve learned those thing. I’ve heard them, so I know them.” But there … 
  12. The Alternative of Concentration
     … The mind is focused on what you’re doing right there in the present moment: watching what you’re doing, watching the results of what you’re doing, immediately making adjustments if necessary. The more you can stay unwaveringly with that process, then the greater sense of well-being, the greater sense of absorption comes into the mind. When people talk about being “in … 
  13. Speech for the Sake of Stillness
     … What can you do to make it more comfortable? Is the breathing too long? Is it too short? Too heavy? Too light? Too fast? Too slow? What kind of image do you hold in mind when you think about the breath? When we talk about focusing on the breath, we’re focusing not so much the air coming in and out through the nose … 
  14. Construction Techniques
     … You breathe in and out focused on inconstancy. You breathe in and out focused on dispassion, cessation, and relinquishment, where you relinquish everything, including the path and your passion for the goal. So the Buddha gives you advice on how to become more sensitive to how this present moment is fabricated. Then he gives you advice on how to get beyond the fabrication. But … 
  15. When This Is, That Is
     … Instead of focusing on the breath, you focus on your desire. That’s not in the meditation instructions. The second reason is that when the desired results don’t come, you start getting frustrated, disappointed, impatient. But if you focus your desire on the causes, there’s no problem. Make up your mind to stay here with every breath. If you slip off, just … 
  16. Not What You Are, What You Do
     … The purpose of equanimity is to keep you focused on the things you can change, so that you don’t waste energy focusing on the things you can’t. In this way, as the members of your committee work together on the breath in a skillful way, you’re gaining some training in what are essentially social virtues, the brahmaviharas. Then you can apply … 
  17. Why Train the Mind
     … The Buddha talks about a sense of ease, pleasure, rapture, that can come from getting the mind focused. We’re doing this because we want the results, but we know that if we want the results, we have to focus on the causes. And the main cause is very simple: You stay with the breath. Focusing on the breath is not all that hard … 
  18. Staying True
     … You can stay focused on the breath as you do walking meditation, you can stay focused on the breath as you do your work throughout the day. Wherever you are—in the monastery, at home, or on the highway—it is possible to stay in touch with that sense of the breath being comfortable and full as you breathe in, comfortable and full as … 
  19. Top Priorities
     … There are lots of disagreement on what the word parami comes from, but one of the possibilities is that the Buddha focused on what’s of foremost—param—importance in life, i.e., developing qualities of the mind. When you make that your goal, then you can let the other issues of life go by. Now, this doesn’t mean that you don’t … 
  20. Alone with Your Mind
     … Focusing up in the head tends to be more energizing; focusing down toward the stomach tends to be more relaxing. You have to ask yourself, “What do you need right now?” Learn how to get good at several different spots and then notice the quality of the breath at each one. When you breathe in, how are you pulling the breath in? To what … 
  21. Purifying Gold
     … To balance right effort, you try to get the mind to be still in right concentration, focused on one thing. And remember, you’re focusing on one thing in the midst of whatever background chatter there may be in the mind. If you wait for everything to be quiet before the mind can settle down, then it’s never going to settle down. It … 
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