Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Start by Relaxing Your Hands
     … So right effort means an effort that’s appropriately focused. It’s not a matter how much effort you’re putting in, but of how skillful you are at sensing what’s helpful and what’s not helpful, and being able to develop the helpful qualities. There are four qualities that are really helpful here when you do this. The first one is desire … 
  3. Right Learning
     … where you’re focused on the breath. Start out small. After a while, once that spot where you’re focused on the breath gets established, then it can start to grow. In the beginning, it’s a struggle just to stay with that one little spot, but once it starts getting comfortable, it gets easier and easier to stay with it. And again you … 
  4. Caring Enough to Doubt
     … You need more discernment, more mindfulness, all the good qualities that are developed, as you can see, by focusing on the breath. It’s interesting that when the Buddha talks about the cure for doubt or uncertainty, the cure is the same as the program you follow for developing discernment—in other words, looking at what’s skillful and what’s unskillful in your … 
  5. Breath Meditation When It’s Hard to Breathe
     … Then I thought of Ajaan Lee’s descriptions of the various places in the head and different parts of the body where the breath can come in and go out, so I focused my attention there. I thought of the breath coming in and out through the forehead, through the top of the head, in from the back of the neck, down the spine … 
  6. Decisions
     … This is the process that gets more and more refined all the time simply by focusing clearly right here at what you’re doing right here. And it’s through focusing right here that the focus carries through to the goal at the end of the path, when the work is done, when the skill has been mastered. But you don’t master the … 
  7. The Buddha’s Letter
     … I’ve been reading several people saying that the Buddha wanted to get rid of suffering of all kinds, external and internal, which is true, but then how did he go about it? He focused on the causes inside, because that’s where actual suffering comes from: from clinging and craving. That’s where he focuses his cure, because that’s the source of … 
  8. Strength for Stillness
     … He’d say, make it your signal in your mind, something that you keep focusing on: Where is the disturbance? Where is there stress? That’s something that needs to be looked into. That’s where you’re going to find ignorance. Where is there anything in the mind that’s disturbing your peace? That’s the problem. The peace itself is what you … 
  9. Ups & Downs
     … In his case, he focused on the word Buddho and he wouldn’t care for whether it was going anyplace. Whether the results were showing themselves quickly or slowly, he just knew, “This is the right thing to do, so I’ll stick with it.” This, of course, is where you start encountering your doubts about this particular practice or this particular meditation method … 
  10. Concentration as a Skill
     … This is a skill that we’re working on here—how to get the mind to settle down with a sense of well-being, focused on one topic. It can be the breath. It can be the body. It can be thoughts of goodwill. The important thing is that it allows you to have an expanded sense of concentration. They use the word ekaggata … 
  11. Memory & Motivation
     … What it comes down to is that shame that’s focused on actions is very helpful. If it’s focused on thoughts, it’s very helpful. If it’s focused on just you as a person it’s not. So learn how to make that distinction. The purpose of healthy shame is so that when you think about doing something unskillful, you realize, “It … 
  12. Hold on for All You’re Worth
     … We do that first by focusing on the breath, taking a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body, because that’s what we’re going to be focusing on: the sensation of energy, the flow of the energy. Where is it most prominent right now? Focus your attention there. Then the next question … 
  13. De-thinking
     … Sometimes it requires changing the point of your focus; sometimes it requires changing the quality of your focus; sometimes it requires changing your concept of what it means to be focused: “Who’s focusing?” “Is the mind in one spot and then trying to focus the mind in that one spot on another spot?” “Well, what does that do?” “Can you think of the … 
  14. The Path Requires Effort
     … As you sit here focusing on the breath, notice: Is the way you’re focusing on the breath making it tight and constricted? If so, you’ve got to loosen up a little bit. Otherwise, the mind won’t want to come back. And as you breathe in and out, exactly where do you feel the breath? Is it just air coming in and … 
  15. Respect for Emptiness
     … Instead of focusing on the figures in the foreground, you focus on the still space around them. You realize that this space is an appealing space. It’s quiet, undisturbed. “There’s only this modicum of disturbance”: the singleness of mind focused on the breath, or whatever your topic of meditation is. You let go of all other concerns. When you do that, you … 
  16. Issues of Control
     … When we sit here, very consciously focusing on the breath, we’re focusing through the lens of that cartoon idea. And we can get ourselves pretty tired. So use your imagination: What else could the breath do? Ajaan Lee has you think about the breath coming in and out of the body in different spots. Give that a try. Just hold in mind the … 
  17. Rivers of Craving
     … So you’ve got to get it focused. And in getting it focused, you’re learning an important skill: how not just to follow whatever comes into the mind. As the Buddha discovered, as he finally did get his mind to settle down and got past the first two knowledges, he got to the real essence of the awakening: what he was doing that … 
  18. Complexities of Karma
     … That’s why we meditate, focusing our attention on the present moment, because what we do in the present moment is going to make a big difference. Not everything is determined by the past. Sometimes we hear a simplistic idea of karma, that what you do in the past shapes the present moment, what you do in the present moment will shape the future … 
  19. In Harmlessness Is Strength
     … Now, it’s important that you have the right attitude toward it, as you’re focused on the breath. In other words, you should stay focused on the breath and not on the pleasure. You focus on the breath in a way that gives rise to that sense of pleasure, but then you let the pleasure do its work, you don’t have to … 
  20. Taking Apart Suffering
     … In that case, use the breath to whatever extent you can to work through that pain, focusing on whichever parts of the body you can make comfortable through the rhythm of the breathing. Whether the breath is fast or slow, heavy or light, deep or shallow, you learn to adjust it so that it can help alleviate whatever pain there is in that part … 
  21. How to Think about Death
     … The Buddha never talks about focusing on the present because it’s a wonderful moment, or that it’s the Eternal Present. Instead, every time he talks about staying focused on the present it’s because there’s work to be done in the present. And if you don’t do it now, you can’t be sure that you’ll get it done … 
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