Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. The Brightness of Life
     … As we’re focusing on the breath, it’s body. But as you’re focusing right here on the body, you can’t help but be aware of feelings, because they’re right there. So try to breathe in a way that gives rise to pleasant feelings. That makes it easier to stay here. And the mind’s got to be right there, too … 
  3. A New Framework
     … The author was saying that when you see a great doctor in action, you see how focused he is, how aggressive he is in getting the patient to cooperate. Look for the difference between being in the 99.05 percentile, and the 99.5 percentile. You push for that extra little bit of difference, and it makes all the difference in the world when … 
  4. Good Traditions
     … Then the discernment that comes from a centered and focused mind can help you see where the mind still has unskillful habits and also how to figure out ways to overcome those unskillful habits. This is how you find happiness inside. So even though it may seem like a small thing, sitting here focusing on your breath, you develop a lot of good qualities … 
  5. Training Wheels
     … focused on the breath, focused on feelings and the awareness. As I said, these are training wheels, things that ultimately you’re going to have to go past. But you can’t go past them until you’ve mastered them. And you can’t master them until you’ve spent a lot of time with them, a lot of time bringing them together. So … 
  6. Limitless Thoughts
     … That puts you in the right frame of mind for meditation, focusing on the breath. After all, why are you here just watching your breath coming in and going out, when you could be doing so many other things? It’s because you want true happiness. You’ve seen the happiness of other things that the world has to offer, and it’s not … 
  7. It’s All about Action
     … So right now, what are you doing? You should be focusing on your breath or any other of the meditation topics that keep you right here in the present moment. If you’re with the breath, the breath itself is a kind of activity. Even though the body would breathe on its own, say, as when you’re asleep, the fact that you’re … 
  8. Meaning Through Perfections
     … You do that by focusing on the body as you sense it from within—the body in and of itself, as the Buddha says: focusing on the breath as you feel it; breathing in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being. This is a pleasure that’s not sensual. It’s the pleasure of form. And it doesn’t have … 
  9. Admirable Intentions
     … There are two activities there that you’re focused on. The first is keeping track of the body in & of itself. In this case, it’s the breath. You stay with the breath coming in, the breath going out. You don’t think of the body in terms of the world, whether it’s strong enough to do the work of the world, whether … 
  10. Good for What Purpose?
     … This may be one of the reasons why he focuses on the issue of suffering, stress, pain, because those are the facts that make you sometimes wonder: This view that you have of things, is it really good enough? Or is it actually part of the problem? When you can start asking questions like that, you can pull yourself out of your old habits … 
  11. The Karma that Ends Karma
     … You’re focusing on the breath, everything seems fine and then suddenly you’re someplace else, half a world away. It’s as if someone snuck up behind you, threw a sack over your head, dragged you off, and then dumped you on another continent. You don’t know what happened in the meantime. You don’t catch sight of the fact that an … 
  12. Honesty
     … This is why so much of our training focuses on the mind, because your actions come out of your mind. Your intentions shape what you do and determine the results of your actions. A lot of the practice is a question of skill in how to act in such a way that avoids suffering, and then finally cuts through the causes of suffering. That … 
  13. Free Not to Suffer
    You’re free to spend the rest of the hour focusing on the breath, focusing on your mind, bringing the two together. Why would you want to do that? The Buddha explains an awful lot about why. Sometimes I’ve encountered people who just want to do the technique. They don’t want to hear the theory behind it, but the question is: What … 
  14. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … Right view focuses you on the issue of suffering and what can be done to put an end to suffering. Right resolve deals with the ways that you make up your mind that you’re going to follow the path: You’ll try to put aside your sensual obsessions, put aside ill will, put aside thoughts of harmfulness. Then you’ve got to focus … 
  15. Escape Routes in the Present
     … But I’ve realized that the fact that I never focused on one particular thing as the hardest thing to adjust to was probably why I was able to adjust. In other words, instead of focusing on the difficulties, you focus on the opportunities. The things outside that you can change, you change them. Dangers you can escape, you escape from them. As for … 
  16. Doubt
     … But if you get it focused and you start wondering, “What is concentration like? When they talk about the refreshment or rapture that comes from concentration, or the pleasure that comes from concentration: What is that like?” Then you know where to go. As Ajaan Lee says, the pleasure and rapture come from directed thought and evaluation centered on one object. So you do … 
  17. Doing the Practice
     … Staying focused on the breath, staying with the body in the present moment, is a good way of developing these qualities. To begin with, it’s very basic. Breath is something you always have as long as you’re alive. The body is something that’s already there. You don’t have to go out and buy your meditation object or borrow it from … 
  18. Looking Inward
     … So this is where our practice focuses. Notice where the path lies: It lies in our thoughts, our words, our deeds. Generosity may be an act of giving things to other people, but it’s primarily a development of a quality of the mind. The same with the precepts: They govern our interactions with other people, but their primary purpose is training our thoughts … 
  19. Tranquility, Insight, & Concentration
     … But then, when there’s a feeling of well-being in the breath, think of it not being confined only to the spot where you’re focused. Think of it spreading out. If you want, you can move your focus around different parts of the body. Start down around the navel. Watch that area of the body as you breathe in, breathe out, and … 
  20. Nourishing & Interesting
     … That means we have something in mind that we want, and we’re acting based on our image of what we want, so the mind always has an arrow focusing someplace further, further, further along. In the course of going to that “further,” we do pick up information from outside, but the fact that we’re already moving further, doing things for the sake … 
  21. Opening Your World
     … Some of these tools are very simple, like focusing on the breath—focusing on the breath in a way that gives rise to a sense of ease and well-being. Without that ease and well-being, it’s hard to resist the temptation to keep going back to unskillful behavior. There are basically four kinds of actions: Those that you like to do and … 
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