Search results for: "Attention"
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- The Good Side of Kamma… The reason the larger cycles are so full of suffering is because our actions are unskillful, and our actions are so unskillful because we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing right here, right now. So this is why we meditate, to pay more attention, to be clear about what’s happening and in particular about what we’re doing. As you …
- Opening Your World… It’s because there’s a sense of dis-ease inside that our attention goes out to begin with. We’re looking for a way to counteract that. Often the going out is a way of diverting your attention from the real problem. To realize that gives you a different frame of values right there. You see that the problems are not outside. And …
- Fabrication… You realize the reason it’s not going away is because you’re paying attention to it. Even if you don’t like it, paying attention to it is enough to keep it going — like a tar trap. You touch the tar with your hand and you get stuck. You try to pull yourself loose from the tar with the other hand and you …
- Befriending the Breath… You can sense it, and it feels comfortable to focus your attention there. Then allow the breath to stay comfortable. After all, it is a flow of energy. You can’t bottle it up. If you try bottling it up, it makes things tight and constricted in the body. Just keep tabs on the energy. Think of it as watching a river. The river …
- Yes & No… Yes, of course, means giving your full attention to the breath, your full attention to what the mind is doing with the breath: watching the breath; watching the mind, making sure they stay together. That’s the Yes. The No applies to anything that has to do with the world of the senses, the world of sensual pleasures, your issues with the world outside …
- Wearing the Breath… The slightest little thought that comes in to pull you away, you’re not going to pay attention to it. And you have to figure out how for yourself. In some cases, you can give it a karate chop and that gets rid of it; in other cases, paying any attention to it at all, even to the extent of trying to cut it …
- Your Inner Teacher… Still, they don’t lie beyond your power as a human being to observe them, if you take the time, if you pay attention. The Buddha once said of people that it takes time to know them—and not just time. You also have to be observant. As he said, if you want to know a person’s virtue, you have to live with …
- Dependent Co-arising Right Now… You look at how you pay attention to the breath. You can look at your intentions in staying with the breath. You look at how your perceptions and your attention and your intentions all play off one another. And again, you keep “you” out of the picture, and simply look at what’s causing what to happen here. Then you pass judgment: Is this …
- Leaving Distractions Alone… You know that if you pay any attention to the beggar, he’ll latch on to you. So you pretend the beggar’s not there. Or a stray dog comes around the house and keeps sniffing here and sniffing there, hoping for food. You know that if you feed the dog, the dog will never go away. So you don’t feed it. If …
- Building Concentration… I’d seen roofs many times but never really paid close attention. But, now that I had to build one, I had to pay close attention. When other people build roofs, how do they do that? When they put up a wall of concrete blocks, how do they do that? It was by having to build something that I learned a lot more about …
- Respect for the Mind… What kind of breathing helps to balance out those qualities? If you pay attention to the breath, you’ll know, you’ll find out. It really can have an impact not only on the body, but also on the state of the mind. And then pay attention to the fact that you want to be careful of the mind not only while you’re …
- Attachment to Views… The test always is appropriate attention to the four noble truths: To what extent does this insight give you insight into how to comprehend suffering or stress, how to abandon its cause, or how to develop the path, so that you can realize cessation? Those are the issues. And everything should get tested by those issues. Then, if the insight has done its work …
- Fully Absorbed… Because giving the breath your total attention is the path to finding a happiness that causes no one any harm. And you’re looking at things in a different framework. As the Thai ajaans often like to say, when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed, there is no man, there is no woman, there is no being, there is no race, there …
- Dreams & Voices… Think about the Buddha’s teachings on appropriate attention. All those questions he said that are not worth answering, or even asking, about the future, about the past, about your existence or non-existence here in the present moment: Put those questions aside. The standards for appropriate attention, things you really should pay attention to, are: What is the suffering right now? What’s …
- The Six Properties… You think of that sense of radiating energy from any of the resting spots that Ajaan Lee talked about—the tip of the nose, the palate, the middle of the head, the tip of the sternum, right above the navel, wherever you feel that the breath energy is radiating from—and you focus your attention there. As for any sensations in the body that …
- The Value of Concentration… So whatever voices come into the mind that would pull you away even the least little bit, you have to learn how not to listen to them, not to pay them any attention, not to give them an inch of space in your mind. Or if they’re going to be chattering away in the background, make sure they stay in the background. Give …
- Learning How to Learn… All too often, we’re someplace else, not really paying full attention both to what’s happening and to what we’re doing in response. As that chant said just now: “We’re the owners of our actions,” and yet we’re hardly around to witness our actions, so our motivations for action get hidden very easily. Yet these are the things that shape …
- Getting the Most Out of Now… Focus your attention on the breath. The advantage of the breath is that it’s always in the present moment. You can’t watch a past breath or a future breath. And this will be a good test of your ability to stay right here. As you work with this, you find that you can stay more and more consistently. And it’s important …
- Observing the Mind at the Breath… In other words, you pay careful, careful attention to what you’re doing, careful attention to what’s here. You’re trying to drop everything else around you. This is why one of our basic principles in daily life is that if you’re going to take on battles with other people, you want to choose your battles well. Remember that the Buddha was …
- Filling in the Buddha’s Outline… After all, even when you’re doing work, how much of your attention really is on the work? Take the part that’s ordinarily not on your work and devote it to the breath. Some jobs require 100% of your attention so you give them 100% of your attention. Others, though, require maybe 30% or 20%, so give the remaining 70% or 80% to …
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