Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Heedful, Attentive, Mindful
     … To have appropriate attention, you focus inside—where the main dangers are, although the Buddha does recognize there are dangers from outside. But they’re not the ones you might ordinarily expect. It’s not that other people can harm you—that is a danger but it’s not the real danger. The real danger is when someone gets you to behave in ways … 
  3. Flexibility
     … You focus on the causes, and the result will have to come. It’s like the sense of ease that you gain in the meditation, the sense of fullness, rapture, refreshment: As long as you focus on the cause, you’re okay. If you leave the cause and just try to hold on to the rapture, it’s like trying to grab hold of … 
  4. Mindful All the Way
     … It’s just a matter of learning how to focus them on what you’re doing right here, right now. As long as what you’re doing is skillful, you don’t have to worry about the future. Just make sure you remember the good lessons you’ve learned from the past. So the main focus is right here, but it connects past and … 
  5. The Not-Self Discourse
     … Just focus on the aggregate. Why is it important to focus on the aggregates? Because in the first sermon, the Buddha had already identified the aggregates, when you cling to them, as suffering. One of the ways in which you cling, of course, is through your sense of self. In fact, all the other forms of clinging can be directly related to that sense … 
  6. Lessons in Happiness
     … For instance, we know that we’re going to have to let go of the body, let go of attachment to the body, but what’s the first thing you focus on when you meditate? You focus on the breath, which is part of the body. You’re not letting go of the breath, you’re actually working with it. Look at those sixteen … 
  7. Right Mindfulness
     … That’s the process we’re working on here as we focus on the breath. It’s the first of the establishings. To remain focused is called anupassana. It means you choose something to watch and then you stick with it. In this case, what you watch is the body in and of itself. In other words, not the body as a part of … 
  8. An Auspicious Birth
     … So as you’re up sitting late tonight, keep this point in mind, that whatever comes up, you’ve got the choice of what to focus on, what to latch on to. There may be many things happening in the present moment, but the Buddha says to focus on four types of things, and particularly on the factors of the path, getting the mind … 
  9. Bases for Success
     … If you focus simply on the results, you can sit here and think for hours about how much you’d like to have the results, but they’re never going to come. They won’t have any foundation. So you’ve got to focus on your efforts. In this case, the effort is to have singleness of mind or cittassa ek’aggatā. Sometimes this … 
  10. What Are You Doing Right Now?
     … So that’s where he has you focus, on your actions, understanding your actions. This is good. If you try to understand what you are, you get involved in all kinds speculations that really go nowhere. But if you focus on what you’re doing, it’s something you can actually watch. Your actions in the past, your actions in the present: These are … 
  11. The Truth of Perceptions
     … Where do you feel the warmth in the body in the midst of that stillness? Focus on that. Hold the perception of fire in mind. You could even have an image of a fire burning, but make sure that you’re also in touch with the actual sensation of warmth. Then remind yourself that there’s a certain amount of warmth throughout the body … 
  12. Goodwill for the Breath
     … Subtle little decisions, just a decision to focus on this or focus on that, close off this, close off that, ignore this, deny that: We begin to see them more clearly. If you’re honest with yourself, you can learn a lot here. You begin to see what you’re doing to create unnecessary suffering for yourself. Why did you have to close off … 
  13. Don’t Objectify
    We focus on watching the breath so that ultimately the mind can watch itself, because the breath is probably the closest thing that you could focus on outside of the mind. In the beginning, it’s a lot easier to stay with the breath than it is just to stay with awareness, because awareness is so large and vague and has such ill-defined … 
  14. Because the Mind Is Purposeful
     … You want the mind to settle down, but you don’t focus directly on the mind, and you don’t focus on thoughts of settling down. You focus on the breath, because you know that if you can stay with the breath, it’ll get you where you want to go. You focus on assembling the causes, and the results will take care of … 
  15. The Four Jhanas
     … You can focus either on the spot where the breath seems most prominent, or on the spot where it simply seems most natural to focus. Some people find it easiest to focus on the head, others find it easier to focus on the chest, the neck, or the shoulders. So focus anywhere you’d like. And allow the spot where you’re focusing to … 
  16. Observing the Mind at the Breath
    As we focus on the breath—trying to keep it in mind, bringing the mind back every time we realize that it has wandered off, and doing what we can to keep the mind there again—our focus is on the breath, but the mind is getting trained at the same time. When you catch yourself wandering off, that’s alertness. When you remember … 
  17. The Endurance of a Long-distance Runner
     … It’s in these ways that you can make good use of these fabrications of how you breathe, how you talk to yourself, the images you hold in mind, the perceptions you hold in mind, the feelings that you focus on, how you focus on them. Learn that there are pleasant feelings in parts of the body. If the whole body were nothing but … 
  18. Basic Stuff
     … Now, because it’s hard to focus directly on the mind to begin with, we first focus on the breath, because of all the things in the world that are close to the mind, that’s the closest. So be aware of the breath when it comes in; be aware of the breath when it goes out. You can focus on the sensation of … 
  19. Your Own Karma
     … So it’s right that we focus on the concentration practice as the centerpiece of our practice. But we have to remember the other factors, too, beginning with the first level of right view, the teaching on karma: the principle that our actions are what shape our experience. When we think this way, we create the proper context, the proper environment for our practice … 
  20. A Path Rooted in Desire
     … We do want awakening, but we realize that it requires a lot of skill in how to focus that desire. The Buddha lays it all out, as we chanted just now. It’s simply up to us now to focus on how to bring those qualities of mind into being—right here, right now—to do whatever’s going to help with attaining our … 
  21. The Karma of Perception
     … When you’re feeling lightheaded, you can focus on the heavy, earth-like sensations in the body, to bring things into balance. When you’re feeling too warm or too cold, you can focus on whichever element will bring things back into balance. But earth can also get really heavy and oppressive, and water and fire can also get out of control sometimes. When … 
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