Search results for: "Attention"
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- Don’t Focus on Jhana, Focus on the Breath… One of Ajaan Lee’s most important insights into concentration practice is that this is how evaluation starts out, paying attention to a simple question that’s very closely related to the four noble truths. “Where is the stress? What can I do to alleviate the stress?” In this case, “Where is the discomfort in the breath?” How do you breathe in? What are …
- Perceptions & Potentials… Don’t pay attention to any vagrant thoughts that are nibbling away at the edges. When you don’t pay them attention, it’s as if you’re not feeding them. They’re stray dogs, stray cats, and if you don’t feed them, they’ll go away. The sense of concentration will get stronger. The breath will be really still, but as I …
- The Triple Training… Were you actually practicing the Dhamma? Were you paying attention to what you were doing? What could you do to improve what you’ve done? That’s what reflection is all about. Think of the Buddha’s teachings to Rahula. He started out with the image of mirror. He said that in the same way a mirror is for the purpose of reflection, you …
- Use Your Defilements… You use it to pay attention right here, pay attention to the right places. So this is where you’re going to learn about the aggregates, and also the extent to which you are shaping them in the present moment. This way, you don’t fall for that “insight,” quote-unquote, that says, “Well, I’ll just see things arising and passing away, and …
- Cut, Cut, Cut… But actually, it all starts very simply: “What’s next? What’s next?” In other words, where are you going to focus your attention now? And what are you going to do with it? And when you actually see the intention or the act of attention in action, that’s when you can start asking, “Is there something else? Is there another way of …
- Wisdom as a Tool… Similarly, when an insight comes into your mind, the first question should be, “What kind of impact does it have?” If you took that insight as true, how would it influence your actions? This comes under the principle of appropriate attention, figuring out: Is this going to help you understand suffering? Is it going to help you abandon craving? Will it help you develop …
- A Good-natured Attitude… His meaning is that sometimes you focus most of your attention on the breath and sometimes you focus more of your attention on the mind. For example, when you’re working with the breath, if you find the breath intriguing, if you find it interesting and it’s enjoyable to work with the breath, go ahead and do it. But sometimes you find that …
- Judgmental vs. Judicious… Part of name and form is attention, knowing what questions to pay attention to, which ones to ignore. That requires that you use your powers of judgment. As Ajaan Lee points out, this is the beginning of discernment. You’re learning to develop this faculty by success through approximation: not hoping for a perfect judgment right away, knowing that you probably will make mistakes …
- The Luminous Mind… There’s also inappropriate attention. When looking at the hindrances, or looking at the world, we’re not really interested in the question of suffering or how to put an end to suffering. We’ve got other issues, other things we’re more interested in. This is related to the external causes that keep ignorance going. We hang around with the wrong people. We …
- Mental Balance… All the Buddha’s teachings are meant to focus your attention right here on what you’re doing right now—both what you’re doing and the results that are coming from what you are doing. The teachings on emptiness, not-self, all of what seem to be more abstract teachings, are ultimately meant to focus your attention back here. Where’s the stress …
- A Becoming Critic… It’s made out of intentions, your intention to stay; acts of attention, you’re attending to the breath and trying to not pay attention to other things that would distract you; you’ve got the perceptions that hold you here; and the feelings that provide some attraction to the concentration. You’re trying to put all these things together. There’s a well …
- Reading Your Meditation… Give 99% of your attention to the topic of your meditation, and think of the talk as a fence. When your mind wanders off, it runs into the fence. The purpose of the fence is to remind you to go back, not to go further away from the breath, further away from buddho, or whatever your topic is. Don’t let the talk get …
- The Pleasure of the Middle Way… We spend most of our time paying attention outside, and this area inside here gets squeezed out, left behind. Its potentials for giving us a sense of well-being don’t get developed. So here’s our chance to give it some time, give it some space. If you really pay attention here, if you’re consistent in your awareness of the breath, smooth …
- Guarding Against Trouble… There are the effluents that are dealt with by seeing, and here the Buddha means seeing what questions are worthy of your attention and which ones are not. Questions like: Who am I? What was I in the past? What am I going to be in the future? What is my true self? Those he says are not worth your attention, because if you …
- Mindfulness Immersed in the Breath… In that case, you don’t have to pay too much attention to it, just bring the mind back to the breath. But if there’s a particular theme or particular thought that keeps pulling you away, you have to teach yourself the drawbacks of going with that thought right now. It may be really important, something you’ve got to do in your …
- Alternative Conceptions… As for name, you’ve got feelings, perceptions, contact, intention, and attention. Those are the raw materials for gaining insight. Reducing everything in your experience just to those terms helps you to see the connections, to see how you fabricate things in such a way that leads to suffering, or in such a way that doesn’t. That’s the basic value of all …
- Animals in the Mind… When you do this, you’re giving the body your full attention. And when you give your full attention of the body, you provide a good solid foundation for the mind. It becomes your place. When you fully inhabit your body, nobody else can invade your space. And you have a good leash for the mind. There’s an image in the texts of …
- On Not Being a Victim… When the Buddha describes dependent co-arising, well before he starts talking about sensory data, he talks about issues of attention and intention and perception. These factors influence the way you see and hear and experience things. And they can have an influence either for suffering or for the end of suffering. So one of the functions of the path is to learn how …
- To Strengthen the Path… In other words, the worlds you experience come from your way of paying attention to things and the views you hold about things, and then the intentions and actions that are based on that. So the conviction and the discernment here are the views, the way you pay attention to things, the things you see as important and, in contrast, the things that you …
- Dependable Friends… Actually, you’ve been spending your whole life with your breath, but most of the time you haven’t been paying it much attention. Bur for this hour, you want to give it your full attention, which means that, since you’re going to be spending so much time on it, you want to be on good terms with it. Notice how it feels …
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