Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. Into Position
     … A basic rule of thumb in the beginning is that wherever there’s a pain in the body, don’t focus your attention right there. Focus it on the parts of the body that you can make comfortable with the breath. Then, when you’re coming from a position of strength, think of that comfortable breath sensation flowing in through the pain and out … 
  13. The Skills of Stillness
     … So you can focus on the present moment here. Focus on your intentions right here. Set up the intention that you want to stay right here with the breath, all the way in, all the way out—each breath as it comes in, each breath as it goes out. Start with a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths to emphasize the … 
  14. Elephant Training
     … If you focus on the breath, you get to know your mind. Then when issues come up in the mind, we can talk about the mind without having to talk about what religion we’re coming from,” he said. “That way, we can understand each other. We talk about what we have in common.” So focus on the breath. Why focus on the breath … 
  15. Relate Everything to the Breath
     … This also means learning how to focus on it in a way that feels good while you’re focused. If your focus is too intense, that constricts the blood in that area, and you create another spot of tension, which you don’t want. So think of the blood flowing fully to that area as you’re focused on it—all the way through … 
  16. Even Shame Can Be Skillful
     … So as we focus on the path, this is the main factor we have to focus on. We have to make it our center, too, because it puts us in a position of strength, a position of well-being. You focus on the breath. Stay with it all the way in, all the way out, and notice what feels comfortable. As the Buddha says … 
  17. Skills for Dying Well
     … There will be something that follows on death, so you want to be heedful where you focus your attention, where you focus your desires at that point.** This quality of heedfulness is something that we try to develop in the meditation. As the Buddha said, all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness. It’s when you realize that your actions really will make a … 
  18. Get Out of Yourself
     … Why do you focus on things that pull you down? Focus on things that are uplifting. That’s a point that Ajaan Suwat liked to make a lot, that we do have the power to choose where we’re focused: what we take as our object or, in the Pali idiom, what we take as our “support.” If you take as your support something … 
  19. Your Main Foundation
    Your Main Foundation November 21, 2011 When you focus on the breath, you’ve got all four frames of reference right here. The breath is a manifestation of the body. Then there are feelings. Feelings can either be physical or mental. They come basically down to pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. Then you’ve got mind states, such as a mind that … 
  20. The Mind Isn’t Hot
     … And then focus on whichever parts the body in which the sense of movement, the sense of energy, seems to be clearest. And allow it to be comfortable. Don’t force it too much. Just let it be comfortable coming in, going out. Whatever it’s going to do, allow it to be comfortable. And then just stick with that. This is the part … 
  21. Settling In
     … This is why we focus on the breath. The breath is an energy that permeates the whole body. It’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs; that’s the effect of the breath energy in the body. The breath energy in the body is what gives life to your nerves, lets you know that you have a body, and … 
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