Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. Construction Techniques
     … The fact that they’re actually related is one of the reasons why we focus on the present moment—not because it’s the only thing there is, but because it’s where things start. After all, any bodily action you do is going to start with the breath. Any verbal action will start with directed thought and evaluation. Any mental action will start … 
  13. This Fathom-Long Body
     … We think that we focus on the breath, we focus on the body, for the time being as we get the mind calmed down, and then we want to move on to more abstract and deeper topics for the sake of insight. But if the abstraction gets away from the body, it loses its grounding. And it gets away from where our real world … 
  14. Everything’s Right There
    We focus on the breath because when the mind is focused on the breath, everything you need to know to put an end to suffering is right here. You’re at the right spot. It’s simply a matter of getting used to it, realizing the potentials all around you right here, both in the body and in the mind. In the body, you … 
  15. Shoulds & Ideals
     … Sometimes you focus on what you can comprehend in terms of the stress or suffering; other times you have to focus on the qualities you need to develop. If your mindfulness is weak, if you have trouble keeping things in mind, well, you work at developing it, making it stronger. Every time you realize you’ve slipped off away from the breath, come back … 
  16. Choiceful Awareness
     … Whatever the topic is of your concentration that allows you to have a sense of well-being, focus there. And don’t be afraid of getting attached to it. If you don’t have an attachment here, you’re going to go back to your old attachments. Choose to breathe in a way or choose to focus in a way that gives rise to … 
  17. Just One Person
     … So you focus on the areas where you can do something. The prime area is right here—right here in the heart. So focus your attention here. Bring the heart and mind to the breath and watch it very carefully. If there’s anything disturbing the mind, just let it go. As the Buddha said, try to be committed to relinquishment because it’s … 
  18. The Buddha’s Secret Weapon
     … Find the right amount of pressure for your focus—not so weak that you start drifting off, and not so heavy that it starts interfering with the breathing. Try to get a sense of what breathing feels best. This may involve playing with the length of the breath, the heaviness of the breath, or your sense of how the breath comes in and out … 
  19. De-domesticated
     … So our focus now is primarily inward. As we keep that focus, I wouldn’t say we’ve become undomesticated, because we’ve been domesticated enough, many, many times. We’re de-domesticating ourselves. As a meditator, you’re a de-domesticated person. Your values are very different from the values of the home life. And you want to maintain that. Keep that vision … 
  20. Appropriate Attention
     … Everybody goes through the process of finding that you focus on the breath and then all of a sudden you’re someplace else—as if someone had come up with a big sack and put it over your head, dragged you off, and then dumped you out of the sack someplace else. You wonder how you got there. Well, you have to find your … 
  21. Cutting Through the Hype
     … That makes it unpleasant, so that instead of keeping us here, the clamping down—as soon as we lose our focus or have a lapse of mindfulness—makes us bounce off even stronger. So think of it more as simply keeping in touch with the breath. You’re not trying to squeeze the breath or grab it. Just touch it. When I was first … 
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