Search results for: "Focusing"
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- How to Leave Meditation… What was the breath like? Where was the mind focused? What had you done leading up to that point where the mind began to settle down? In other words, look for what worked, and then make a mental note to try the same steps again the next time. As you’re meditating, if you have a sense of where you want to go, you …
- 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 …
- Past & Future in the Present… And your attention, the quality of focusing on the present: That’s important as well. You want to be really sensitive to how the breathing feels. So you put those two together. If you notice that the breath isn’t feeling good, you realize that in a short time you’re going to be wandering off someplace. So try to make it feel as …
- The Triple Training… That’s where you have to keep your attention focused. At the same time, in addition to being not grasped at, your virtues should be conducive to concentration. In other words, you don’t get yourself tied up in knots around the minutia of the virtue, even as you stick with the little details. As Ajaan Mun once told Ajaan Fuang, very few people …
- Right View: Feeding Instructions… That may sound selfish, focusing on your own suffering, but look at the people in the world. The fact that we’re making one another suffer so much is because we start by making ourselves suffer, and we don’t understand what we’re doing. If we knew how to take care of our own suffering, we wouldn’t be a burden on others …
- Training Your Moods… So when a mood begins to take over the mind, begins to take charge of things inside, ask yourself, “Who are you? What are you made of?” Can you go back and create a different mood by breathing in a different way, talking to yourself in a different way, focusing on different perceptions, focusing on different feelings, the sense of well-being that comes …
- To See What You’re Doing… what the breath was like, where you were focused. That makes it easier to create those conditions again the next time you meditate, so that you can get quicker and quicker at settling down, noticing where in the body is your spot. When the mind does settle down, where are you focused? Even though we talk about developing a full-body awareness here thinking …
- The Power of Present Karma… I knew a woman one time who said that no matter where she focused in her body to be aware of the breath, it seemed like she would mess up the breath energy, except for one spot, which was the base of the spine. So find a spot that’s still—there’s the potential there—and then bring what the Buddha calls appropriate …
- Listening to the Practice… The thinking here is designed to keep your attention focused, to keep reminding yourself that this is where you want to be, right with the sensation of the breathing. That’s the function of mindfulness or sati. The awareness can also be translated as being self-aware, being alert— that’s called sampajañña. It actually involves two things: One is noticing how the breath …
- Shelter… If you’re focusing in one way, try focusing in another. If you’re looking at one level of the breath, maybe it’s a good idea to look at another one. For all the talk we have about the breath energy in the body, I am always mystified by people who just stay with the in-and-out breath, and try to make …
- A Cure for the Sluggish Mind… What topics are you choosing? Where do you focus your thinking? What have you been focusing it on? If the object of your directed thinking pulls you down, focus it someplace else. There are many levels of truth going on right now, and part of the mind will say, “What I’m focusing on is the real truth out there.” Well, there is the …
- Mental Balance… As long as you’re focused on your balance, you’re not going to throw the other person off. In that way, by looking after yourself, you protect the other person. The Buddha went on to say that it’s the same with the practice. When you look out after yourself, you’re looking out after others. But then he went on to say …
- In the Elephant’s Footprint… But when he did talk about his awakening, it’s interesting to note that he always focused on one theme, which is the four noble truths. Sometimes he talked about the expansion of the four noble truths into dependent co-arising. But he never mentioned the three characteristics. He didn’t awaken to the three characteristics. He awakened to the four noble truths. And …
- Cheerfully Ardent… I can’t get anywhere in my meditation.” A deva appears to him and says, “Do you realize how many people are on their way to hell right now, and how much they really envy you, your chance to practice?” So think in ways that lift your spirits and keep focused on the causes. If you’re not glad, try to figure out: “Where …
- Other People… It’s not focused just on one spot. If you’re focused on one spot, sometimes it’s easy to pick up something else as well. It’s as if you have one thing in one hand but your other hand is free to pick up anything else. But if you’re with the whole body, no hands are free, not even your feet …
- Respect for Suffering… Stay right here with your basic awareness focused on the breath coming in, the breath going out. This develops two of the main qualities that are important for developing a real foundation of mindfulness, a really solid frame of reference: mindfulness and alertness. The third quality is ardency, being ardent in your mindfulness and ardent in your alertness. Ardent in your mindfulness means that …
- Skillful Selfing… You stay focused on the body in and of itself—and here, to do that, we’re going to take the breath as our object. You put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, anything that’s not related to the breath, anything that’s related to the world right now, just put it aside. Those are the two …
- Admirable Friendship… From the blatant problems of aging, illness, and death, he focused in more and more and more on his mind to the point where he didn’t even talk about suffering. It was just disturbance. “What’s the disturbance in the mind? What am I doing that’s causing that disturbance?” If you can pay attention in here and ask those questions and look …
- Patience… So we do the practice, focusing on what we’re doing, rather than getting into an internal dialogue about when the results are going to come, what they’re going to be like, and how we can speed up the practice. Many times our efforts to speed things up actually get in the way. Our practice is pretty simple. Stay with the breath, allow …
- The Sport of Wise People… The important point is that you’re focused on the sensations in the present moment. That’s what you’re thinking about and that’s what you’re evaluating. It’s not that you’re thinking about something someplace else or analyzing things in abstract terms. You’re asking very practical questions, focused on what you’re doing. How does this feel? Is this …
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