Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Wise about Pain
     … In the very beginning, you don’t focus on them. Try to focus on the parts of the body that you can make comfortable by the way you breathe. But the question sometimes comes up: To what extent do you work with pains or try to get rid of them? This is where one of the basic principles of wisdom comes in. As the … 
  3. Stay Tuned
     … So let’s focus on the body in and of itself, the sensation of having a body here right now, the sensation of warmth, coolness, motion, solidity. Try to stay focused on that level. Any images or sensations or notions from other levels, just let them go, let them pass. They are going to be here, but you don’t have to focus on … 
  4. Outside of the Box
     … They can sit down, focus on the breath, and stay with the breath with no problem at all. The other type of tree is one in the middle of the forest whose branches are entangled with the branches of the trees around it. If you want to cut that one down, you’ve got to use a lot of strategy: learn how to cut … 
  5. Exercising Discernment
     … Once you’ve determined that this looks like a road that’s going to go to the mountain, you focus your attention on the road. Check every now and then to make sure that the mountain isn’t suddenly appearing in your rearview mirror. But otherwise you focus your attention right in front of you, on the road. The road doesn’t lead you … 
  6. Hobo Mind
     … You can focus your awareness anywhere you like in the body. The important thing is that you stay grounded in the sense of the body and try to find an area where it feels comfortable, where you feel at ease. If you tend do have headaches, you might want to focus further down in the body below the neck. Then see what happens when … 
  7. Anchored in the Present
     … In fact, when the Buddha talks about the best way to develop all four of them, he says to focus on the breath. He doesn’t say that when you’ve had enough of the breath, then you drop the breath and focus on feelings or mind or whatever. You basically stay with the breath all the way through. It’s part of the … 
  8. Clearing Your Space
     … You just don’t focus there. You focus on some other part in the mind. Your attention to these thoughts is what feeds them—the fact that you find them interesting. This is our problem: We start thinking, and all of our thoughts become interesting. You have to realize that some of your thoughts are not all that interesting after all, especially the obsessive … 
  9. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … You’re learning to shift the focus of your desires away from sensual pleasures, sensual fantasizing, and more toward noticing which thoughts are skillful, which thoughts are unskillful, and getting a sense of the long-term consequences of your actions. That’s a shift in focus, but it requires desire as well. Then we see: Acting on these desires, what happens? In other words … 
  10. Honest & Observant
     … The instructions he gives to Rahula about examining your actions before, during, and after you do them are basically instructions on how to be observant and honest, and where to focus your powers of observation. They also focus you on where it’s especially important that you be honest with yourself: one, in terms of the intentions behind your actions, and two, in terms … 
  11. Calm & at Ease
     … The Buddha says there are times when you’re trying to focus on the breath but it feels like there’s a fever in the breath; you focus on feelings, there’s a fever in your feelings; you focus on the mind, there’s a fever in the mind. Okay, you drop those topics and think about the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha … 
  12. The Raft of Concepts
     … So you focus there. That’s why we’re focused on the present moment: to look at our intentions. When you have right view, you realize that that’s why we’re here. This helps give focus to your meditation. Once the mind is still, you intend to keep it still. That’s a skillful intention. Then you can start looking at the process … 
  13. The Fangs of Conceit
     … See how long you can keep the focus there. If you lose focus, well, get back into focus. Don’t count the times that you lose focus. Just deal with distraction each time as it comes—one by one by one. The important thing is that you don’t let yourself get discouraged. The mind has lots of habits that go against the meditation … 
  14. Eyes in the Back of Your Head
     … You focus just on one spot and you tend to blot out everything else. You can feel very centered, very secure while you’re in it, but it makes discernment difficult. Full-body awareness without a center, though, doesn’t have the depth, doesn’t have the heft of a centered concentration. It can get very vague and sloppy. So you’ve got to … 
  15. Fixing the Present
     … Don’t focus on the pains in the body. Focus on the parts of the body that seem okay. Those can provide raw material for a place for the mind to settle down. There is that choice here in the present moment. If there were nothing but pain everywhere in the body, you’d die. There’s got to be something pleasant, some part … 
  16. A Mind Bigger than Pain
     … You have the choice of what you’re going to focus on and how you’re going to focus on it. If you’re going to focus on the pain, it’s useful to focus on it as if it’s going away, going away, going away. The pain may be there and it may be appearing repeatedly, but each time it comes, tell … 
  17. Unlimited Compassion, Limited Resources
     … So you need to have equanimity for the cases you can’t help in order to have the strength to focus on the cases where you can. And even with each individual, there are some symptoms you can’t help, but there are others you can, so you focus your goodwill and energy on the ones that you can. You don’t let yourself … 
  18. Guardian Meditations
    The Buddha talks of times when you meditate, you try to focus on the breath or any of the other topics in the body, but there’s a fever—a fever in the body, a fever in the mind. It doesn’t allow you to settle down. In cases like that, he says, try to find another theme that’s inspiring. Focus on that … 
  19. Responsible
     … And again, no one else can do this for you, which is why you really have to focus on the areas where you are responsible. Make sure you take care of those. This is one of the reasons why the precepts are limited in their focus. You’re not going to be asked to go out and prevent all killing, or to ban all … 
  20. Not Getting What You Want
     … What he meant was that you don’t sit here going through the motions of the path with your mind down at the end of the path, saying, “When is that going to come?” You focus here on what you’re doing, getting really involved in the breath. As you focus here, the end of the path will appear right here. As the Buddha … 
  21. Life in the Buddha’s Hospital
     … The point of restraint is that you don’t make those things the main focus. The process of how the mind reacts to the seeing, how it directs the seeing, and so on with the other senses: that should be your focus. If issues come up and aggravate the illness in the mind, how are you going to deal with it? The Buddha laid … 
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