Search results for: "Attention"

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  2. The Need for Stillness
     … The cause of suffering, he says, is sending the mind out, sending your attention, sending your awareness outside, and suffering is what results from that. The path, he says, is having the mind watch the mind, having the mind see the mind. The end of suffering is what results from that. So it’s the movement that makes us suffer, and just having the … 
  3. What Is Skillful?
     … And we have some control over how we breathe, and we have some control over how we pay attention to the breath. We try to develop our skills so that we can expand that amount of control, and in doing so we gain a lot of insight. The insight then helps us let go of the greed, aversion, and delusion, so that our actions … 
  4. Surveying the World
     … Then you apply acts of attention and intention. As they stick here, they pay careful attention to what’s going on, and you can create a state of concentration. If you can stay on this level, then when you see thoughts that would go out into the world again, you put them aside. Try to stay just on this level of events happening right … 
  5. The Intelligence of Restraint
     … Somdet Mahawirawong was taken aback, and said, “Well, it shows that you know how to listen.” But what does it mean to know how to listen? It’s basically applying the principle of appropriate attention, which, again, is right view. You could take the lesson of the impermanence of things and do almost anything you wanted with it: “Things are impermanent, so grab onto … 
  6. Right Livelihood
    Of all the factors in the path, right livelihood is probably the one that receives the least attention. And so it’s good to pay some attention to it. The definition in the Canon is pretty simple: you avoid wrong livelihood and you support yourself with right livelihood. It’s hardly even a definition at all, because it doesn’t explain the term. In … 
  7. The Pursuit of Happiness & Goodness
     … But the goodness of your character is something the Buddha paid a lot of attention to. You’re not just doing a technique here. In other words, you’re not just getting good at the technical aspects of being with the breath, getting the mind to settle down. If you do it well, you do it right, you’re developing some goodness as well … 
  8. Clinging
     … So your views and your sense of self are there to focus more and more attention on what should and shouldn’t be done. Now, in Freud’s analysis, the shoulds, or the superego, are pretty oppressive, because he lived in a culture where the ultimate superego, God, was not really all that concerned with your happiness. But the superego in the Buddha’s … 
  9. The Duties of Happiness
     … Wherever it’s most prominent, wherever it’s easiest to focus your attention, settle your mind right there. Now allow the breath to become comfortable. Notice that statement: It is a matter of allowing; but it’s telling you something you should do. Yet it’s also something that, at the same time, should be very comfortable right in the present moment, and you … 
  10. Measuring Progress
     … That’s where you want to focus your attention. This is especially important when things went really well yesterday and they don’t seem to be going quite so well today. You can get fixated on that if you’re not paying full attention to right now, and that makes today’s meditation even worse. So you drop that thought and stay where you … 
  11. Trustworthy Judgment
     … You tell it to come, and it doesn’t pay any attention. You tell it to go sit, go to bed or whatever, it doesn’t any attention at all because it’s not trained. Well, the mind that’s not trained creates a lot more problems than a dog. It can mess up your whole life, not just your house. You suddenly get … 
  12. Joyous Endurance
     … Direct your attention to the breath. Direct your whole mind to the breath. And try to keep it in that direction. In the Mangala Sutta, this is called having yourself rightly directed. It’s one of the ways that you bless yourself, protect yourself. The nature of the mind is that it doesn’t just sit in one place. It moves. The problem is … 
  13. Harmlessness
     … And you’re actually more able to be sensitive to other people when the basis of your attention is your breath, rather than what it normally is: your moods, your preoccupations. So you look for whatever opportunity there is to practice. There’s a common phrase that you try to bring your practice into your life. Actually, it should be the other way around … 
  14. Solidly Established
     … Other thoughts may come into the mind, but you have to learn how to pay them no attention. Think of them as people passing by when you have work to do. You don’t have to identify with the thought, thinking that it’s your thought or something you have to look into. What you’re here to do right now is to stay … 
  15. Space for Sustained Contemplation
     … So whatever way you can think of why the body is not worth all that attention, or all that pride, or all that shame, or lust, or whatever, use your ingenuity until you can see that this is nothing to feed on. Sometimes it involves thinking about the unattractiveness of the different parts of the body. Sometimes you have to actually focus on the … 
  16. Bases for Success
     … You give your full attention to this one topic. Then finally, you bring in vīmamsā, which refers to the mind’s discursive, discerning faculties. Ajaan Lee translates it as “circumspection.” It can also be translated as your analytical qualities and your ingenuity—the active part of the mind that’s looking, thinking, and evaluating. This, of course, is related to evaluation as a factor … 
  17. A Flammable Mind
     … If you see that something suddenly sweeps through your mind and takes up all your attention, takes up all your active time, you’ve got to do your best to put out the fire and then watch out for the topic from then on in. It’s a spark. But still, we can’t go around simply watching out for sparks all the time … 
  18. Consciousness, Name, & Form
     … feelings, perceptions, intentions, acts of attention, and contact among these things. Learn to be with these things on their own terms. Instead of thinking of these things as “my body” or “my mind” or “my awareness,” it’s just: “There’s awareness. There are mental events. Physical phenomena.” Just right here. When you look at them on these terms, it’s a lot easier … 
  19. Victory
     … Then pay attention to whether the mind is settling down or not. If it’s not settling down, what’s wrong? Is it a problem with the breath? Is it a problem with the feelings in the body? Or is it a problem with the mind? When the Buddha sets out those three frames of reference, it’s not the case that you simply … 
  20. Fear & Anger
     … There’s a widespread misunderstanding that the most important part of the practice is bare attention, simply watching things in a non-reactive way. But that’s not what the Buddha taught. He taught that the most important part of the practice is appropriate attention, where you learn to look at the situation and divide it up into four categories: where’s the stress … 
  21. Freedom through Restraint
     … We’re here to commit ourselves to a skill, to a narrowing of the focus of our attention to the point where the real problem is. As the Buddha said, all dhammas come from desire. In this case, “dhammas” mean all phenomena, except for nibbana. Nibbana is beyond dhammas. So what is desire doing in your mind right now? Where’s it heading? Where … 
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