Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. For the Cessation of Dukkha
     … He also found that strategically it would be important to focus not so much on the physical pain, but on the mental component: both the mental pain and the mental cause of suffering from the pain. This is where the strategy of the Dhamma as a whole begins. It’s why the practice begins with the four noble truths, not with the three characteristics … 
  3. The Path of Giving
     … You use your perceptions to help you focus on the breath throughout the day. Or when things get more refined, focus on space throughout the day: space all around you, in between the atoms of your body. You can make that your perception. And on up through the levels of concentration. Thought constructs: You have feelings and perceptions, you have directed thought and evaluation … 
  4. Get Out of the Way
     … But she later said that she was exhausted at the end of the treatment because she had been using her powers of concentration just to focus, focus, focus, and not allow herself to have any reaction to the pain. Afterwards, Ajaan Fuang went to visit her and asked her how it went. She explained, and he told her, “You can’t use just your … 
  5. Injustice
     … It’s a balance for the other three qualities, so that your goodwill doesn’t burn out and you can focus your goodwill on areas where you really can be of help. In other words, if you see there are areas where you can’t bring about a change for the better, then you just have to let those areas go, realizing the limitations … 
  6. The Dhamma Wheel
     … Focus on the right points; focus on the right issues. It’s work to be done. And that’s the message of this wheel the Buddha taught. There are basically four different duties and he teaches four noble truths because as we start out on the path, there are four different things we have to do: some things we have to comprehend, some things … 
  7. Solidly Here
     … So focus in right here. The breath is a good place to focus because it’s a guarantee that you’re in the present moment. It’s also right where the mind and the body meet. If the mind is going to have an impact on the body, it does it through the breath energy. And it’s through the breath energy that we … 
  8. Creating a World of Concentration
     … One is just to give the mind something to focus on that it likes, and it’ll settle down on its own. But if it doesn’t settle down on its own, you’ve got to figure out what it’s attached to. In other words, you have to use some insight to get the mind to settle down. If you see that your … 
  9. Respect
     … How does it feel from the head down to the toes? Are there any patterns of tension? Any pains? Don’t focus on the pains right now. Try to breathe calmly. Then gradually relax the patterns of tension. You might start with your fingers, go up your arms. When you get to the shoulders, then start down at the toes. From the toes go … 
  10. The Path of Questions
     … how heavily to focus on the breath. Other questions you can put aside, because most of the other questions you would be focusing on now would simply foster doubt. The questions dealing with the mind and the breath in the present moment: Those are the ones that are relevant because you can answer them by looking right here, right now. The point of our … 
  11. The Uses of the Breath
    The Buddha taught lots of different meditation techniques, lots of different objects that you can focus on. But, as Ajaan Lee points out, the breath is the home base. In his terms, the other objects are places where you go foraging when you need special kinds of food for the mind. Otherwise, you come back home. This is because the breath has all kinds … 
  12. Self View & Conceit
     … So focus on the causes, and the results will take care of themselves. The path is something fabricated. It leads to something unfabricated. It doesn’t cause the unfabricated, but it leads you there. Without the path, you can’t get there at all. So focus on what you’re doing right now. Be really sensitive to what you’re doing right now because … 
  13. Putting Out the Fires
     … This is why, with the contemplation, we focus on the unattractive side of the body. The Buddha’s not saying the body is a bad thing. After all, if we didn’t have bodies, we wouldn’t have anything with which to function in human life. But usually we focus on the wrong things, and that provokes the lust in the mind. So first … 
  14. Controlling
     … So if you want to control things in a skillful way, this is where you focus. Develop some skill here. This will affect your sense of who you are, because your sense of who you are and what belongs to you is very closely connected to control. If there’s something you can’t control at all, you realize right away, “This is not … 
  15. Precept Meditation
    Precept Meditation October 22, 2006 Years back, when Ajaan Suwat was teaching a meditation retreat at IMS, someone asked him a question in a Q&A session toward the end of the retreat: “How do we bring meditation into daily life?” His answer was to focus on the five and the eight precepts—but a lot of people misunderstood his answer. They interpreted it … 
  16. Deconstruction
     … When people brought up controversies of the day, especially in areas of the Dhamma, he’d tell them, “Close your eyes, meditate, focus on your breath.” But there were a couple of issues that he would bring up himself. One was the idea that the path is all about letting go, letting go. He’d say, “That’s not the case. You have to … 
  17. Do, Maintain, Use
     … You made a choice about what to focus on, what not to focus on. When you can be clear about what you’re doing, and you see that you made the wrong choice, you can undo that choice and come right back. You begin to realize that you’re more involved in this than you thought. There’s so much going on in the … 
  18. All Eye
     … But any spot in the body where there seems to be a center of energy, focus your attention there. Think of the breath radiating from that spot as you breathe in. If there are any obstructions to its spreading out to fill the whole body, think of those obstructions dissolving away. Then move up to the next center of energy, and then the next … 
  19. Protecting Yourself Against Yourself
     … You notice, as you focus on the breath, that you’ve got all three of those right here. There’s directed thought and evaluation aimed at the breath, and the perception of breath that you hold in mind. This afternoon, I had to explain—for the umpteenth the time—that “breath” here is not just the air coming in and out of the lungs … 
  20. Four Bases of Success
     … It’s the same with choosing where exactly in the body you’re going to focus. If you focus on the head, sometimes it may give you a headache, so you focus further down. Some people find that if they focus down around the stomach they start getting sleepy, so you have to notice what effect your choices are having on your ability to … 
  21. Behind the Scenes
     … You want a harmless happiness, so you focus on the source of harmless happiness: your mind. You realize that everything depends on actions, so you want to focus your attention on areas where you can make a difference. Well, this is the big place where you can make a difference: your own mind right here in the present moment. And as for the issues … 
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