Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. A Good Place to Stay
     … Are you ready to settle down? Try focusing on the breath for a while as it comes in and goes out, and see if you find it easy to stay here. If there’s some discomfort in the body, there are two ways you can treat it. One is to think of the breath energy going through that part of the body and loosening … 
  3. Only One Person
     … Alertness focuses not just on anything coming up in the present moment. It focuses on your actions and the results you’re getting from your actions. And then ardency is what wants to get good results out of your actions, which means that if you’re doing something that’s not getting good results, you turn around and look very carefully at what you … 
  4. Four Bases of Success
     … It’s simply a matter of, one, focusing the desire properly on the right goal; and then two, after you’ve chosen the goal, focusing on the path that leads there. If you spend all your time thinking about the goal, you’re never going to get there. You need to have a desire to follow the path: developing right view, right resolve, all … 
  5. Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength
     … You stay consistently focused with the breath. To define concentration, the Buddha uses the word ekaggata, which can be translated as being one-pointed, but also can mean having one gathering place. In other places, he describes concentration as whole body awareness, so it’s more likely that in this case it means that everything in the mind is gathered around one topic—the … 
  6. Metta Meditation
     … One of the things that you have to watch out for is the mind’s tendency to tense up the spot where it’s focused. So find a spot that feels good and think about keeping it relaxed, keeping it relaxed, keeping it relaxed as you keep tabs on it. If you slip off, be good-natured about coming back. As with any skill … 
  7. An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … There are all kinds of things we could be doing on a Friday night, but we’re here focusing on our breath. Learn to squeeze some concentration, squeeze some mindfulness, squeeze some discernment out of the fact that we have a body that can breathe and a mind that can think and be aware: taking these very basic qualities and gaining the most from … 
  8. A Strong Mind
     … When you’re developing the mind, you’re not sitting here focusing directly on the mind. You’re focusing on the breath. Or you can focus on the meditation word, buddho. You give the mind something to work with, to come back to repeatedly, because in the course of sticking with that one object, you’ve got to develop certain qualities. You don’t … 
  9. Protection, Inside & Out
     … Appropriate attention focuses attention on questions of: What is skillful? What is not skillful? If something unskillful comes up, how do you get rid of it in an effective way? This you learn from listening to others and also from observing yourself. In fact, as the Buddha said, right view—appropriate attention—can come from two things. One is from outside influences. Someone else … 
  10. The Problem of Suffering
     … You’re focusing on the breath coming in, going out. The teachings on the four noble truths, all the various ways of expressing the path, relate to what you’re doing right now. The important thing is what you’re doing. You pick up the Buddha’s teachings as they become necessary, as they become useful. But the first thing is to get the … 
  11. Expanding Your Skill Set
     … And keep it focused in a way that feels just right, not putting too much pressure on it, but also not being so light that you easily slip away. The traditional image is of holding a baby chick in your hand. If you squeeze the chick, you kill it. If you hold it too loosely, it flies away. So you’ve got to hold … 
  12. Capable
     … You keep focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. So you stay with the breath. That’s part of the body and it’s already there. What’s going to make a difference is developing those three qualities of mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Mindfulness is the ability to keep … 
  13. How the Tree Leans
     … You can be sitting here very still with the mind focused on the present moment. But the present moment keeps changing. The present moment you were focused on just a few seconds ago is gone. The mind is leaning in different directions. As the Buddha said, based on the thoughts that you encourage in your mind, it’s going to lean in that direction … 
  14. You’re Doing Something Wrong
     … either specific perceptions and feelings that you’re focusing on, or the way you’re focusing. That’s where you’re doing something wrong. Which is why you want to evaluate what you’re doing as you’re sitting here watching your breath. When you can admit your mistakes, that, the Buddha said, is a cause for growth in the Dhamma and Vinaya. The … 
  15. Unattractive
    As Ajaan Fuang used to say, the breath is the basis of our skill here, and concentration focused on the breath is the safest of all the concentration practices. It’s the one where you can see most clearly the stages of jhana as the mind settles down. You can see the different kinds of fabrication: bodily, verbal, mental. Bodily, being the breath itself … 
  16. Stick to Your Duties
     … We’re focusing on developing right concentration through right mindfulness and right effort—all of the concentration factors of the path. Make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath and put aside any other thoughts that have to do with the world. Whatever the world is doing out there right now, that’s not your business. Your business is the … 
  17. Meditation as Play
     … In his instructions on how to focus on the mind while you’re focusing on the breath, there’s nothing that says, “I’ll now breathe in, making the mind grim. I’ll breathe out, making the mind grim.” The instructions are, “I’ll breathe in and out, gladdening the mind.” And how do you gladden the mind? You approach the meditation with an … 
  18. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … Because he offers different views, different ways for doing things, a different sense of self, but focused on the doing: practicing generosity, practicing virtue, developing concentration, developing your discernment. He gives very clear instructions on how to do these things. So you want to clear away all the encumbrances that get in the way of really focusing where the problem is: your own clinging … 
  19. The Four Noble Truths from Within
     … As you’re focusing on the breath, it’s good to remember that we’re not here worried about the air that scientists might be able to measure coming in and out through the nose. We’re concerned with the flow of energy in the body that we feel directly, because it’s something we can adjust. This process of adjusting our experience, having … 
  20. Adjusting the Flame
     … So you get focused on one thing, get interested in it, and then do your best to make sure that the mind doesn’t drift off either into excess energy or deficient energy. If you have too much energy, the mind is going to want to leave. One of the ways of dealing with that is to focus on the sense of ease that … 
  21. Breath Meditation: The Second Tetrad
     … If you’re focusing on your hands, allow it to spread up the arms. If you’re focusing on your feet, of course, allow it to spread up the legs. Let the breath find whatever rhythm allows that sense of fullness to spread up from those parts. Other people find that a sense of fullness starts in the middle of the chest. Again, allow … 
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