Search results for: "Attention"

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  2. Intro to Breath Meditation
     … It’s because we’re not watching, we’re not attentive. This is one of the reasons why we want to settle down in the present moment, so that we can actually see what’s going on, see the subtle ways in which we’re causing unnecessary stress and suffering for ourselves and for the people around us, and to see that we don … 
  3. Cultivate a Limitless Heart
     … Paying attention to little things like this makes life a lot easier for everybody else around. Little things you can do for people, behind their backs, the nice things: Those really make the life at the monastery a lot more pleasant for everyone. Many of us think that the atmosphere is friendly when we sit around and chat a lot. But that doesn’t … 
  4. A Skillful Attitude
     … Wherever you sense the breath or the process of breathing, focus your attention there. And allow yourself to think of the concept of breathing in a wide way. It’s not just air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the whole energy flow in the body. And wherever in the body you sense the energy that brings the breath in, the … 
  5. Trading Up
     … If you get bored with the meditation, it’s a sign that you’re not really looking, and you’re not really asking the right questions—you’re not paying attention. If you pay attention, you begin to realize that even though the goal may not seem very nearby, there’s a lot to learn about your body, a lot to learn about your … 
  6. Take an Interest
     … For the most part, we just throw it away, don’t pay it any attention, and look for other medicine outside. But the way you breathe has a huge impact on the body and a huge impact on the mind. So it’s good to explore it. Take some time to experiment. What does short breathing do to the body? What about longer breathing … 
  7. Willing & Observing
     … One is simply the truth of how things work, which is true regardless of whether you watch them or not, whether you pay attention or not, whether you understand them or not. This is the way things work. When the Buddha said he discovered the Dhamma, this is the kind of Dhamma he discovered: the Dhamma of how things work. But he didn’t … 
  8. Skill
     … It’s called appropriate attention. The Buddha once said that he didn’t see any other factor in the mind that was more important for awakening than this factor of appropriate attention, looking at things in terms of skill and lack of skill, cause and effect, starting with something very simple like the breath. As you get more acquainted with the breath, you begin … 
  9. Fabricating Around Pain
     … And, for the time being, you don’t want to give them your attention. You want to give your attention to the breath. You’re trying to establish a good, solid foundation for observing events in the body, events in the mind, and particularly events in the mind. All too often we have a tendency to think that we’re simply on the receiving … 
  10. Disenchantment
     … There are all these attitudes, these intentions, ways of paying attention, and all the different forms of fabrication: These already color the way you’re going to approach sensory contact. And these are the factors that make all the difference between whether it’s going to cause stress and suffering or whether it’s not. So normally we bring this huge parcel of attitudes … 
  11. Pulling Out of the Narratives
     … This is how we solve problems in general, through the quality of attention: what you attend to, what you don’t. We have to watch out for patterns of attending to things that are not really helpful, such as the narratives we bring, the world views we bring, to the meditation. Sometimes these things can really get in the way. This concerns not only … 
  12. Exercising the Mind
     … And if you haven’t been trained, you’ll notice that you jump.” There’s a moment of attention and then there’s a jump and then there’s another moment and then another jump. The problem is that, in those jumps, we’re not really carefully observant of what’s happening. It’s the same with the breath. You watch the breath for … 
  13. Strength of Concentration
     … At the very least, this realization helps take your attention away from the object of the lust and turns around to the lust itself. Because you’ll find many times that the allure of lust is not so much in the object. It’s in the narratives you build around it. So if you can analyze the object until you can put it aside … 
  14. The Form of the Body
     … That’s what we’re trying to focus attention on, and that requires looking at the body in such way that its importance can begin to fade. It looms less and less large in our concern. But that requires a lot of work. We have to chant that chant every day. We have to contemplate this issue every day, every day. “This body of … 
  15. Food for Endurance
     … When the Buddha talks about getting the most out of the Dhamma, he says you listen to it, and then you think about it using what he calls appropriate attention. This involves, one, not despising the speaker; two, not despising the Dhamma;, three, not despising yourself. In other words, you’re willing to listen to the Dhamma, and when you see there’s something … 
  16. Ups & Downs
     … What are you doing right now? You focus your attention there. You have to remember that the path is a series of causes, and even those causes have their causes. Some of them you have some control over and others you. You’re not going to know which are which until you’ve actually made an effort to exert some control. This is why … 
  17. Concentration as a Skill
     … If his mind hadn’t been in concentration, he wouldn’t have been able to see that, because when we cling to things usually we’re not paying attention to the act of clinging. We’re paying attention to the things we’re clinging to, oblivious to the stress that we’re creating for ourselves. But when you have this more refined clinging—and … 
  18. Calm
     … If you have any distracting thoughts, talk to yourself in a way that reminds you that you don’t have to pay attention to them. You’re not responsible for the thoughts. And, for the time being, they have no meaning. Think of them that way: They’re just the mind’s empty chatter or the play of images on a movie screen—red … 
  19. The Steadiness of Your Gaze
     … Our attention has slipped off someplace else. So keep zeroing in on the breath, zeroing in on the breath. Don’t let anything else pull your attention away.
  20. Obsessive Thinking
     … And I said, “You have to remind yourself that this is a narrative.” She said, “Oh yes, and because it’s a narrative, I should just not pay attention to it.” I said, “No, it’s a narrative that you like—part of you likes. That’s what you’ve got to look into.” This is where it’s good to think of the … 
  21. At Home in Jhana
     … Just pay attention to what you’ve got. The mind has a habit of fabricating things, so have it fabricate right concentration. You’ve got the breath, which is bodily fabrication. You’ve got directed thought and evaluation, which are verbal fabrication. And you’ve got feelings and labels or perceptions, which are mental fabrications. So instead of fabricating worlds outside, thought worlds that … 
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