Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Reclaiming the Breath
    We focus on the breath while we meditate as a way of reclaiming the breath for ourselves, because all too often it’s taken over by anger or fear, and the breath becomes our enemy. It’s uncomfortable when you’re angry. It’s uncomfortable when you’re afraid. Any unskillful quality coming up in the mind that moves into the body does so … 
  3. A Path of Aggregates
     … It’s purely an internal matter through the way that you breathe and focus on the breath. Breathe in a way that feels refreshing: energizing if you need to be energized, relaxing if you need to be relaxed. Try to gain a sense of what kind of breathing is just right. That, of course, will deal with perception: how you perceive the flow of … 
  4. Big Desire, Detailed Focus
     … What that means is that we take these qualities of desire and discontent and a sense of lack, and we focus them in the right direction. Here it’s getting the mind to settle down. When you’re out in the world, it’s also a matter of getting yourself to stick with the precepts, trying to be as skillful as possible in how … 
  5. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … One way is simply changing the topic, changing the focus. If you see that looking at a certain thing gives rise to lust or gives rise to anger, ask yourself: Do you really have to look at it? In a lot of cases, no, you went looking for it: something to aggravate the desire for anger, the desire for lust. That’s an important … 
  6. A Path Under the Trees
     … Can you sense any distinction between the way the body feels as you breathe in, and the way it feels as you breathe out? Wherever it’s clearest, focus your attention there. But try to keep this full body awareness going at the same time. So you focus simply on the breath right here, right now. Any thoughts of the world, you just let … 
  7. Equanimity & Karma
     … You have to learn, instead, to let the ease do its work, whereas you continue doing your work with the breath, i.e., you focus on the breath; stay steadily with the breath, and then let the ease do its soothing in the body. You focus on the causes; the effects will take care of themselves. In this way, you learn how not to … 
  8. Patience
     … So the focus should always be on the causes, and you should apply yourself to the causes with as much commitment and resolution as you can muster. Let go of your thoughts about how long you’ve been practicing, what the results used to be in the past. Focus on what you’re doing, totally on what you’re doing, right now.
  9. Between You and Your Eyes
     … So even though we are doing the meditation to gain results, you can’t keep your focus on the results down the line. You’ve got to keep the focus right here, right now. Each breath. How you’re shaping each breath right now: Be sensitive to that, so that each breath becomes your goal, in and of itself. And try to find the … 
  10. In the Present
     … That’s where you want to focus. And then two, you do your duty with regard to what’s coming up in the mind. So there’s something you actually do. And when the Buddha talks about being in the present, it’s always in the context of heedfulness: If you don’t do your duties now, you don’t know how much longer … 
  11. Patience
     … Don’t focus on the hardships, focus on the opportunity you’ve got to develop skillful qualities here, because that opportunity is not that widely available. So patience is not so much gritting your teeth and just bearing with difficult situations. It’s learning how not to pile difficulty on top of what’s there—either thinking about how long you’ve had to … 
  12. Determination
     … And when we focus on what we want, we don’t usually think about what the long-term consequences will be, so often the long term turns out bad. One of the ways of solving this problem is to learn how to develop the right kind of determination. In other words, focus your desires on the things that really are important. Learn to train … 
  13. Delight in Persistence
     … As Ajaan Lee liked to say, the goodness of the world isn’t true, and the truth of the world isn’t good—the point being that you need to focus your attention in another direction to find happiness. You need to focus on developing good qualities inside. We have potentials inside that can accomplish a lot, but we tend not to develop them … 
  14. Break Things Down
     … He says to focus on qualities—mental qualities. That’s where he says you’re going to find the solution to the problem of suffering. As he said, if skillful mental qualities couldn’t be developed, he wouldn’t have taught people to develop skillful qualities. And if developing skillful mental qualities led to suffering, he wouldn’t have taught them to do that … 
  15. Safety in Awareness
     … If things are too warm in the body, focus on water to cool you down. Too cool? Focus on fire to warm you up. If you’re feeling too lightheaded, think of earth. Feeling too heavy? Think of the breath. Or you can start thinking about space, because the whole purpose of getting these four elements into balance is that from there it’s … 
  16. A Happiness Based Inside
     … So even though there may be pains in the body, you can focus on the breath in such a way that the energy in the body can help either alleviate the pain or at least provide you an alternative place to focus your attention. Now, once you’ve learned how to master this kind of pleasure, it’s not automatic that you’ll suddenly … 
  17. At Home with the Breath
     … Thoughts of equanimity, when you realize there are certain things that are beyond your control and you accept that so you can focus on what you can change, what you can control: Thinking about that can often lift a lot of burdens off your mind. That’s one level of well-being. The next takes more work, which is to get the mind really … 
  18. Learning How to Talk to Yourself
     … That’s what the focus is—how to shape the present moment in a skillful way—to focus on the role that your present moment actions have in determining whether or not you’re going to suffer right now. So let’s come back to, “what are you doing right now?” You could focus on restrictions and problems you have that seem to be … 
  19. Lift Up Your Heart
     … So whichever side of the Buddha you find most uplifting, focus on that. The same with the Dhamma: You can think about how useful this Dhamma is, how wonderful it is. But sometimes to appreciate the Dhamma you have to think about, well, what would life would be like without the Dhamma? As the Buddha said, if someone is going to gain awakening while … 
  20. Strong Through Commitment
     … As for the source inside, where does it originate? You might focus on one spot. Say, you have a pain in the back. Don’t focus on the back. Focus on the front of your body. Then, see if the pain is actually caused by some weird breath movement in the front of the body—that happens, you know. The same with left and … 
  21. Skillfully Shaping Your Life
     … And as with any skill, it takes time and it takes your powers of observation, along with some ingenuity to figure out what kind of breathing feels best, what spot in the body is a good place to focus. Get to know how you conceive the breathing process. You have a mental picture of the breath that you carry in mind. When the Buddha … 
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