Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Choosing Freedom… There’s the choice of where you’re going to focus your attention and what you’re going to do with where your attention is focused. And that can make all the difference. It may seem like a big responsibility, but it’s also good news. What this means is that as the body inevitably gets older—and there’s going to be illness …
- Permission to Play… Notice where you feel it, the sensations that tell you when it’s coming in and going out, and then keep your attention focused on those sensations. You have to be careful, though, in how you focus. If you put too much pressure on the breath, it starts getting constricted. If your attention to the breath is too light, it slips off and floats …
- Feelings Not of the Flesh… You do it through focusing, say, on the breath, and then talking to yourself about the breath. How does the breath feel? Is it too long? Too short? Too fast? Too slow? What would feel good right now? As the Buddha says, you try to give rise to feelings of pleasure, give rise to a sense of refreshment or even rapture, and then you …
- Humility & Confidence… It’s simply a matter of sensitizing yourself and exploring, trying different ways of breathing, trying different ways of focusing, seeing what works. When things aren’t working, learn to give yourself pep talks. That’s what the confidence is for. After all, the Buddha said that if this were a path that human beings couldn’t follow, he wouldn’t have taught it …
- An Interest in the Breath… They saw fire differently because they were focusing on different things and ignoring different things. We nowadays are ignoring some things and focusing on others—because perceptions are like that. They focus on certain details, highlight them, and block out others. So what you’ve got to do as you’re practicing is learn perceptions that are useful for the purpose of the practice …
- A Master of Your Thoughts… Or if you find that making the mind stay focused in a certain part of the body gives you a headache or gives rise to a sense of discomfort, you can focus someplace else. There’s no law that you have to stay at the nose or that the breath can be felt only at the nose. After all, the breath is the energy …
- Shaping Your Life… The way you’re focusing on the breath right now has an impact on how you’re experiencing the breath. Your concepts about the breath, your concepts about what it means to be focused, your intention in being with the breath: All of these things shape the breath, shape your experience of the breath. You want to get sensitive to them so that you …
- The Energy You Broadcast… We’re going to spend more time focusing on what we’re generating from within and sending out. We develop this ability not to simply be reactive. We can respond. The Romantics used to talk about this, of how the way the nervous system works. It’s not simply atoms coming in hitting your nerves, and then your nerves sending atoms bounding back out …
- Mindful to Be Skillful… So that’s something else you want to keep in mind as you’re focused on the breath, as you’re focused on feelings, whatever your meditation theme: You always want to do it skillfully. And not just the meditation: With everything you do, that’s something to keep in mind. When you’re dealing with other people, you want to do it skillfully …
- Appropriate Attention… Alertness is more focused. It’s focused on what you’re doing, either outside or inside the mind—because that’s what makes all the difference. So we’re here not because the present moment is a wonderful moment, but because there’s work to be done in this moment. And the work that makes the difference is done right here. Know and figure …
- To Suffer Is an Active Verb… This is one of the reasons why the quality of alertness in mindfulness practice is focused not on the present moment in general, on whatever happens to pop up in the present moment, but specifically on what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing. That’s where alertness is focused because that’s where the problem lies—and also where …
- Straightening Out the World… The only way to maintain your goodness is to keep it focused where it’ll make a difference. As Ajaan Suwat once said, each of us has only one person—in other words, we’re responsible for ourselves, our own intentions. We can’t be responsible for other people’s intentions. So this is where our work has to begin: right here, right here …
- Quiet in the Midst of Turmoil… As the Buddha says, in a case like that, would the man let himself get distracted by the beauty queen or by the crowd? No. He stays focused on the bowl of oil, which is a symbol for mindfulness of the body. In this case, the problem is that you’re letting your attention run out. This is in line with the Buddha’s …
- Truths of the Will… You always want to work to keep your mind centered to make your discernment all around so that you’re not just focused on one little thing and ignoring all the other results of that one thing you’re focused on. People who studied with Ajaan Mun often commented he would see implications of things that they missed entirely. His vision was all around …
- Wisdom Through Doing… The Buddha’s teachings are all about cause and effect, especially focused on causes coming from the mind and the effects that can either lead to more suffering or put an end to it. So that’s what you want to focus on. He’s not the sort of teacher who would talk about beings far away. He would mention them, but always in …
- Positive Capability… That’s precisely what he’s focusing on: Where are your cravings focused? Why do you crave these things? Think of that passage we chanted just now: the four Dhamma summaries. It was given to a king. He had asked a monk, “Why did you ordain?” because he was under the impression that people ordained because they’d lost family, they’d lost wealth …
- The Sport of Wise People… You can be focused on the breath at any time at all. Also, have respect for other people’s concentration. That chant we recited just now about respect for concentration means two things: respecting other people’s efforts at concentration, and respecting your own center that you work hard to create and then all too often just throw away. It’s as if it …
- A Pervasive Well-being… If you’re focused on the back of the neck, think of the breath energy going down the spine. This broadens your range of awareness. If you start at the navel, be aware of that area for a while, then move over to the right, over to the left, then up to the solar plexus; right flank, left flank, then to the middle of …
- Feeding While You Work… You could be focusing on the unattractiveness of the body as your theme, and the questions would be: What is the perception? What is it that makes one perception attractive and another unattractive? Where does this idea of attractive and unattractive come from? It’s not from the body. It’s from the mind. When you’re thinking about death, death itself is not …
- Goodwill for the Breath… Well, focusing on the breath is a way of opening up that block. As we do, we begin to realize that there are other areas of awareness that tended to get blocked off as well. As we’re more open to them, we begin to see them more clearly. They’re less subconscious. They’re more brought into the light of day. Subtle little …
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