Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Unlearning Unskillful Behavior
     … If you know you have certain problems focusing on the breath, focusing on getting the breath to be comfortable, ask yourself, “In what ways am my conceiving this problem in a way that’s keeping me trapped?” I was talking recently to someone who was of the opinion that you had to get the breath energy really nice all the way throughout the body … 
  3. Get Out of Yourself
     … So as you’re sitting here with the meditation, focusing on the breath, if these narratives do come up about how you’re not making progress as fast as you’d like, about how the goal seems far away: Get out of yourself. Think of all the beings in the world and where they’re heading. You, at least, are heading in the right … 
  4. Take Care of Your Tools
     … That’s one of the reasons why Ajaan Lee focused on the breath in all his books, because it’s the safest object of meditation you can find. It keeps you centered in the body with a balanced sense of ease and well-being. And that ease and well-being are your measuring stick. If things start feeling really strange and weird, or very … 
  5. Enjoying the Path
     … It’s focusing its interest here, focusing its interest there, and it blocks out other things in doing so. You begin to see that there are certain ways of breathing that are associated with skillful states of mind, and others that are associated with unskillful states of mind. The relationship goes back and forth. Sometimes it’s the breath that encourages the skillful or … 
  6. Homage Through the Practice
     … This is why he focuses his teaching on the issue of suffering and stress. He said that if you solve this one problem, you’ve solved all of the mind’s problems. Some people complain that the teaching sounds very narrow—just focusing on suffering when there are so many other bigger issues in life—but the question is, are the big issues really … 
  7. The Strength of Conviction
     … Sometimes you find yourself suddenly focused on the earth element in the body. Everything gets very solid. And depending on how you feel about it, it can be either very pleasant or very unpleasant. It’s unpleasant when you want it to be something else. It can be pleasant when you want it to be that way. If you find it unpleasant, ask yourself … 
  8. Right View Tells You What to Do
     … We’re working on the one hand trying to stay focused with the breath in and of itself—in other words, the breath totally on its own terms, without any reference to the world outside. Of course there will be thoughts that go to the world outside: Those you put aside. And all too often what you find is that you’ve left your … 
  9. Wearing the Breath
     … So, if you’re focused at one point—say, the tip of the nose—and you’re trying to block out everything else, you’re going to miss where those patterns of tension are. You’re going to miss an important step in the meditation, which is to see thoughts as they arise and catch them when they’re still in the process of … 
  10. The Raft of Jhana
     … This is more directly focused inside, but the way you deal with other people is going to have an impact on how you talk to yourself. The way you talk to them, the kinds of things you think about, the ways you comment on things, is going to have an impact on the way you talk to yourself, the way you direct your thoughts … 
  11. Proactive Mindfulness
     … So whatever spot in your body you’re focused on, think of the breath energy flowing in, flowing out naturally, with nothing to obstruct it. At the same time, don’t let your focus be so weak that you keep slipping off. You want to maintain continual focus. In Pali this is called anupassana, sticking with something, keeping track of something, continuing all the … 
  12. A Touchstone at the Breath
     … Stay focused on your breath while you’re listening, because right here is where everything is happening. The breath is your anchor in the present moment. It gets you in touch with how you experience the body, how you experience the mind. It’s in this direct experience where you have to comprehend suffering. You don’t comprehend it by theorizing about it, or … 
  13. Think Your Way to Stillness
     … And a lot of that has to do with not focusing so much on the issue of self, but more focusing on the skill that you’re working on here. As the skill gets better, your sense of self gets more confident, and you begin to sort out all the different selves you’ve had: the ones you’ve been keeping in the back … 
  14. False Friends
     … Get involved with them only enough to get them to go away, whether that involves simply focusing on noticing that you’ve slipped off and coming back to the breath or, if you have to, focusing on the drawbacks of following those trains of thought until you really decide you don’t want to go there. Or simply ignore the thought if it’s … 
  15. Mindfulness of Death & the Deathless
     … Every time he talks about the importance of focusing on the present moment, it’s always in the context of mindfulness of death and the work that needs to be done. As he says, do your duty right now, right now. You’re not hankering after the future, you’re not dwelling on the past. You’re focusing on what’s appearing right now … 
  16. The Path is Fabricated
     … You have to be focused very intently on that bowl of oil. That, the Buddha said, is a symbol for mindfulness—in this case, mindfulness of the body. So there’s a lot in the Canon to show that mindfulness is not necessarily an open, receptive mind state. Sometimes you are mindful to be open and receptive, but other times, you’re mindful to … 
  17. Noble & True
     … There are times when the desire is too strong and others where it’s too weak, or it’s not focused properly. There’s a lot more to desire than just saying, “I have good intentions.” When you have the desire to be skillful, you have to be able to adjust it, as the Buddha said, so that it’s not excessive and not … 
  18. Perceptions as Targets
     … The problem is that we’re focused more on the perception than the actual person, which can lead to problems. So however you translate sañña—memory, perception, label, target, whatever—the important point is that you can change them. We’re not hard wired. The perceptions you hold in mind are a kind of kamma, an act you choose to do. This is why … 
  19. Fighting Attitude
     … There are ways of thinking, ways of focusing the mind that can help get around them. With sensual desire, you want to focus on the drawbacks of whatever it is you’re feeling attracted to. Actually, the object itself may not have all those drawbacks but the fact of being hooked on that object: That has a lot of drawbacks. But one of the … 
  20. When it’s Hard to Settle Down
     … It’s a background awareness, and then there’s one spot where you’re focused. What you’re trying to do as you work with the concentration and develop a whole-body awareness is to try to connect that sense of being focused with the background, so that you begin to see it’s all part of the same awareness. Even though there may … 
  21. Trading Up
     … I hadn’t focused on the difficulties. They were there, and I felt them, but I never let them overwhelm me. I decided that the skill of meditation was what I wanted, and I found that by making the breath interesting, and treating this whole question of how to relate to the breath energy in the body a puzzle—a puzzle that I was … 
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