Search results for: "Attention"

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  2. Discernment: Commit & Reflect
     … Yet the mind’s constantly flowing out, paying attention to things outside, and paying very little attention to itself. So we’ve got to turn that around. Of course, simply looking at the mind can get pretty depressing. This is why you also commit yourself to the practice. This is a quality of truthfulness. If you’re going to know the truth—as Ajaan … 
  3. Behind the Scenes
     … You realize that everything depends on actions, so you want to focus your attention on areas where you can make a difference. Well, this is the big place where you can make a difference: your own mind right here in the present moment. And as for the issues that would pull you away, you want to see them as small so that you really … 
  4. Close to the Heart
     … We let go of the outside distractions, and ultimately turn our attention to the other part of the one-on-one, which is the mind aware of what’s going on in here. Back when I was first ordained, Ajaan Fuang had me memorize the Divine Mantra, which, I must admit, struck me as kind of strange, as it centered on the six elements … 
  5. Impatience
     … the line between just right and too little effort or too little attention. That way, you get a better and better sense of “just rightness.” So you want to maintain this steadiness of your gaze. The steadier it is, the more clearly you can see when things are going well in the practice, when things are not going well—and you have a sense … 
  6. Patience & Endurance
     … The purpose of that acceptance, of course, is to get us to pay more careful attention to what we’re doing. This is one of the reasons why we meditate. Actions come out of the mind. If the mind is well trained, then it’s going to do things skillfully, to have more skillful intentions—to at least be able to hold its unskillful … 
  7. For a Routine That Isn’t Routine
     … We go through the motions, stop paying attention, which means we miss out on a lot of the opportunities that come from meditating. So we have to learn how to make it special every night. Part of that we do—which is part of the routine—with the chants we have in the beginning. We think about the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha … 
  8. When Nothing’s Happening
     … Maybe you haven’t been paying careful attention.” That’s what is going to be to pull you up, makes you go further: Your insights get more refined because your attention has become more refined. So start with the breath. Is the breath as totally comfortable as it could be? Is it a comfortable breath filling the whole body, every little square centimeter? Look … 
  9. Sowing Good Seeds
    Focus your attention on the breath. Ask yourself: Where do you feel the breath in the body? Where do you feel the energy of the breathing? Sometimes it’s at the nose, but sometimes it’s not. It’s more down in the chest and the abdomen. And if the diaphragm expands, it’s not just the diaphragm. Other parts of the body move … 
  10. A Sense of Space Inside
    Allow your attention to settle on the breath. And hold in mind the perception that the whole body is breathing: all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the cells. That creates a nice spacious sense here in the present. See how long you can maintain that perception—and what happens to your sense of the body, your sense of yourself sitting here as … 
  11. The Six Properties
     … Which spot in the body is the warmest? Focus your attention there, in the same way that you would focus your attention on the most comfortable spot in the body when you breathe. Then think of the warmth spreading from that spot to fill the whole body until you’re sitting there very still, very warm. Sometimes the warmth gets too much. I know … 
  12. How to Feed Mindfulness
     … You might want to focus your attention there and maximize that particular sensation, which means that the breath will get shorter and shorter, more and more subtle as it hovers around that point of balance. If that’s too subtle to notice, simply be aware of when the breath is too long, when it’s too short, too shallow, too deep, which parts of … 
  13. Doing
     … This is why the Buddha focuses so much attention on the issue of skillful and unskillful action. He wants you to explore how much control you actually ga as you try to develop more and more skill. He doesn’t tell you at the very beginning, “Well, just give up.” We know that ultimately you can’t control your body because some day it … 
  14. Questioning Your Way to Certainty
     … Instead, you come to the meditation armed with the right questions, questions that focus your attention on what you can actually see happening right here and now in terms of cause and effect. That’s how you overcome your uncertainty. You know from experience that this works, that that doesn’t work. You learn to evaluate things on your own. In this way, the … 
  15. Fighting off Ignorance
     … Are you going to focus at the tip of the nose, middle of the chest, the abdomen, the middle of the head, the base of the throat? There are lots of places you can focus your attention. Each of them will have a different effect. So check to see for yourself which is the best place to stay right now. As you develop your … 
  16. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … It’s a good place to bring your attention, because the breath is very sensitive to what’s going on in the mind. Fear arises in the mind and it’s going to affect the breath. Anger arises, lust arises, and there’s going to be a change in your breathing. So try to get sensitive to this level of your awareness. The way … 
  17. Concentration: A Balancing Act
     … All your thoughts, all your directed thoughts, your evaluation, your perceptions, your attention, your intentions: Bring them all right here. You might think of them as concentric circles all centered on one place. Ajaan Lee does talk about focusing on one spot in the body first, on what he calls a resting spot of the breath. It can be just above the naval, at … 
  18. To Know the Buddha
     … All too often it’s easy to focus so much on what we want out of this that we forget to pay careful attention to really wanting to do it right. It’s a meticulous job, like those movies of prison breaks: You have to be very careful, step by step. You can’t rush the steps, but of course you don’t want … 
  19. Freedom, Conditioned & Not
     … If you do it right, there’s going to be a sense of ease that comes with the act of paying attention to the breath. The important thing in all of this is that your current actions don’t have to be influenced by your past ones. There is some freedom of choice here. How that happens, the Buddha doesn’t explain; where it … 
  20. A World Apart
     … Everything in the recipe points right here, so point your attention right here. When this world inside gets straightened out, then worlds outside are not going to be a problem for the mind at all—because the happiness that comes from curing the problem within in is so solid that nothing else can efface it. So give this happiness some priority in your life … 
  21. A Home of Your Own
     … Try to get as sensitive as possible to this area of your awareness, an area that we tend to squeeze out because we’re paying attention to things outside. It’s time to move back in, to reclaim this area as your home. Because, basically, it is yours more than anything else out there in the world. You probably remember that time when you … 
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