Search results for: "Focusing"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- The Tools of the Path… At the same time, in developing virtue through these precepts, you’re focusing on what? You’re focusing on your intentions. That’s what makes the difference between breaking a precept and not breaking a precept: the intention behind your action. So the practice of virtue gives you practice in focusing on your mind. After all, concentration is what? It’s a solid, steady …
- Discernment Through Ardency & Evaluation… Alertness is focused mainly on the present. Ardency is focused on what you’re doing to shape both the present and the future, with the knowledge that your actions are going to have consequences. This is why of the three qualities, Ajaan Lee points to ardency as being the one that gives rise to discernment. This fits in with that question the Buddha said …
- Choiceful Awareness… Mindfulness gets you focused on body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities, in and of themselves, all of which are the basic components of concentration. “Body,” here, of course, is the breath. Feelings: The feeling of ease that you’re trying to create with the breath, or the feelings of pain that may distract you. You have to learn how to deal with those feelings …
- Tenacity… This is one of the reasons why Ajaan Lee recommends that when you work through the different breath energy channels in the body, you’ve got everything all connected, you find a spot where you stay focused. You hold on to that spot. You have a perception about it, which may be just a feeling in that spot. Or you may have a mental …
- Just One Person… And you’ve got your awareness and all the mental events that go along with trying to stay focused. We were reading today about all the things that Ven. Sariputta saw in his states of concentration—decision, perception, intention, attention. So bring all these things, all your mental faculties, right here. You don’t have to sort them out by name. Just have a …
- De-domesticated… But the fact that we’re focused here means that we’re a different person in their worlds. So it does have an impact on them. But you want to maintain your focus. You don’t want to give into their pressure. As the Buddha pointed out, the problem in life is suffering. This is something that each of us experiences for him or …
- Feel-Good Religion… As for your frame of reference, the “in and of itself,” means focusing simply on the sensation of having a body, or feelings, etc., right here right now. The primary example is the breath. Stay with the breath coming in, stay with the breath going out. Try to keep in touch with how the breathing feels, the immediate sensation, and try to stay right …
- Be Bigger Than Your Pains… There are a lot of reasons why the Buddha has you stay focused on the breath as your primary object of meditation. It’s free; it’s going to be here as long as the body’s alive; and it’s something very intimate with the mind. It’s the part of your awareness or the part of the world that’s as close …
- Tending the Flame… But once you’ve got yourself focused on the breath and you’ve settled down, you begin to realize that you’ve reached a point where you don’t need this wall of chatter to protect it. You can put it aside and you can stay with the perception of “breath.” There’ll be a sense that the mind and the breath are one …
- Change Your Mind… First there’s establishing mindfulness in the body in and of itself, like we’re focusing on the breath right now. You try to be ardent, alert, and mindful in putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, you put aside any thoughts that would pull you away from the breath. You keep the breath in mind, you’re …
- Confident, Steadfast, Resolute… We hear about the Buddha, how he gained awakening by focusing on his breath. If you don’t really look into the breath, devote yourself to it, you’re never going to learn what its potentials are. “How could someone gain awakening focusing on the breath?” It’ll just be a question in your mind. Do you want to be that questioning person who …
- Guided Meditation… If you want, you can think of the breath energy coming in right at that spot of the body where you’re focused, without any obstruction: breath energy coming in and going out right there. And again, you can adjust the rhythm and the texture of the breathing so it feels just right for that part of the body. Now move your attention over …
- The Fortress… Then you get the mind in position, focused on the breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Remember the “breath” here is not so much the air coming in and out through the nose, but it’s the breath energy in the body that exists on many different levels. The …
- Pulling Out of the Narratives… Get really focused on the breath. It’s like that music school I visited one time in Seoul, Korea, where all the musicians were sitting in one big room, everybody playing really loud, yet each person really focused on what he or she was doing. The trick of course was how to focus totally on what you’re doing, totally on what’s really …
- In Alignment… Or if your awareness is too small, focused at one spot in the body, and the breath begins to get more and more subtle, it loses its focus too. So as soon as the breath gets comfortable, think of spreading your awareness to fill the body. Think of the comfort filling to spread through the body, while you stay with the perception of breath …
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