Search results for: "Focusing"
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- 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 …
- The Desire to Be Free from Desire… You’re going to stay focused on the breath. The thinking of the mind doesn’t destroy the breath. It’s still here. All you have to do is remember to stay focused here. You begin to notice, when you’re really sensitive to the breath energy in the body, that when a thought comes into the mind, there will be a little pattern …
- Determination… Patience means realizing that it’s going to take a while sometimes, especially if you’ve got a large object or a large goal, and so the secret to patience is not focusing on how difficult things are, but focusing on where your strengths are. You rely on those strengths to keep going. As for equanimity, it realizes that there are a lot of …
- A Frame for the Day… And if it turns out that by focusing on the breath, you’re keeping yourself awake a little bit longer, that’s perfectly fine, because the rest that comes from concentration, especially when the breath is comfortable, can often be a lot more refreshing and reinvigorating than the rest that comes from plain old sleep. By thinking thoughts of goodwill and working with the …
- At Home in Your Own Skin… After you’ve done this many times, you begin to get a sense of your own idiosyncrasies in how you breathe, which parts need to be focused on, as when there may be tension in the hip, or tension in your shoulders. And then you learn: Can you focus on those spots first, or do you have to wait until you’ve negotiated other …
- Firm in Your Intent… So you want to stay focused on this one path and the duties that are appropriate to it. So this practice we have here of choosing a foundation—a frame of reference—and then staying with it: That’s a necessary part of all of the strengths we’re trying to develop, all the protections we’re trying to develop. One of the points …
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