Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … This is why it’s so important that the meditation focuses on the present moment—so that you get more sensitive to what you’re doing, and particularly so that you learn how to see where you’re adding unnecessary stress and suffering. For the most part, we tend to take it for granted: a certain level of stress, a certain level of dis … 
  3. The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites
     … So just focusing on the three characteristics without having a basis of concentration to underlie it and without having mastered the concentration to fight against the characteristics to see exactly how far they go, you can end up becoming very fatalistic. You’ve learned helplessness. Actually, as we’re sitting here, focusing on the breath, we’re fighting against the three characteristics. This is … 
  4. Exploring Possibilities
     … You suddenly see the world in a new way: “The world is perfect as it is.” Or, “The world is illusory.” Those aren’t the insights the Buddha focused on. He focused more on what it’s possible for the mind to do. Can it operate in a way that it doesn’t create suffering for itself? As you meditate you begin to catch … 
  5. The World Is Swept Away
     … We need desire to be focused on this one issue: What can we do that gives rise to long-lasting happiness, and ultimately, a happiness that doesn’t give rise to change at all? That’s what we’re working on here. Wherever we may be in the practice right now, that’s the general direction we’re heading. That’s the question that … 
  6. Strong Through Mindfulness
     … Of those three qualities—mindfulness, alertness, ardency—Ajaan Lee focuses on ardency as being the wisdom factor. We have this knowledge, we’ve memorized these things, and the wise response is to want to use them well to do this well. It requires effort, but it’s effort well spent. Again, to make that kind of effort, you have to remind yourself of why … 
  7. Questioning Your Conviction
     … In other words, you take this mind, which is so quick to change, and you try to keep it focused on one thing continually. You take this body, which has its aches and pains, which, when you sit for long periods of time, usually can get very stiff, and you learn how to sit for a long period of time with a sense of … 
  8. Anapanasati Day
     … You may be focusing on the body or focusing on feelings but it’s hard to be exclusively focused on them. After all, there are connections among these things. An important part of seeing these things as dhammas is to see the connections. So it’s simply matter of which frame of reference is primary, the one that you hold to as your basic … 
  9. Things Don’t Have to Be This Way
     … When the power of the mind is focused, it has a lot of strength. Like the light of the sun: It shines down on a piece of paper and it doesn’t burn the paper. But if you take a magnifying glass and get the focal point just right, you can focus the light of the sun and burn the paper up. It’s … 
  10. Your Higher Power
    When we meditate on the breath, we’re focusing not only on the in-and-out breath, but also on the flow of breath energies in different parts of the body. You try to get the in-and-out breath comfortable. Ask yourself what kind of rhythm would feel good right now. And experiment for a while until you find something that does feel … 
  11. To Comprehend Pain
     … So yes, we’re trying to get the mind past the pain, and we’re focusing on what we can do to help in that direction. In some cases, you work with the elements in the body: the breath, the warmth, the liquid, the solid parts of the body. Bring them into balance, especially using the breath. It’s going to be the main … 
  12. Equanimity in Action, Equanimity at Rest
     … You extend equanimity to everything that’s not related to what you’re trying to accomplish right now, but keep your desire for change focused on what you’re doing. When you understand this point, you avoid a lot of the misunderstandings that come up around equanimity. As the Buddha said, equanimity is not always appropriate. If you simply develop equanimity while you’re … 
  13. Life in the Buddha’s Hospital
     … Your whole mind becomes the world as well when you start focusing outside. “This person does that, this person does this”: That’s the world, even if you use the categories of the Dhamma to judge the person. You’ve taken the Dhamma and you’ve turned it into the world. So you’ve got to keep your gaze focused inside. In other words … 
  14. Tapping into the Breath
    Tapping into the Breath July 17, 2017 Time and again, I say—when you’re focusing on the breath—to remember that the breath is not so much the air coming in and out of the lungs, as it is a flow of energy in the body. One of those flows is the flow that allows the air to come in and out. The … 
  15. Attahi Attano Natho
     … Like right here, focusing on your breath: No one else can focus your mind on the breath. I can stay here and keep repeating over and over again, “Stay with the breath, stay with the breath,” but that doesn’t focus your mind on the breath. It gives you an idea of maybe what to do, but it’s up to you to exercise … 
  16. 1. The Entertaining Breath
     … He heard that Ajaan Lee was focusing on the breath as his main topic for teaching meditation, and this particular ajaan said, “What is there to see in the breath? It’s just in and out. How can you gain any insight there?” And Ajaan Lee replied, “If that’s all you see, then that’s all there is.” It depends on what you … 
  17. Hold on to Right View
    We’re here focusing on the present moment, watching the breath in the present moment, watching the mind in the present moment. What’s the theory behind that? Why are we doing this? After all, there’s not much here, while there are so many other issues out in the world right now. Why are we focusing here? It’s because the choices you … 
  18. Contentment
     … So be clear as to where your contentment should be focused and where your discontent should be focused. If you see that you’re still engaging in unskillful thoughts or you’re still causing stress in one way or another to your own mind, that’s an area where you should not be content. You want to figure out what you’re doing wrong … 
  19. The Desire for Freedom
     … You learn how to hone it in so that it’s focused on the potential causes as the Buddha has laid them out. This is where we have the advantage that he didn’t have: We’ve got the teachings laying these things out for us. We’ve got the reports of all the noble disciples that, Yes, what the Buddha taught is true … 
  20. Analysis of Qualities
     … Appropriate attention is basically learning how to ask the right questions, focused on the issue of what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing. The Buddha himself said he got on the right path by noticing that he could divide his thoughts into two sorts: those imbued with sensuality, ill will, or cruelty on the one hand, and those imbued … 
  21. Mindfulness & Perception
     … Just focus your attention on the breath, and the mind’s old habits of focusing will do that. There will be an arrow and, for the least little while, the ability to remember. But then you forget. You drop the perception. It may take you a while before you come back. This is where you need to know exactly what the mechanics are, so … 
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