Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Admirable Friendship
     … It means focusing on the right things, focusing on the right issues, asking yourself the right questions. And particularly, seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. That’s pretty radical. We hear the term four noble truths so often that we don’t stop to think about what a radical teaching they are. They’re a guideline for how to look at … 
  3. Rehab Work
     … You begin to notice how the feelings created by focusing on the breath have an impact on the mind. You also notice how the perceptions of what’s happening in the breathing process have an impact both on the mind and on the way you breathe. You try to calm all of that down. Then you look at the state of your mind. Is … 
  4. Throughout the Day
     … Over time, as you’re sitting here, you can get more and more continually focused on the breath. The same principle applies outside. As you’re walking around, as you’re taking on duties, the mind will slip off and forget itself. So as soon as you remember, just come right back to the breath. Here you may want to use a shorthand version … 
  5. Right Resolve & Right Speech
     … What’s the mind focused on? There will be times when it’ll be embarrassed to admit to itself what it really wants to think about. But if you’ve gotten into the habit of speaking truthfully outside, it’s going to be a lot easier to be truthful inside. Part of this relates to the Buddha’s instructions to Rahula at the very … 
  6. Study & Practice
     … The frames of reference are the body in and of itself, like we’re doing right now focusing on the breath; feelings in and of themselves, i.e., feelings of pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain; mind-states in and of themselves, noticing, say, whether the mind is overcome by passion or is free of passion, overcome by aversion or free of aversion or … 
  7. Mindful of Karma
     … But you can change where you’re focusing right now and what you’re doing with your focus. This is where attention and intention come in, and where they’re very important. As for whether things are going well or not, on the one hand that’s predictable and on the other hand it’s not: predictable in the sense that there are some … 
  8. Karma & the Sublime Attitudes
    Try to maintain the intention to stay focused on your breath. What this means is that as distractions come up, you have a choice. You can go with the distraction or you can stay with the breath. So keep reminding yourself that staying with the breath will accomplish a lot more. The distractions may be interesting, they may be entertaining, they may insist on … 
  9. How Completion is Found
     … So you’ve got to develop a good comfortable spot, your spot inside the body someplace, where it feels comfortable to stay focused. And you learn how much pressure is too much pressure and how much is not enough: to get to the point of “just right.” All of this means trying to be skillful. And that means trying to learn from your actions … 
  10. Control
    When the Buddha first talked about the concept of not-self, he focused on the issue of control, because basically that’s what our sense of self comes down to— the things we can control in life: the happiness we can create, and the things we use to create happiness, create pleasure, create a sense of well-being for ourselves and sometimes for the … 
  11. A Wilderness Mind at Home
     … So while you’re here, try to stay focused on this quality of seclusion, not only physical seclusion, getting away from other people, but also mental seclusion. You don’t have to pal around with your thoughts of past or future. Try to be right here. That’s why we focus on the breath. When you’re with the breath, you know you’re … 
  12. The Uses of Pleasure & Pain
     … But buried down in number four, the path, you find the most important factor of the path, right concentration, which involves getting the mind focused on the breath with a sense of ease and rapture. This rapture comes from seclusion: seclusion here meaning that you’re not thinking about past, not thinking about the future, you’re right here with the present moment. Things … 
  13. What Right Mindfulness Remembers
     … So are you focusing in a way that’s going to help it get better or in a way that’s going to create more problems? Are you focusing in a way that allows the mind to see things clearly or make things obscure? What you’re doing right now makes a huge difference as to how you’re going to read the results … 
  14. Breath Energies
     … In cases like that, it’s good to stop focusing on the breath and start focusing on a topic that calms the mind down. Goodwill is a good reflection. Reflection on karma is often useful as well. There are certain issues in life where we feel that we’ve been unjustly treated, and it’s good to remember that karma has been going on … 
  15. Limitations
     … We’re investing our time in the mind, focusing on qualities which, in the very beginning, may not seem much. Mindfulness and alertness: very ordinary everyday qualities. Mindfulness simply means keeping something in mind, as when we’re focusing on the breath right now. We keep in mind of the fact we want to stay with the breath regardless of whatever else comes up … 
  16. Here to Learn
     … So be clear about where you’re focusing, how you’re focusing, what the results are. When things go well, learn how to keep them going well. When they’re not going well, learn how to think of ways of adjusting the breath, ways of adjusting your focus. Try them out, see what happens. See what works; see what doesn’t work. If you … 
  17. Equanimity & Exertion
     … the pleasure of concentration, in which you get the mind totally focused on an object that has nothing to do with sensuality. You start out by directing your thoughts—which is a fabrication—toward a single object, and evaluating the object so that the mind can settle down with it. Like we’re doing right now here with the breath: You work with the … 
  18. The Uses of the Breath
     … When you’re focused on the breath, you’re directing your thoughts there and you evaluate the breath as it’s coming in, going out. You also evaluate the mind as it relates to the breath so that you get them to fit snugly together. Finally, there’s mental fabrication: feelings and perceptions. Perceptions are the labels you give to things. So for the … 
  19. Of Past & Future
     … He focused on the immediate present, on the questions of stress and suffering right here and now, the causes for those things as they appear right here and now. In other words, he focused on his actions, his intentions, in the present moment, along with the stress and suffering occurring right there in the present moment. And the mental activities that led him beyond … 
  20. Sensuality Is a Fetter
     … And the range of the mind actually narrows down as it gets more and more focused on sensual issues. This is where the way of the Dhamma parts ways with the way of the world. As the Buddha said, our freedom lies not in that area, but in learning how to put it aside—how to renounce all that fantasizing and find a happiness … 
  21. Just Events
     … But then the third knowledge dropped the narratives, dropped the worldview, and just focused on events, without asking the question of whether there was a person there or no person there, simply, “These are events.” That kind of depersonalization can be really useful, because you find as you go through life there are a lot of things you can’t control. On the external … 
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