Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Empathetic Joy
     … Just make up your mind that you’re going to notice what results of good actions you can see here in the present moment.” Of course, some of the students had psychic powers, while others just focused on their breath. There was one monk, though, who started shaking all over, convulsing. And it turned out he’d had a very contrary idea: He had … 
  3. At Play
     … Remember the stages in focusing on the mind: First you’re sensitive to the state of your mind and then you gladden it. You can gladden it by thinking about the good you’ve done in the past; about how fortunate you are to be here, having this opportunity to work directly on your mind. But more immediately, gladness has to come with a … 
  4. Intent
    One of the phrases we chanted just now, “keeping focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world”: This is a formula for how you get into concentration. And underlying it is a very important quality for succeeding in concentration, which is intent. You want to be totally intent on what you … 
  5. To Comprehend Suffering
     … And right view, of course, is the four noble truths, focused on the issue of stress, suffering—dukkha is the Pāli term. In its ordinary, everyday meaning, dukkha means “pain.” Sometimes you hear it described etymologically. Du- means “bad”; kha- can mean either “the hub of a wheel” or “space,” the idea being, in the first case, that it’s like a hub that … 
  6. Right View, Right Attention
     … So it’s good to have some ideas about what’s worth focusing your attention on and what’s not. If you were working on a project that required a lot of ingenuity, a lot of creativeness, creativity, you might say, “Okay, I’ll be open to whatever.” But the mind has some unfinished business. It has a habit of taking something that could … 
  7. Withstanding Pleasure & Pain
     … You’re focused on something, and it turns into something you don’t like, and you lose your focus, you go someplace else. Or you get bored and you go someplace else. The thing is, we have to work with this kind of concentration to get past the pain if we’re going to get it deeper. This is why we use directed thought … 
  8. You’re Already Dead
     … This helps cut through your sense of self-importance, and focuses you on what’s really important, the business that really needs to be done, which is straightening out your own mind right here and now. But it’s also a useful teaching to use when you go back. When issues come up that cause you worry and distress, just tell yourself, “I’m … 
  9. The Taste vs. the Reality
     … Sometimes focusing on the breath starts to lose its appeal. You lose interest. Even when you get nice long periods of bliss and wellbeing, part of the mind gets bored. It wants some action; it wants to taste some emotions. So you start thinking about all kinds of other things. But you have to remember that no matter how attractive and tasty those alternatives … 
  10. Where the Mind & Body Meet
    When you’re focused on the breath, you’re focused where the mind and the body meet. It’s through the breath that the mind is aware of the body, aware of having a body, and it’s through the breath that the mind exerts influence in the body; it can get the body to move around. And right here is where the Buddha … 
  11. Rhythms of the Mind
     … There are ways of focusing on the breath that are just really, really still. Nothing much happens. You’re really plowed into the breath, focused in on the breath. Then there’s a lighter stage of concentration where you’re still with the breath and the breath energy in the body, and things can come up. When things come up, it’s not just … 
  12. Training Your Cynical Voices
     … You get into right concentration by focusing on your breath, focusing on the body. You don’t have to think about directed thought and evaluation. You just do them. Evaluate your breath. If it’s not good, change it. Keep coming back to the breath again and again and again. Keep exploring how you can breathe in a way that really feels gratifying. As … 
  13. Concentration that Bears Great Fruit
     … After all, if you don’t like what you’re focused on, it’s hard to get the desire going and it’s hard to get concentrated on it regardless of whether you want to be persistent or intent or whatever. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha offers so many different topics for concentration, so that you can find one that … 
  14. Prerequisites for the Practice
     … Here, specifically, the Buddha’s focusing on the causes of suffering inside. There may be external causes for pain and misery in the world, but, as he said, you don’t solve those problems without solving the problem of why the mind is making itself suffer inside. You want to see when suffering comes, how it comes; when it goes, how it goes. This … 
  15. Refuge
     … You’re the one trying to stay focused here. As for other becomings that you might create right now about the past or about the future, just let them go. You don’t have to get involved. Many of our becomings are created by the mind running around. It’s like taking a picture while you’re running: It’s bound to be blurry … 
  16. Meditate to Win
     … When did the mind settle down really well? What was the best spot during the hour’s meditation? Where were you focused? What was the breath like? What had you been doing leading up to that? If you’re really mindful and alert, you should be able to remember. Then take what you’ve managed to observe—however well you’ve observed your mind … 
  17. A Valuable Gift
    Here you are focusing on your breath with your eyes closed. What are you doing for other people? You’re actually doing a lot. You’re bringing your mind under control. The extent to which you can get rid of greed, aversion, and delusion inside yourself means that there’s less greed, aversion, and delusion to inflict on other people. And you’re setting … 
  18. Dimensions of Right Effort
     … The skillful desires are focused on the path for the sake of the goal. To make another analogy, it’s like driving to a mountain on the horizon. If you spend all your time looking at the mountain while you’re driving, what happens? You drive off the road. You have to focus your attention on the road. And even though the road doesn … 
  19. In Training
     … That’s the point he focuses on a lot: that your actions, instead of accounting for nothing, actually are the prime force shaping your experience of the universe. Your skillful actions based on skillful intentions will lead to good consequences. Unskillful actions based on unskillful intentions will lead to bad consequences. It’s a simple-sounding principle, but it gets pretty complex in the … 
  20. So Little Time
     … Notice that after the Buddha’s awakening the issue that he focused on was one that all of us have in common, which is that we want happiness and yet our actions lead to suffering. And unlike some teachers who try to make us embarrassed about our desire for happiness or denounce it as selfish, he said that there’s nothing wrong with the … 
  21. The Human Condition
     … You work with it by focusing your efforts on following the path. This is why this kind of grief is a useful grief. It keeps you on the path of practice. Often you hear people saying, “Don’t try to push too hard in the practice; don’t have any sense of goal, because you’ll get frustrated over the fact that you haven … 
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