Search results for: "Focusing"
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- The Stages of Meditation… In the beginning you can focus on any part of the body that feels comfortable to stay focused on, feels easy to stay focused on, and where you can easily keep track of the breath. Try to create a nice relaxed feeling tone right there. Normally when we’re focusing on something we have a tendency to tense it up, which is not what …
- Good Fences… in other words, what’s coming into the mind through the senses, what you’re focusing on, or why you’re focusing on those things. Then there’s restraint in terms of what you do and say and think: what’s coming out. In both cases, the primary restraint is on the mind itself. In other words, you can look at anything as long …
- Directing & Not Directing the Mind… He’s got it focused right there on the bowl of oil. And that, he says, is an analogy for mindfulness immersed in the body. There are many other similes where the Buddha points out how mindfulness is very directed, very focused. So it’s not that mindfulness is undirected and concentration is directed. They’re both focused; they’re both directed. It’s …
- The Four-in-One Establishing of Mindfulness… You’re trying to remain focused, as the Buddha said, on the breath. And there are four things that are right close to here and now that you can remain focused on. One is the body in and of itself: in other words, simply you’re looking at the body on its own terms, without reference to anything outside. Even when you start thinking …
- The Wisdom of Wising Up… Ultimately, though, the mind can begin to notice that the act of focusing on the breath does give it a better place to stay. As results gradually build, the breath grows smoother. The energy in the body has fewer conflicts. It seems to flow in harmony and it provides a good, stable place to stay. The mind is able to settle down more quickly …
- Patience & Sensitivity… Here again, you’re focusing on the craving. Where is that focal point of the craving? As the Buddha said, you have to locate the craving if you really want to understand it. Say, you crave a person—where exactly is your craving focused? On a perception? A thought construct? Your way of talking to yourself? Images you hold in mind? Words you say …
- An Island of Concentration… You choose one topic, like the breath, and you try to stay focused on it in and of itself. You try to stay with the breath as it comes in, goes out, and discern when it’s long, when it’s short, and try to figure out if long breathing feels better or short breathing feels better. That’s because the Buddha also tells …
- Meditating When You’re Sick… And you may find that focusing on one part of the body in particular is very helpful for pains in another part. If you have a headache, sometimes it’s good to focus down around the base of the spine. Stomachache: focus on the knees. In other words, give the mind something good to preoccupy itself with so that it’s not focusing on …
- The Skills of a Hunter… staying focused, staying still, while he waited. And part of that skill was being focused but relaxed at the same time. This is one of the reasons why we work on a full-body awareness, a full-body concentration. In the Buddha’s first steps for breath meditation, you’re aware of short breathing, long breathing. Then you train yourself to be aware of …
- Be Decisive… Just keep focusing in, focusing in, focusing in. What feels really good right now: Stay with that. And you don’t have to humor all the other members of the committee. Just plow right through. At the same time, don’t put a lot of pressure on the body as you’re doing this. There only has to be a mental kind of pressure …
- Not Pained by Pain… Sometimes you find that by focusing on that other part of the body you actually lessen the pain. Ajaan Fuang told me that when he was a young monk he suffered from headaches, and he found that by focusing on the base of his spine, and thinking of the breath going out of the base of his spine down into the ground, reduced a …
- Abandoning Craving… So the desire is not focused on the BMW. It’s focused on the chill: the feeling, the story you can tell yourself about how you have the money and the good taste in cars to be a BMW owner. That kind of thing. Then there’s craving for craving. As the Buddha said, we go through life with craving as our friend. We …
- Set Your Heart on the Breath… So we focus on the breath as something to know and on the focusing itself as something we’ve got to will. You have to have a sense that this is important. After all, the breath is the force of life, and it’s the best place to know both the body and mind together, because the breath is where the mind and the …
- The Brightness of Life… We focus on the breath and then we reflect on the way we’re focusing. What’s involved in the focusing? Dōgen the Zen master talks about just sitting, but his version of just sitting isn’t that you just sit there. You ask questions about what’s happening while you’re sitting. Is the mind sitting in the body? Is the body sitting …
- Dealing with the Hindrances… The desire’s focused on an object or on a narrative, and we can get very focused on these things. As the Buddha said, there is the kind of jhana that’s focused on desire and all the different hindrances. It’s not right concentration, but it is a type of concentration, though. It’s a concentration with blinders. It focuses so much on …
- On the Surface of Things… You’ll have some mental images, but try to keep them focused on the breath. As for any mental images focused on other things, just let them go. The same with thoughts: Any thoughts that deal with anything else, let them go. Pay attention to the thoughts that are about the breath, and see if you can settle down on this level of awareness …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… When that’s the case, you can tell yourself all about the drawbacks of that first thing, but it doesn’t really affect the craving at all, because the craving’s actually focused surreptitiously on the second thing. As the Buddha said, you might be focused on sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, or ideas. You might be focused on your sense of sight …
- An Island above the Flood… You stay focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That formula right there tells you how you deal with the different floods. By staying focused on the body in and of itself, you’re placing a fence around where you’re going to place your attention. Outside of the …
- The Taste Is Release… There’s a passage in the Canon where a monk goes around interviewing other monks who are arahants, asking them, “What did you focus on that led you to awakening?” One monk replies that he focused on the five aggregates, another that he focused on the six senses, another that he focused on dependent co-arising, and another that he focused on the six …
- Monologue on the Breath… So on one level, you’re limiting the discussion to one topic, but you’re focusing the discussion on an area that really does make a difference, really does deal with the big problem in life, which is suffering that you impose on yourself, the limitations you impose on yourself. You’re focusing on how to overcome those limitations, how not to place them …
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