Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Concentration as Wilderness… In other words, you gain some insight into how you’re focusing on the breath in a way that’s not as skillful as it could be, or how you’re coming back to the breath in a way that’s putting too much pressure on it – lots of details about what it means to settle into the body. You can gain insight into …
- A Thread Out of the Maze… So what are you doing right now? Try focusing on your breath. See how the breathing feels, notice where you can see the breath clearly, and then stay there for a while. It might be the tip of the nose, the rising and falling of the chest, the rising and falling of the abdomen, or, on a more subtle level, the movement of energy …
- To Know the Unconditioned… But as you begin to settle in, you start to see that some of those levels can be peeled away and the mind can still stay focused. The first thing to go is the directed thought and evaluation, because their purpose is to fit the mind with the body, fit your consciousness with the breath, so that they stay together comfortably, with a sense …
- A Happiness Based Inside… either focusing on your internal happiness, your internal pleasure as your main source of pleasure, or still wanting to dabble with things outside, wanting to feed off things outside. You have to choose where you’re going to feed, and it’s one or the other. Because if you go plunging into sensual pleasures, you lose this internal basis. Again, it’s not that …
- A Much Better Place… Often, as you get more and more focused on the breath, there’s a very strong sense of becoming one with the breath. You’re in the same place together. And for the time being, that’s fine. Because as you get to know this place, you get to know all kinds of things. But you want your awareness to fill this place. How …
- Inner Refuge… As you’re sitting here focused on the breath, this means trying to catch it before it leaves. Accept the fact that it’s going to have a tendency to leave the breath. That’s normal. Be prepared for it. Don’t be surprised. But being prepared means that you learn how to look for the warning signs that the mind is about to …
- Afraid of Pleasure… There was a very steady state of well-being, rapture, refreshment, simply focused on his breath. So now he reflected on that. He asked himself, “Why am I afraid of that pleasure? Is there anything blameworthy about it?” The more he reflected on it, the more he realized there was nothing to be afraid of there. So he decided to see if that would …
- To Be Sure… It focuses on what you’re doing, it focuses on your happiness, but with a realization that there’s a ripple effect. Each of us is a causal node, you might say, making decisions freely in the present moment that send out ripples, and feeling the ripples of other people’s decisions. We can’t get into other people and make their choices for …
- True Happiness Starts with Giving… So even though we get to the goal not by focusing on the goal, but by focusing on the path, still, it’s good to remember every now and then where this practice is taking us so that we can practice the path with more energy and find more delight in letting go all along the way.
- Seven Facets of Discernment… So even though, as we meditate, we’re trying to stay focused on the breath in the present moment, we’re also thinking about why we’re doing this—what will be for our benefit now and into the future—and of lessons we’ve learned from the past. If something comes up in the present moment, you don’t just sit there with …
- Clear of Defilement… Say, when lust comes in, sometimes you’re focused on the object of the lust, sometimes you’re focused just on the physical feeling of the lust, the sense of excitement, arousal. Many times it’s a combination of all these factors. What you’ve got to learn to do is to take them apart. One, look at the object, really look at the …
- No Foolproofing… The first issue, of course, is the balance between focusing too heavily or too lightly. The Buddha compared it to holding a quail in your hands. If you hold it too loosely, the quail’s going to fly away; if you hold it too tightly, it’s going to die. So how much pressure do you apply to the breath right now so that …
- When Things Aren’t Going Well… If it breathed just while you were focusing on it and then stopped breathing when you were thinking about something else, you’d be dead. So take some lessons from the breath because it’s consistent. It keeps coming in and going out whether you pay attention to it or not, whether you like it or not. It’s there. It keeps coming in …
- The Blood You’ve Shed… From his second knowledge, he focused in on the present moment, looking to see what his mind was doing at that moment that was causing stress and suffering, and what intentions and views he could develop to put an end to that stress and suffering. He saw that the suffering came from craving and clinging, so he focused his intentions on doing everything he …
- Breaking the Arrows… When you read the story of his quest, you realize that there were things he began to notice—habits he had, ways of thinking, ways of focusing his mind, ways of understanding things—that were causing him to suffer, sometimes on very subtle levels. The question always was, is there another way to do that? Are there other habits? He went all the way …
- Nibbana Is Better than You Think… Suffering is the problem he focused on, and he proposed a solution. First he was able to solve that problem inside himself. Then he taught other people to solve it within themselves. It seems fairly simple. You look at all the suffering in the world, and it’s obvious that it’d be really good that people not have to suffer. You see war …
- Thinking About Your Fears… No matter where she focused in the body, she couldn’t stay. It was all pain. Then she saw a space. So she focused on the sense of space that surrounds the body and permeates the body. And there was no suffering there at all—at least none of the suffering that would come from the body. After a while, she returned to the …
- Established in Full… We’re not focusing so much on the air coming in through the nostrils. We’re focusing more on the feeling of the body as it expands and contracts, bringing the air in, letting the air go out. You could ask yourself: Where do you feel that? Settle your attention there. Then ask yourself if it’s comfortable. After all, as you’re practicing …
- Do Jhana… It’s important to keep this point in mind, particularly as you’re focusing on the breath. The way the Buddha taught breath meditation was designed specifically to develop both samatha and vipassana—a sense of calm and insight—at the same time. The calm comes from staying with the breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Try to stay with the in-breath all the …
- For the Survival of True Happiness… And at the moment where you really need your topic of meditation, it’s going to abandon you.” Well, that would be true if the breath were the only topic of meditation that’s engaged in focusing on the breath. But remember, the Buddha has us focus on ways of breathing that make us sensitive to how the mind fabricates its experience through its …
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