Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. The Power of Your Actions
     … He focuses particular attention on your actions in the present moment. Even though your actions from the past can influence the way things are coming into your senses right now, you don’t just sit there and receive these things. Your mind processes them. Its ability to process and filter and shape things is what makes the difference between suffering and not suffering. Not … 
  11. Get Attached to Jhana
     … You could think of focusing a camera, and that somehow you could take the focal length of the lens and move it inside the lens itself. That’s the kind of focus you want, right here in the midst of the body as you allow yourself to be surrounded by the breath, bathed by the breath, surrounded by the sensation of breathing. Think of … 
  12. Judging Mindfulness & Concentration
     … The first is keeping focused on one topic, like the breath, in and of itself. You’re not worried about the breath in relationship to the world outside, just the breath that you’re experiencing directly, right here, right now. Where do you experience it? Where do you feel it when it comes in, when it goes out? Stay right there with it. Sometimes … 
  13. One Thing at a Time
     … We’re focusing in on the mind. As the Buddha said, the mind is what creates the problem of suffering to begin with. You can think of all the things in the world that you might be suffering from—what other people have done, what other people have said—but the Buddha says that those are not the real cause of suffering. The real … 
  14. The Kamma of Meditation
    The reason why we’re focusing on training the mind in the present moment is because of the way the Buddha taught kamma. That may seem ironic, as most of us think of kamma as having to do with past and future—and it does. But it actually has to do with all three time frames—past, future, and present, and it hinges on … 
  15. Joy in Effort
     … And focusing on here is not just a matter of relaxing; there’s work to be done. Ajaan Lee has a good analogy. He says the practice is like trying to get fresh water out of salt water. The fresh water is already there in the salt water, but just allowing the salt water to sit and relax for a long while is not … 
  16. Bless Yourself
     … All too often when you start thinking about your own bad points, you try to push the thought out of your mind by focusing on the bad points of other people. And when you’re focusing on their bad points, it becomes harder to treat them well. So you have goodwill for yourself, and then you have goodwill for others, reminding yourself that the … 
  17. Disenchantment
     … You start by focusing on one object, like the breath, and then you stay with it long enough that you start developing a sense of oneness with it. Your awareness of the breath and the breath itself seem to become one and the same thing. There’s a sense of unification — ekodi-bhava — which the Buddha has us develop as much as possible. And … 
  18. Shoot Your Pains with Wisdom
     … Instead of focusing on all the sorrows and pains and difficulties in your life, you might look at where things are going well right now. This is not to say that you don’t have to deal with the negative issues, but you do need to learn how to put things into perspective so that you’re not shooting arrows. You’re shooting wisdom … 
  19. Body & Food
     … Your eyesight gets focused further and further away. As a result, you miss the motions of the mind. So you want to focus on things that are very close at hand so that you can catch the mind in action around them. If you want to see attachment, you look at things that are very close. The two closest things are, of course, one … 
  20. The Path Converges Right Here
     … Right concentration is focused on one thing: It’s singleness of mind, focused on an object like the breath. As the Buddha describes it, you drop your interest in sensual pleasures. In other words, you’re not escaping from sensual pleasures. You don’t have to go off and find someplace that’s really painful to stay. It’s simply that while you’re … 
  21. A Noble Warrior’s Path
     … Of course, the desire has to be focused properly, not just on the goal but—primarily—on the means to the goal. So you focus right here: each breath coming in, each breath going out. Each breath is the next step on your path. It’s through developing the path that the goal is found. The path and the goal are not the same … 
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