Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Clearing a Space
     … You’d start out with virtue, and when your virtue is perfected you could focus on concentration, and then when concentration is perfected you could focus on discernment. It would all be very nice and systematic. The problem is that the mind is not systematic. It’s chaotic. Now, we all know that chaos has its patterns, but the patterns are very complex. That … 
  3. Wisdom & Compassion
     … One good way of getting out of mind’s concerns is to focus on how the body feels right now. Before you focus on the breath, you might want to go through the body and relax it. Starting with the tips of your fingers, relax them, then move up the fingers, joint by joint, through the palms of the hands, your wrists, your forearms … 
  4. A Light in the Darkness
     … We don’t focus our attention in the right places. We don’t ask the right questions. As a result, we don’t see, even though everything’s happening right here before our eyes. So you have to be very, very careful, very, very still, and then ask the right questions. The Buddha gives instructions on this: the questions that surround the four noble … 
  5. Respect for Concentration
     … Look at the ways in which you’re draining the mind of its energy, draining the mind of its focus in terms of the things you read, listen to, watch on TV, the people you hang around with. You have to look intently at your life to see if it’s a life conducive to concentration or not, conducive to the health of your … 
  6. Guardian Meditations
     … How can you show a real goodwill to yourself? You focus on the breath, making it comfortable, making it easeful. How do you try to find an alternative to lust? You focus on the breath. Where should you go when you realize that death could come at any time? You come back to the breath. In other words, when you think about these topics … 
  7. Cooking the Present Moment
     … Which spot do you want to focus on? Which spot do you want to emphasize? You can perceive the breath as being right in front of you, or you can perceive the breath as being all around you. See which perception creates a better sense of well-being. This is the other mental fabrication, which is feeling. This results from the perceptions, the directed … 
  8. Discerning Actions
     … Or maybe you don’t focus so much on the suffering but simply on the fact that the happiness you have doesn’t satisfy. There must be something better. That’s the beginning of discernment. The Buddha recommends that you then go and ask someone who has attained true happiness, “What’s skillful? What’s not skillful? What’s blameless? What’s blameworthy? What … 
  9. Equanimity in Action, Equanimity at Rest
     … You focus it on certain things and not on others. For example, when you’re trying to get the mind to settle down in concentration, you have to have equanimity for the world so that you can focus on what you’re doing right now. You have to have equanimity for the fact that you’ve got this body: whatever the physical conditions it … 
  10. Right Effort
     … What needs doing right now? Do you have to focus on getting rid of the unskillful side, or do you have to focus more on developing the skillful side? You learn how to read your mind so you can understand what type of effort will be the right effort at any one particular time. So it’s all a question of your attitude to … 
  11. Antidotes for Clinging
     … As you focus on the arising, the idea of non-existence doesn’t occur to you. As you focus on the passing away, the idea of existence doesn’t occur to you. You realize that the basic building blocks of experience, when you look at them just on the level of arising and passing away, don’t provide a foundation for the very basic … 
  12. The Lessons of Good Kamma
     … What the Buddha does emphasize when he introduces the topic of kamma is the need to be responsible and to focus your attention on your present kamma, and not to worry about the past. Your focus on the present moment is not simply for the purpose of being fully present to everything in the present. It’s for the purpose of looking closely at … 
  13. Cooking the Present Moment
     … But it’s important that you learn how to focus on the areas that are comfortable, and that you can make more comfortable. It’s like that book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The author pointed out that most of us, if we were to draw an eye, a nose, or a mouth, would basically be drawing our perceptions of those … 
  14. Five Precepts, Five Virtues
     … They’re there, you know they’re there, but you don’t have to make them your focus. Your focus is on the sensation of breathing in your body. To do this, you’ve got to develop some good qualities in the mind: Mindfulness is the first one. You’ve got to keep in mind your determination that each time you breathe in, you … 
  15. 1. The Entertaining Breath
    Okay, here’s your opportunity to focus entirely on the breath. You have no other duties right now, no other obligations. Just put the body in a posture where you don’t have to worry about it. Sit up straight, look straight ahead, close your eyes, hands on your lap, right hand on top of the left. And there you are, the breath. Look … 
  16. Informing the Whole Committee
     … Okay, the message can get through so that you can stop reading and focus attention on the pain. Which means that there’s part of the mind that’s still surveying the body to make sure nothing really painful or horrible is happening, while another part of the mind focuses on reading the book. But the walls can also be problematic. This is one … 
  17. Strategic Thinking
     … In the same way, as we go through the world, we have to focus on other people’s good points. If all you do is focus on their bad points, you start wondering, “Why should I be good? I live in this miserable world where there are nothing but greedy people fighting one another all the time.” If that’s all you see, then … 
  18. Breathing to Awakening
     … Our focus is further out. So we want to bring our focus back in and get ourselves acquainted with this breath energy in the body. Where does it flow? How does it flow? How do you promote it? I know some people who push it around a lot, but, by pushing it around, they’re not pushing the breath; they’re pushing the blood … 
  19. Seeing Through Your Defilements
     … Where is it most prominent? Focus your attention there. It may not be on the air coming in and out of the nose. It may be the movement in the chest or the movement of the stomach. But wherever it’s clearest to see, focus your attention there. And then ask yourself, “Is it comfortable?” If you’re not sure, you can try different … 
  20. A Strong Sense of Self
     … When is the perception of self conducive to true happiness, and when is perception of not-self conducive to true happiness? Right now, you’re going to take control of your acts of attention to focus in on the present moment—that’s yours for the time being—and focus on your ability to adjust the breath—that will be yours as well. As … 
  21. Take the One Seat
     … When you focus this way, what are the results? When you focus that way, what are the results? When you breathe this way, when you breathe that way, what are the results? You learn by doing and observing. If something doesn’t come out well, you turn around and do it again, changing things a little bit. You get to watch the mind in … 
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