Search results for: "Focusing"

  1. Page 42
  2. Your Breath, Your Territory
     … This is why when we meditate, we’re focusing on this area of our awareness, the awareness that’s inside. We have to take responsibility for it, because no one else can take responsibility for us. We get recommendations from the Buddha on what to do from within, but we’re the ones that have to do the doing. He says to contemplate, keeping … 
  3. Capture Your Imagination
     … So as you sit here focusing on the breath, ask yourself: Where is the sport? Where is the game? How do we win at it? Where is the enjoyment? Part of it lies in exploring the breath and seeing what you can learn about the breath. You’ve got this breath element in the body. If that concept is foreign to you, you might … 
  4. Listening to the True Dhamma
     … If it’s a good Dhamma talk, it’s talking about what’s going on in your mind right now and pointing out where you’re focusing on the wrong things. Like right now: Focus on your breath, where you feel the breath in the body. As for the affairs of the world outside, don’t focus on them at all. There’s work … 
  5. Calming Mental Fabrication
    When the Buddha teaches concentration practice—breath meditation practice—he gives you a physical fabrication to focus on, i.e., the breath coming in, going out, and then he gives you a verbal fabrication, the instructions, “Keep track of the breath; remain focused on the breath—ardent, alert, mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” So you keep reminding yourself … 
  6. Analysis of Dhammas
     … In fact, universal goodwill meditation also starts by establishing mindfulness parimukham, and when you’re extending thoughts of goodwill to all beings, you’re not focused around the mouth. What the word seems to mean is that you bring the topic of the meditation to the fore. You make that the most interesting and prominent thing in your range of awareness. Don’t let … 
  7. Your Inner Teacher
     … If you have these sensations in lots of different parts of the body, try to choose one area where it seems most obvious, most natural to stay focused. It could be the tip of the nose, the middle of the chest, the abdomen, any part of the body where you have the sensation that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is … 
  8. The Buddha’s Narrative
     … He saw that focusing in on the intentions of the mind, that what you experience right now is based on two kinds of things: past intentions and present intentions. When you make your present intentions more and more skillful to the point where you don’t need to intend anymore, that’s when you break through to a deathless happiness. This third knowledge was … 
  9. Self-Healing
     … As you stay focused on the breath, you’re going to need some perceptions to remind yourself: What is the breath? Where can you expect to feel it? You can use different perceptions that will actually make the breathing more comfortable—or make it less comfortable. So try to figure out which perceptions are most helpful right now. The word “perception” in English has … 
  10. The Skill of Not Suffering
     … When we talk of focusing on the breath, it’s not so much the air coming in and out of lungs, it’s more the sensation of the energy that flows through the body as you breathe in and out, because it’s not just air coming through the nose and into the lungs. You can feel the energy go all the way down … 
  11. The Need for a Purpose
     … In some cases, the motivation focuses on the fact that you’re not there yet. That’s called renunciate pain. But renunciate pain has a hope. The expression in the Canon is, “There are those who’ve attained this goal, but I’m not one of them.” It recognizes the fact that there is a goal that’s attainable. That’s the hope. The … 
  12. Attention with an Agenda
     … So you realize that as you’re sitting here meditating, you’re focusing on the germs of these things. Any bodily action has to begin with the breath. Any verbal action has to begin with directed thought and evaluation. Any mental action has to start with the perceptions and feelings. So right there you’re watching the present moment but you also realize that … 
  13. Papañca
    As you sit here focused on the breath, you get some hands-on experience in seeing how the mind relates to objects. On the one hand, you have the object that you intend to stay with: the breath. And you’ve got to ask yourself: Where are you in relation to the breath? And what does it mean to keep the breath in mind … 
  14. Good Work
     … The mental side is a lot more difficult, but having that task of focusing on the breath is one way to anchor the mind in the present moment and to give yourself a standard. As long as you’re with the breath, you’re in the present. If you’re not with the breath, there’s the possibility you could be away some place … 
  15. Many I’s, Many Eyes
     … We’re not focusing just on the movement of the air in and out of the nose. We’re also focusing on the sensation of the energy flowing through the body, as you breathe in, as you breathe out, and that’s something you can focus on anywhere, anywhere in the body at all, anywhere where you have a good clear sensation that tells … 
  16. Attention & Intention
     … This is why he defined appropriate attention as focusing on two issues. One is what is skillful or unskillful to do with your thoughts, words, and deeds. The other issue is the four noble truths. These two issues are connected in that the four noble truths take the principle of skillful and unskillful action and apply it specifically to the question of why there … 
  17. A Good Dish of Concentration
     … And as the Buddha said, by focusing continually on the breath, you can actually give rise to a feeling of well-being. That’s what we’re trying to create. Now, to focus on the breath what do you use? You use *sañña, *or perception, which is a mental label that you apply. This can either be simply the word “breath” or your mental … 
  18. A Snare of Death Laid Out
     … Often that’s where our craving is focused. Often, when you desire a person, it’s not the person you desire. You desire your perceptions and thoughts of the person. So you want to get the mind really still so that you can see, when craving of any kind comes up: Exactly what are you focused on? What is the allure? Because that’s … 
  19. Directing Yourself Rightly
     … Just because the mind is focused doesn’t mean you’re going to see things clearly and rightly. You have to actively contemplate once the mind is still, because a mind that’s still can latch onto all kinds of things. The concentration can get suddenly focused on something that gets you irritated, something that gets you angry. And the stronger your concentration, sometimes … 
  20. When Things Regress
     … But the desire has to be focused on the causes. So be right here as much as you can—that’s the alertness part. You watch what you’re doing—those are the causes—and watch the results you’re getting from those causes right now. Don’t worry about the results you had last year or a month ago or whatever. Focus on … 
  21. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … He wrote a whole book on the topic, and as in most books on the topic, he focused first on dividing the material into being mindful of the body in and of itself, feelings, mind states, and mental qualities in and of themselves. But throughout the book, the main emphasis is on the three qualities you bring to that process of establishing mindfulness on … 
  22. Load next page...