Search results for: "Attention"

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  2. Understanding Through Developing
     … So pay attention to what you’re doing right here. Because in the act of paying attention to your actions—that’s where the real discernment lies. And not just any actions—the actions of following the path, developing the path, taking it as far as it can go.
  3. You Can’t Relax Your Way to Awakening
     … The fact that they’ve been causing suffering in the mind is simply because you haven’t been paying them any attention. When you pay them attention, you see, “I don’t really want to go there. Why am I doing this?” You stop. But there are other unskillful states that are not like that. They require what the Buddha calls exerting a fabrication … 
  4. Strong Through Commitment
     … You label the red as “red.” In the next step, part of you asks, “What does it mean?” “It means ‘Stop!’” The next question is, “Is it worth listening to?” And the voice that says, “Yes, listen to this, pay attention”—that’s also perception. We go through life, applying perceptions to things. We have to remember that these perceptions are only partial. They … 
  5. Inner Wealth
     … So pay careful attention to how you’re breathing. Take a couple of good long and deep in-and-out breaths, and notice where you feel the process of breathing in the body, that sense of energy flow. That’s what you’re actually focusing on when you focus on the breath—not so much the air coming in and out of the lungs … 
  6. Self-Correct
     … When you breathe in, where do you feel it? Focus your attention there. And be alert to the fact that this may not be where you ordinarily might think you should be feeling the breath. We know the air comes in through the nose, goes down through the throat, into the lungs. But when the Buddha talks about breath, he’s talking about the … 
  7. An Interest in the Breath
     … As long as you’re paying attention inside the body to what the body feels like, to how you visualize the body to yourself, that kind of work is fine. It doesn’t tire out the mind or get it distracted. It’s not as restful as just zoning out, but it’s a lot more useful because you want a state of mind … 
  8. Good Heart, Good Mind
     … Find a spot in the body that’s especially sensitive to the in-and-out breathing, and keep your attention right there. Be very careful to breathe in such a way that it feels open, relaxed. And then from that spot, think of that sense of openness spreading through the different parts of the body, so that it’s more and more pleasant to … 
  9. Training the Mind to Train the Mind
     … Such a large part of our culture points us away from paying attention to these things. They say, “Well, you can’t do much about these things anyhow. So you might as well not even think about them.” But these are the big facts in life, the big things that cause us to suffer. And the Buddha’s message, of course, is that you … 
  10. Generosity & Gratitude
     … People tend to get very defensive when you bring it to their attention that their happiness depends on other people’s suffering, and they do everything they can to justify it. They say, “Those people don’t matter,” or, “They’re not really suffering,” or, “That’s just got to be the way it is.” Well, it doesn’t. You have the choice to … 
  11. Ingenuity
     … If lights appear in your meditation, basically don’t pay them any attention, unless there’s a white light, and you can control it. In other words, you can make it appear, make it disappear, make it go far away, bring it close, make it large, make it small, so that you know that you’re totally in control of it. Then you can … 
  12. Breath, Tranquility, & Insight
     … When you shift your attention to feelings, it’s very much connected with the idea that you want to breathe in a way that feels refreshing, feels full, so that you’re not squeezing the breath energy out as you breathe out, and you’re not dragging things in as you breathe in. You allow the breath energy to have its fullness, to have … 
  13. Chanting Before Meditation
    Try to gather your thoughts, gather your attention, right here, right now. There’s just your awareness, your body, and the feeling of the breath coming in, going out. Notice where you feel the breath and notice how it feels. You can try some long breathing to start out with, and if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t, you … 
  14. Wide-open Awareness
     … When we’re meditating we want to keep our attention focused just on that one level, no matter what else is happening. The pattern of light from the candle flame shining on your eyelids, the sounds in the background, the sounds of the Dhamma talk: Just leave those in the background. You don’t have to shut them off, but you don’t want … 
  15. Safety
     … There’s bodily fabrication, verbal fabrication, mental fabrication, all the activities of what’s called name—in other words, perceptions, intentions, acts of attention, feelings, contact: This is contact inside the mind, inside the body. All of that comes prior to what you’re experiencing at the senses. That’s what’s shaping things, and that’s what primes you to suffer. We do … 
  16. The Four Jhanas
     … They may nibble at the edges of your awareness here and there, but you really don’t have to pay them any attention. You don’t have to chase them away. If you chase them away, you drop the breath and they’ve got you. So you don’t want them to trick you in that way. Whatever thought comes passing by, just let … 
  17. Pride in Your Craft
     … It’s simply a practical issue you haven’t been paying attention to. But if you pay attention, you can start seeing what kind of breathing genuinely does feel good now. It’s going to take a while to get really skilled at this, because sometimes a certainly way of breathing that feels cool right now is actually not all that good for you … 
  18. Perceptions of Self & Not-Self
     … once, when he was asked directly by a wanderer from another sect, and then another time, when he was talking to a group of monks, saying that questions of “Who am I? What am I? Do I exist? Do I not exist?” are all not worthy of attention. Then the question, of course, is: Which questions are worthy of attention? The answer is: those … 
  19. The Fourth Frame of Reference
     … The only way to gain direct knowledge of these things is to bring some appropriate attention to the hindrance, seeing that it’s a cause of suffering. Try to look for where the stress is, look where the limitation is, to see how that hindrance is squandering your energy. And then look for ways to abandon it. When you do this, you’re developing … 
  20. Right View Tells You What to Do
     … If you’re not with the breath, you try to bring your attention back as quickly as possible. When you are with the breath you try to be as sensitive as possible to how the breath feels. When you breathe in, where do you notice it? Focus first on the areas where it’s obvious… And by “breath” here we mean not just the … 
  21. Path & Raft
     … So you have to pay attention to where you’re stepping now—right now, right now, right now—the kind of lesson you learn when you’re walking around the monastery here. I was coming up the hill the other day and wasn’t looking too carefully beyond my next step. If I had looked three or four feet further on, I would have … 
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