Search results for: "Attention"
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- Ready for the Truth… He wants to point your attention here. You’re going to have to be in the right mood to stay right here; you have to have the right focus to stay right here. That’s what the step-by-step discourse is for: to bring the mind to concentration. As you stay right here and you’re succeeding in getting the mind to stay …
- Discernment Is in the Details… But you actually exercise your own discernment each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, figuring out where to place your attention, how long the breath is going to be, how deep it’s going to be—and all the other elements in the meditation that require balance. Whether this is a time to stay with one spot, whether it works better …
- Self-reliance… They point your attention to something else. But the Buddha’s focus is right here, and his analysis comes down to the fact that you can do something about suffering because you’re causing it. So you have to look inside. And the reason you’re causing it is not because you want to. It’s because you’re ignorant. The word for ignorance …
- Respect for the Training… As a result, we tend to miss a lot of the really good lessons that can be learned from paying attention to the basics, giving them a lot of respect. Like the precepts: There are a lot of people who don’t like rules, who feel that rules make you a very small-minded person: that they make you think that by abiding by …
- Suffering is an Addiction… But you keep subjecting the mind to new ways of thinking, new ways of paying attention, to drive home the point that you do have a choice. Then you have to argue with the voice that says, “Well, the choice isn’t better.” Or even more with the voice that says, “You can’t do it.” You know those voices, especially that last one …
- A Full Life… The Buddha says also to delight in seclusion—the opportunity you have to focus direct attention on your mind with a minimum of distractions. That, too, is part of the skill of a good life. Then there’s the meaningful life: The last two objects of delight, the Buddha said, are delighting in the unafflicted and delighting in non-objectification. These are two names …
- Breathaholic… But to get the mind settled down, you focus your attention completely on the breath to begin with. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, “You have to be crazy about meditation if you want to do it well.” You really have to be addicted to it; you want to cling to it for a while. They say that alcoholics, when they walk into a …
- Karma Storms… The next one is simply to say, “Okay, those things are there, but I’m not going to pay attention to them.” That requires that you have some little corner where you can go to hide out and wait till the storm blows over. This principle applies in meditation; it applies in life in general. You’re minding your own business living a perfectly …
- At Ease with the Breath… You’ll notice that a lot of the tension tends to seep in when mindfulness lapses, when you’re not paying attention. So try to keep your awareness with the breath continuously, as if you were following a long strand of silk. You want the silk to be smooth, you want it to be even, and if any bumps come up, any fraying comes …
- Preparing for Death… To know where to focus our attention, what to hold on to, if we have to hold on. Where we can let go. That way, we’re not so desperate. In other words, we go into death without trying to run away. The importance of this skill is obvious, especially now with death all around us. As the Buddha points out, there are four …
- Four Mountains Moving In… All the mosquito-borne diseases were still there, just that nobody was now paying attention. And sure enough, some of the people in the community where I was staying got dengue. So we have to look all around, be circumspect in our heedfulness and watch out particularly for the dangers we create that come from trying to prevent or put an end to one …
- How to Be Self-Centered… You should center your attention not so much on what’s irritating about their behavior. Center on your own irritation. Why do you let yourself get worked up about it? What’s the problem? Why are you feeling offended by that other person? That’s what you’ve got to look into. Now, this doesn’t mean you don’t care about other people …
- Play with the Breath… Even if you pay attention to it, it’ll run away. But if you glance at it out of the corner of your eye and focus on other things, it’ll feel more at ease with you. If you deal well with those other parts of the body, after a while the parts of the body that are tense and tight will begin to …
- Location, Location… You really do want to pay careful attention to where your cravings are located, because they can easily lead you astray. You know the image the Buddha gives of rebirth as being like a fire spreading out from a house, clinging to the wind. The wind stands for craving. If your craving is totally unknown to you here and now, it’ll be even …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… How are you processing the breath right now? As soon as you turn your attention to the breath, the breath is going to change—based on your perception of the breath, your intentions around the breath—which means the breath is a really good mirror for seeing these things in action. We know that one of the principles of causality that the Buddha taught …
- In Control… As we’re living here at the monastery, we don’t have too many tasks, so we can focus our attention on each task as we’re doing it as a way of developing our mindfulness and alertness. But in the outside world often you have so many tasks that you have to decide which ones are worth doing well and which ones are …
- Compassion for People on Fire… As the Buddha said, we have the potential for pleasure in the body, we have the potential for rapture, if you pay appropriate attention to what’s going on. Looking for those potentials, making the most of them, you find that you can provide yourself with a sense of intense well-being right here. In the beginning of the meditation, that’s the duty …
- Ups & Downs… things that are going on all the time in the mind but you’re not noticing them, usually because your attention is focused someplace else. And yet those things are creating a lot of suffering, a lot of stress. So you want to be quiet enough and alert enough to see these things you’ve been missing. Because it’s all right here. Everything …
- Your One Responsibility… You get an idea of how you have to keep your attention focused right here if you want to see what you’re doing, and catch what you’re doing in time. Mindfulness helps, in that it helps you remember what’s going to lead to suffering and what’s not. Alertness is what keeps you right here in the present moment: the direct …
- Keep It Simple… And when there’s a problem, you want to know where to focus your attention so you can most effectively deal with it. The Buddha points out the pattern: There’s suffering, but there’s a cause of suffering—and it’s in the mind. The way to uproot the cause is to work on developing the factors of the path. So that’s …
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