Search results for: "Focusing"
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- The Five Hindrances… So as you’re focused on the breath, that’s the driving. And you refer to the map only when you’re doubtful and things don’t seem to be right. Or when the navigator, sitting next to you in the right-hand seat, says, “Whoops! No, we missed that turnoff,” that’s what the Dhamma talk’s for in the background. In case …
- Establishing Priorities… Keep this point in mind as you practice because a common experience in meditation is that you sit here focused on the breath and then after a while suddenly realize that you haven’t been with the breath at all. You’ve been someplace else. There was a lapse of mindfulness, a lapse of alertness. You’re usually surprised that it’s happened, but …
- Catch Yourself Lying to Yourself… This is why, when the Buddha sets out the factors for the path, after he talks about the wisdom factors of right view and right resolve he focuses on speech, what you say. Because what you say to others reflects what you say to yourself . And vice versa. The two processes go together. If you find that you can get away with lying outside …
- The Art of Right Speech… What all this reflection does is that it focuses your attention on your intentions. When you speak, are you intending to misrepresent the truth? Are you intending to break a friendship? Are you intending to hurt someone’s feelings? Or do you have no real clear intention at all? Okay, be careful. None of that’s going to be right speech. It’s in …
- Three Recollections… But the goodness is there, and the Dhamma focuses on that. That basically gives us power. We find so many ways in the world basically says, “Okay, the world is a mess, but you can’t do anything about it.” There are people who have power and they’re very jealous of their power. And they’re not very compassionate with their power either …
- Holding On to the Path… The first tetrad, the first set of teachings, focuses on the body. The Buddha has you get sensitive to long breathing and short breathing, and be aware of the whole body as you breathe in, breathe out, because as you get more sensitive to the breath, adjust it with more and more precision, there’s going to be a good sense of ease that …
- True to the Practice… In other words, don’t tense up the area that you’re focusing on. Focus on keeping it open and relaxed. If you slip off, come right back. Slip off again, come back again. This is a practice that takes some determination. That’s why we have those reminders at the beginning of the sit. After all, if you can’t find happiness here …
- Learning from Desire… We breathe in, breathe out, focusing on the breath. Then there’s feeling—the different feelings of pain there may be in the body—but we’re also trying to develop a feeling of pleasure by the way we breathe and the way we focus on the breath. Perception: the labels we apply to things, the images we hold in mind, the ways we …
- The Five Strengths… But when you’re focusing on the breath like this, you can see intention, i.e. kamma, in action. The way you intend to deal with the breath, the way you intend to treat the feelings of fullness that may arise, allowing them to stay: That’s present kamma. It does make a difference in how it feels to sit here, makes a difference …
- A Handful of Leaves… The reason why he focused only on this handful of leaves, he said, was because if he talked about the leaves in the forest—all the other things he had learned—it wouldn’t help people gain awakening. It wouldn’t lead to dispassion; it wouldn’t lead to release. But the leaves in his hand would. A number of people have expressed amazement …
- Perfection in an Imperfect World… You’d be resolute, mindful to put that fire out—focused on putting the fire out. In the same way, when passion, aversion, delusion come into the mind—when any unskillful quality comes in the mind—you’ve got to figure out, “How do I get past this?” You can’t just sit there and wallow in it, enjoy it, or participate in it …
- The Real Thing… Try to get your awareness focused on what’s right here in the present moment to see what’s right here. The Dhamma’s proclaiming itself day-in, day-out, and yet we’re ordinarliy turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to it. When we talk about ignorance: Ignorance is not just a passive thing. Sometimes it’s an active ignoring, focusing …
- Truth Without Air Quotes… As we were saying today, the techniques that seem to get the best results are those that make you very sensitive to the process of fabrication, like focusing on the breath. The Buddha’s instructions deal with what he calls bodily fabrication, the in-and-out breath, and then mental fabrications, which are the perceptions you use as you try to get the mind …
- The Skills of Truth & Calm… And because we’re focused on getting the mind to be still, that makes what’s going on in the mind really transparent. Remember the Buddha said that our trouble is that we have cravings that lead to becoming. With every problem that comes up to us—about what we want, about what we don’t want—we create a state of becoming around …
- Smoothing It… If you find that sitting with pain focuses your mind, that’s perfectly fine. There are people who say that because the Buddha said that the middle way is a middle way between self-torture and self-indulgence, you shouldn’t try to inflict any pain on yourself at all. But that’s ignoring huge parts of the Canon where the Buddha says it …
- Three Levels of Evaluation… You start with using your ingenuity in thinking of different ways of working with the breath and working with the mind—i.e., focusing on different parts of the body, noticing how much pressure you need to exert in order to keep the focus there, how much pressure is too much, how much pressure is not enough. Then you learn how to read the …
- The Power of Truth… What this does is that it focuses you on that issue of: where is the stress right now, what’s causing the stress? This called appropriate attention—seeing things in these terms—and this is the internal quality the Buddha said is most important in gaining awakening. This is how you gain insight, looking at what you’re doing, because that’s what insight …
- Asalha Puja… We’re trying to develop right concentration, taking themes of right mindfulness in terms of the body, feelings, or mind states, focusing on these in and of themselves, not worried about the world outside—just focusing on what it’s like to have a body, what it’s like to have feelings, and mind states. When you look at these things directly, you begin …
- Things As They Function… These are the things we’re focused on as we meditate. You watch the breath. You get very conscious about how you talk to yourself about the breath. All too many people, when they hear that the first level of right concentration has directed thought and evaluation, say “How do you do that?” The answer is: It’s something you’re doing already. It …
- A Frame of Reference… But as you’re focused on that spot, don’t tighten up around it. Don’t put too much pressure on it, just enough pressure to allow you to stay with that one spot and not lose it. As for any other issues that may come through the mind, you don’t have to pay them any attention. If they can come in, they …
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