Search results for: "Focus"
- Page 48
- The Kamma of Self & Not-Self… But he does focus you on the activity. And as I said, he doesn’t just leave it there, saying, “Well, when you see your sense of self as a process, that’s the end of the problem because you realize that you have nothing solid to hold on to.” Actually, people can hold onto processes just as easily as they can hold on …
- The Heart of the Teachings… So focus on your breath, because that’s one of the Buddha’s teachings. Focus on the breath and then notice how to breathe in a way that’s calming, breathe in a way that’s energizing, and see what you need right now. Try to be aware of the whole body as you breathe in, the whole body as you breathe out. And …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… So, just as you don’t compare yourself with other people who are sick and think, “Who’s better at taking medicine? Who’s better at getting cured?” you focus on your cure. You focus on why you’re doing this. You also encourage others that they would do well to be content as well. Now, given that the first three of the customs …
- Building Concentration… Directed thought is when you focus on a topic, as when you establish mindfulness. Evaluation is the next step. You’re trying to do this well, which is part of ardency, which is also in mindfulness practice. You’re trying to develop a sense of ease in the body. Well, what kind of breathing will do that? You experiment. When you find a rhythm …
- Attachment to Views… You focus on what’s to be done right here, right now, and you drop those papañca categories. You focus instead simply on events as they’re happening. And then there comes a point where you drop your focus even on the events, because you’re going to open up to something that’s beyond events. So we’re learning a skill here, and …
- The Mind Comes First… Our focus is someplace else. But if you know you’re bringing skills with the breath—skills in how you talk to yourself, skills in how you picture things to yourself, what feelings you’re going to focus on—you can come with a lot more confidence. This has to do with situations not only outside, but also within the mind as well. Greed …
- Breath Energies… A good rule of thumb is if say you’ve got a pain in the lower right side of your back—if you find that focusing on the breath energy there doesn’t seem to have much effect on the pain or if it seems to be making it worse—focus on the lower left side; focus on the front, left or right. Or …
- Respect… You focus instead on four things and you bring three qualities to those four things. The four things, of course, are the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, mind states, mental qualities in and of themselves. That’s your focus. That’s your frame of reference. In other words, you’re not concerned about the body or the feelings or …
- On Being Non-reactive… In the same way, he says, when you focus the mind and get it concentrated, there should be a sense of ease, a sense of refreshment, and you should allow that to seep throughout the whole body. Ajaan Lee’s recommendations come in handy here. He talks about the breath energy flowing through the different parts of the body, starting at the back of …
- All About Change… When you run up against different pains or blockages in the body, how do you deal with them? Sometimes you focus right at the blockage, and sometimes you have to focus someplace else. The other day I was suffering from a pain in my hip. A doctor who’s an acupuncturist happened to come to the monastery, so he gave me a treatment, and …
- In the Mood to Meditate… There may have been times when you did break the precepts but you don’t have to focus on those. Focus on the times when you maintained the precepts, even in spite of difficulties, even in spite of strong temptations. Part of the reason for this is to put you in the right mood and part of it is to remind you that you …
- Get Out of Yourself… You focus on issues in your own feelings, issues in your own mind, issues in your own body, and you stop to remember, “This is the way it is with everybody.” Everybody has a breath, everybody has feelings of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. And all the various mind-states that you can be mindful of, skillful and unskillful: Everybody else has those …
- Appropriate Attention… He tells you both the shoulds and also the places to focus your attention. When you have a sense that you’re suffering, he doesn’t simply say that there is suffering. He says that suffering is something that you’re doing. You’re clinging to the five aggregates of form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, and consciousness. And why are you doing that? Because …
- Freedom from Beliefs… This is one of the reasons why we focus here on the breath. You know that if you’re not staying with the breath, you’re off target right now. Anything else that comes up that’s not related to the breath is something you want to put aside. And it may shock you sometimes to see how much you have to put aside …
- Suffering Starts Before Life… Just focus on what we’re doing right now. Well, yes, we focus on what we’re doing right now, but the reason why we’re focusing right here, right now, is not because that’s the only reality there is. It’s because what we’re doing right now creates new worlds. It creates saṁsāra. Saṁsāra is not a place, by the way …
- The Breath Soufflé… In other words, if there’s a pain in your left hip, focus on your right. If there’s a pain in your stomach, focus on the back. Think of the breath energy flowing smoothly there. This helps you get aware of the whole body. Sometimes instead of working with the individual parts, you just think, “whole body,” and try to be fully aware …
- Getting Untangled from Thorns… And perception’s a very useful fabrication to focus on. After all, concentration itself is what the Buddha calls a “perception attainment.” You have to have a certain mental image of the breath in order to be able to focus on the sensation of the breath—and to see it as a breath sensation. Many people have trouble right here. They say, “I’m …
- Barriers in the Heart… When you look carefully at the way your mind works, you find that it keeps making agreements with itself to turn a blind eye to things, to put up barriers so that it can’t see the full story, so that it can focus on what it wants to focus on. Whether it wants to focus on attractive things as a basis of lust …
- The Dhamma Mirror… It can have this part of the body, but I’m going to be someplace else.” If there’s a pain in your hip, you can focus on your knee or your chest, anyplace in the body where you can make the sense of the breath comfortable as it comes in, as it goes out. So you’re talking to yourself about the pain …
- The Skill of Patience… So wherever there’s a sense of the body that you’re clear about, focus there. If you have trouble gaining a sense of the breath, just hold your breath for a while until you feel you can’t hold it any longer and then you’ll notice, when you breathe in, where you feel the breathing. Focus on that sensation. All of this …
- Load next page...
