Search results for: "Focus"
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- 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 …
- Heedfulness… Years back I heard someone complain that this focus on being careful in your thoughts and your words and deeds was distracting you from the wonderful deathless that was all around you, the unconditioned that was all around you. If you focus on conditioned things, you’re missing out. But that’s trying to clone awakening, to adopt the viewpoint of an awakened person …
- Why It’s Good to Know Why… While you’re sitting here meditating, set up the intention to stay with the breath and then strengthen that intention by making the breath as comfortable as possible, so that the mind will be happy to be here, and, if it loses its focus, you’ll be happy to come back when you realize you’ve lost focus. Then you notice the voices in …
- Best Friends… This is where your inner dialogue should focus, reminding you to stay with the breath and to acquaint yourself with the breath, getting more and more familiar with it. It’s interesting to note that these two activities—directed thought and evaluation—are also the qualities that make up our internal dialogue. When the mind talks to itself about something, first you direct your …
- The Noble Truths of the Breath… Otherwise, if you’re focused on too narrow a spot and the breath starts to get very refined, you lose your focus. You don’t know where you are. So once the breath gets comfortable, try to spread your awareness around throughout the body. Think of the breath spreading through the body as well. When we use the word *breath *here, it’s not …
- Light Merit… You can focus on that. You don’t have to focus on the pains. This is an important lesson: that whatever’s coming up in the present moment, you don’t have to suffer from it if you have the right attitude. If you have the right perceptions, the right insights into what’s going on, you can release yourself from that suffering. Even …
- Talking to Yourself… Directed thought is when you focus the mind on a topic, decide that you’re going to focus on one thing, and you keep thinking about it, reminding yourself to stay here, stay here, stay here. For instance, you want to stay with the breath, so part of you has to keep reminding yourself that this is where you want to stay. Part of …
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