Search results for: "Attention"

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  2. Nourishment from the Breath
     … So give your full attention to each breath as it happens. There’s another spot where Ajaan Lee says that most of us get only 10% of the energy out of each breath that we could. The more energy you give to it, the more attention you give to it, the more sensitivity you bring to it, then the greater percentage of the energy … 
  3. Potentials for Energy
     … And how do we feed those thoughts? We pay attention to them. So we’ve got to find the part of the mind that just doesn’t pay attention to thoughts like that. There is a part of the mind that simply watches what’s going on. Find that part inside you. Hold on to that, and anything that comes up that’s discouraging … 
  4. Attention to Your Potentials
     … The Buddha calls it inappropriate attention. Appropriate attention is when you say, “I’ve got to fight this because it’s an obstacle, an impediment. It’s what’s keeping me from understanding what’s going on, why I’m suffering.” As for restlessness and anxiety, there is a potential for stillness in the mind. There is a part of the mind that just … 
  5. The Missing Fabrication
     … It responds very quickly to these processes of intention, attention, and perception: how you pay attention to things, how you perceive things, the labels you put on things, the images you have in the mind. The Buddha talks about perception being a mental fabrication, but it also has an impact on the way you breathe and how you experience the breath—and you don … 
  6. The Regularity of the Dhamma
     … As for name, it includes feeling, perception, attention, intention, and contact. Consciousness, he says, lands on these factors of name and form, and then things proliferate out of that. Under the heading of name, the two most important factors are intention and attention. Other ways of describing dependent co-arising draw out this importance. Sometimes, prior to name and form, they list fabrication, sankhara … 
  7. Self-Reliance
     … The internal principle is appropriate attention: learning to look at things in terms of the four noble truths, i.e., looking at things in terms of where there’s stress, where there’s a cause of stress, what things you can do to put an end to stress, and the actual fact that stress and suffering are ending. That’s a framework you want … 
  8. No Resistance
     … This is a very important part of the meditation, that we don’t pay attention to distracting things. Fortunately, the fact that there are noises out there and that you can recognize them doesn’t mean that you’re not really in concentration, but you try to give them as little attention as possible and magnify the breath as much as you can. This … 
  9. Knowing & Acting
     … You pay very close attention to what you’re doing, you look at the results, and then you adjust what you’re doing to get better results. The same principle holds in the meditation. You’ve got to work at it as a skill. If you just do the steps without paying much attention to what’s going on and simply hope for good … 
  10. Listening to the Body
     … They develop by paying attention. And paying attention means that you’re not too important to learn the lessons that the little sensations in the breath might have to tell you. A lot of the most important lessons I learned in Thailand came from having developed the attitude that there was no work there that was beneath me. Cleaning the toilets. Picking up other … 
  11. Respect Opens Possibilities
     … Finally, you apply appropriate attention. Appropriate attention means asking the right questions. This is where we can see that the Buddha is not asking you to simply believe everything he says. You ask questions: “How does this apply to my suffering? How does it give recommendations on how I can stop suffering?” Paying attention to these questions is, for the Buddha, what appropriate attention … 
  12. Protection, Inside & Out
     … That ardency is based on a quality called appropriate attention. That, too, is one of your inner refuges. It’s what lies at the beginning of right view. That’s something you have to remember as well. Appropriate attention focuses attention on questions of: What is skillful? What is not skillful? If something unskillful comes up, how do you get rid of it in … 
  13. A Heart & Mind of Goodwill
    Close your eyes and focus your attention on the breath. It’s good to start with a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths to make very clear the sensation of breathing in the body, because the breathing in the body is what we’ll focusing on—not so much the air coming in and out of the nose, but the energy … 
  14. Breath Meditation: The Second Tetrad
     … As he said, the fact that you are paying careful attention to the breath: That, in and of itself, is a feeling. It’s a strange statement, that an act of attention would be a feeling. I think what he’s referring to is the fact that feelings are fabricated. They come from some potentials from the past: the fact that you have this … 
  15. Pay Careful Attention
     … The Buddha himself said that when you listen, try to focus your attention so that your mind is one with the topic that’s being discussed. In other words, it’s gathered in oneness around it. And then, he said, apply appropriate attention. Think about, “How does this apply to the problem of suffering and the end of suffering? What is it telling me … 
  16. Put Your Books Back on the Shelf
     … Put it back in the cabinet so that you can give your full attention to the breath. This quality of intentness, citta in Pali, is one of the foundations of right effort. And it’s one of the bases of success, or the bases of power, that lead you to concentration. The more you can give your full attention right here to this one … 
  17. All Eye
     … In modern society, we tend to be really disembodied, especially as all of our attention gets drawn into screens: video games, e-mails, online videos. Our attention gets cast outside, outside, and the body becomes unknown territory, like those old maps where they just had the outlines of the continents, surrounding huge blank spaces where they wrote across, “Here be tygers.” Well, there will … 
  18. The Four-in-One Establishing of Mindfulness
     … When it comes to feelings, he says that careful attention to the breath counts as a feeling. That’s strange. Attention is not a feeling. But you have to remember that feelings, as the Buddha said, are fabricated. As you pay careful attention to the breath, that’s how you fabricate a sense of ease. You try to make your attention continuous all the … 
  19. The Good We Already Have
     … That way, you take a quality already there and make the most of it, simply by your continued attention. Other good qualities both in body and mind can develop in the same way—just by focusing your attention on them, giving them the right chance to grow and whatever other things they need for their nourishment. You tune in to all kinds of good … 
  20. Abandoning Effluents (1)
     … In this case, he means using appropriate attention as you look at different questions that come up in the mind, realizing that some questions are not worthy of attention, so you shouldn’t bother yourself with them, and focusing instead on the ones that do reward your attention. The ones that don’t reward your attention have to do with your identity in the … 
  21. In Times of Danger and Fear
     … The breath can come in and out on its own without your paying attention, but now you’re going to pay attention to it. And you’ll notice as soon as you pay attention to the breath, it’s going to change. So you try to notice what kind of breathing would be best. Change it in that direction. This is where you experiment … 
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