Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … So as we sit here meditating, trying to get the mind into right concentration, we’re focusing right at the heart. The problem is, there are large parts of the mind that want to do something else. We’ve got to clear them away. In Pali, they’re called nīvaraṇa, or hindrances, and the standard list is of five. The Buddha describes how you … 
  3. Four Determinations
     … What’s the allure? Where is that particular desire focused? As the Buddha notes: The desire can be focused on almost anything. You think you desire a person, but often it’s not the person you desire. You desire a certain perception around the person. Or you desire a certain status: Like that old commercial about the BMW chill. A guy comes up to … 
  4. Guardian Meditations
     … The purpose of taking the body apart this way is to keep focusing you back to what the real problem is. It’s not with the body out there, it’s with your own mind: in particular, the desire to lust. You want to look into that desire. It’s easier to look at the desire in and of itself once you’ve learned … 
  5. Equanimity & Karma
    The reflection on equanimity just now focused on karma: Each of us is the owner of our karma. If you don’t understand the teaching on karma, it sounds kind of pessimistic and fatalistic. As people do their thing, we have our karma. We just have to put up with it. But actually, it’s pointing out what you have to put up with … 
  6. Choices
     … That’s a choice you’re going to have to make again and again and again for the rest of the session, because there are lots of other things you could be focusing on: the sound of the crickets, pains here and there in the body, the fact that it’s so warm. But you’re choosing to stay with something that’s going … 
  7. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … In other words, you stay focused on the breath because your focus on the breath is going to be the cause of the sense of pleasure. With that focus, you manufacture the pleasure, but then you have to let the pleasure do its work on its own. You don’t have to stretch it here or there or gobble it down for fear that … 
  8. Mind Reading
     … The fact that it’s placed third, and we’re dealing with steps 9, 10, 11, and 12 in the Buddha’s instructions for focusing on the breath, may lead you to think that you have to wait to deal with the breath first, and then with feelings, and finally get to the mind. That’s not the case. It’s not the case … 
  9. The Particulars of Your Suffering
    The Particulars of Your Suffering September 22, 2011 I once knew a journalist in Bangkok who asked me why Buddhism focuses so much on suffering. He said, “I don’t have any suffering in my life. Why all the talk about suffering?” So I asked him if he had any stress in his life and he said, “Oh yeah, lots and lots of stress … 
  10. In Line with the Truth
     … So we sit here focusing on the breath to train the mind in mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, persistence, compassion for ourselves and others. All sorts of good qualities get gathered together here if we focus properly on the breath. Try to focus with a sense of ease, as a way of showing compassion to yourself. We all want happiness, and this is a good … 
  11. Breathing to Awakening
     … Remind yourself that your awareness is not focused ahead of you. We tend to think that it is because our eyes are focused toward the front, but when we close our eyes, we can remind ourselves that our awareness of the body is all-around. So think of the breath bathing you, or that you’re wearing the breath all around. As you think … 
  12. A Path of Skills
     … It’s not just a matter of focusing on the breath. You’re focusing on the process of fabrication—how the mind puts its experience together—through the way it breathes, through the way it talks to itself, the perceptions and feelings it holds in mind. Even when the breath leaves you, that knowledge of the other types of fabrication will be there to … 
  13. A Willingness to Learn
     … You may find focusing on the nose is not comfortable, so move around until you find a place that feels right for you. Meditation tends to swing back and forth between these two poles: on the one hand, giving the mind a chance to rest, and on the other hand giving it work to do. You’ve got to learn how to read the … 
  14. Inner Wealth
     … We’re not under a tree right now, but we are sitting here breathing, focusing on the breath, realizing that the breath has a huge role in contributing to our well-being. Of course, if we didn’t breathe, we’d be dead. But more than that, the way you breathe can have an effect on the health of the body and the health … 
  15. Respect for Heedfulness
     … And that’s why Buddhism focuses on suffering and stress: to give rise to the kind respect for heedfulness that will take us beyond suffering. Some people accuse Buddhism of being very pessimistic and negative, focusing only on suffering and stress as if it were denying that there is any pleasure in life. But the Buddha never denies pleasure. He talks about it very … 
  16. All Four Tetrads at Once
     … They’re focused on one spot, then they try to be aware of the whole body, and very quickly find themselves back at one spot again. It takes a while to back into the sense of awareness that’s filling the body all the time. Actually, you’ve already got a spotlight awareness and a background awareness. What you’re trying to do is … 
  17. Skillfully Shaping Your Life
     … As the Buddha points out, simply focusing on the breath changes the types of feelings you have in the body. Feelings, here, are not so much emotions as they’re feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain. Sometimes when you focus on the breath you put too much pressure on it, which creates a feeling of dis-ease. You get irritable. You … 
  18. Not Getting What You Want
     … As you’re meditating right now, you’re focused on the breath, but in focusing on the breath, there’s already directed thought and evaluation. You’re directing your thoughts to the breath, and the Buddha encourages you to evaluate it. It’s not just in, out, in, out, and being with whatever comes up. You have to realize: You can change the way … 
  19. Cooking Food for the Mind
     … But again, there is a problem with focusing on death, which is that it can start getting discouraging and depressing. It can sap your energy. So learn to think about it in a skillful way. This, too, is like learning how to be a skillful cook. There are some foods out there that can be good for you if you fix them the right … 
  20. Stay
     … You see that focusing on different levels of subtlety in the breath can make the body more inviting, make it a more comfortable place to stay. It’s easier to stay in the present moment because you like being there. And you’ve got to learn how to stick with the breath, not only in terms of obvious distractions like thoughts of the past … 
  21. Staying Still
     … In other words, getting the mind focused with the breath is doing it. Staying focused with the breath is the maintaining. The maintaining is a different skill. The first skill is coming out of the noise and into the stillness. In some cases, that requires nothing more than just reminding yourself that you’d like to be with the breath—and there it is … 
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