Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Worry vs. Heedfulness
     … In the case of the monk reflecting in the forest about the dangers that can come in the future, the resolve is: “I should focus on trying to attain the as-yet-unattained, to reach the as-yet-unreached, to know and to see what things I haven’t known and seen before”—in other words, to find something in the mind that will … 
  3. The Veils of Delusion
     … This is why we focus first on the breath, because the breath is the anchor that keeps us right here. It also helps pull us out of our heads. So much of our lives is spent up in the gray matter, thinking about this, imagining that. Then these worlds that we create in our mind take over. It’s almost as if every little … 
  4. Sensuality
     … We focus on the breath, we focus on the internal sense of the body, we’re aware of the different elements in the body, we learn how to bring them into balance. This can give rise to a very strong sense of pleasure, a very nourishing sense of pleasure that causes no harm. And this knowledge of the elements of the body will also … 
  5. Stand Your Ground
     … In other words, you know what people are saying, you know what they’re doing, but you don’t take that as something to focus on. You keep breathing easily, breathing easily, no matter what. That opens the bottom of the garbage pail, so that you’re not carrying things around. The thing is, it’s not just what other people do; it’s … 
  6. Admirable Friendship
     … What am I doing?” That was always the focus: “What am I doing?” And it went from grosser to more and more refined levels of being not right. From the blatant problems of aging, illness, and death, he focused in more and more and more on his mind to the point where he didn’t even talk about suffering. It was just disturbance. “What … 
  7. Watch What You’re Doing
     … In other words, you tell yourself to focus on the breath in a certain way, to work with the breath a certain way, then you do it, and then you have to evaluate the results—one, to make sure you’re doing things the way you tell yourself to do, and when the results don’t come out, you have to figure out why … 
  8. Appropriate Attention
     … Just focus on the affairs of the mind in the present moment. Just be aware in the present moment. Use the breath as your anchor to keep you here. As you work with the breath—trying out long breathing, short breathing, fast, slow, heavy, light—you provide yourself with a way of staying interested in the present moment. You’re not just forcing the … 
  9. Your World to Practice In
     … Where’s the movement that tells you, “Now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out”? Focus your attention there. Notice if it’s comfortable. There should be a balance: not too long, not too short. You start with long breathing to wake up the body. And depending on how much oxygen you need, you can stick with long breathing for … 
  10. The Sport of Wise People
     … For example with the breath, you’ve got all kinds of in-and-out breathing that you can focus on: long, short, heavy, light, deep, shallow, fast, slow. Or you can start with the breath energies in the body. Some people, in the beginning, find them easier to focus on than the in-and-out breath. Just scan through the body. Notice where there … 
  11. Understanding Happiness
     … It’s also a world that gives you the opportunity to focus directly in on the mind, so that you can see what the mind is doing that’s causing suffering, the kind of suffering that goes deep down inside. The mind has the opportunity to sit here and meditate to get quiet. Once it’s quiet, it can really see what’s going … 
  12. Abusing Pleasure & Pain
     … In the meantime you’ve probably lost focus and drifted into a delusive state. So you need to establish a very large frame of reference, the whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out. This is where you become more sensitive to the breath energies in the body: the flow of energy down the back, or sometimes up the back; down the legs … 
  13. What Should I Do?
     … Are you going to focus on right effort more than concentration, or concentration more than effort, or equanimity more than either? Because the practice requires all three, and it’s a matter of knowing when to emphasize which quality. The Buddha makes a comparison with a goldsmith: Sometimes the goldsmith puts the gold in the fire, sometimes he takes it out and looks at … 
  14. The Science of Meditation
     … You can change the way you breathe; you can change the way you focus. Which aspect of the process are you going to focus on? The Buddha talks about four frames of reference in establishing mindfulness: body, feelings, mind, mental qualities, all taken in and of themselves. It’s not that they involve doing four different kinds of meditation exercises. You stay with the … 
  15. Sense Restraint
     … If the purpose is to excite lust, well, yeah, you’ll focus on perceiving the pleasant side of things. But if your purpose is to liberate the mind, you’ve got to focus on the unpleasant side. That helps to give rise to a sense of dispassion. It changes your attitude toward how much you need these things. I remember one of my more … 
  16. A Slave to Craving
     … This is where you’ve got to focus your efforts. Of course the “should” here, is nothing that anybody is imposing on you, but suffering is imposing it on you. But don’t look at it as an imposition; look at it as a wake-up call. There’s work to be done, and the Buddha’s giving you focus for your work. This … 
  17. Focused on Your Duties
    When we meditate, we focus on the present moment, not because it’s a wonderful moment, but it’s the moment where we have to think about our duties. This is where the duties get performed. What duties do we have? As the Buddha said, you have the choice of taking on the duties or not. But if you want to put an end … 
  18. The Most Important Thing to Be Doing
     … The question often arises, “How much concentration do you need?” The Buddha talks about different levels of jhana, as he calls them, but we’re not here to focus on jhana, we’re here to focus on our breath. There’s no jhan-o-meter than can measure whether you’ve gone over the threshold to how much concentration is needed. What you know … 
  19. Honest & Observant
     … You can focus your attention on another part of the body. If there’s a pain, say, in your knee, you can focus on your other knee. Or if both knees are in pain, you can focus in your chest around the heart. Try to find some part of the body that’s not in pain. As Ajaan Lee once said, if everything in … 
  20. Encouraging Perceptions
     … When we focus on the sensation of the breathing, we’re also keeping in mind a particular perception of the breath so that we know what to look for, where to look for the breath. For example, if you have a perception of breath simply as air coming in and out of the lungs, you’re going to be looking in one place and … 
  21. Perception
     … Here we’re trying to focus on the present, and yet we use our memories from the past to cover up the present, to shape our experience of the present. Say, when there’s a pain in your leg, a pain in your waist, a pain in the back, what perceptions does the mind apply to it? If you can’t see the process … 
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