Search results for: "Focusing"

  1. Page 52
  2. The Steps of Breath Meditation
     … In the later stages of breath meditation the emphasis is focused less on the breath than on the mind as it relates to the breath. In the beginning stages, though, the emphasis is on the breath itself, on using the breath to snare the mind and bring it into the present moment. In the first two steps you’re simply with long breathing and … 
  3. Respect
     … But if you’re focusing just on the results, then what happened to the causes? They’ve been abandoned. So, turn around and focus on the causes. Once you’ve got those mastered, everything you want out of the practice will have to come. So again, it’s a matter of having respect for the principle of cause and effect, respect for your ability … 
  4. Appropriate Attention
     … So he focused on that principle in the second knowledge, the principle of action. What was action? Action primarily is intention. It’s a mental factor. He realized that your actions are determined by how you view things. So how about just looking at action in and of itself, intention in and of itself? Where do you look? Well, you look at the present … 
  5. WYSIWYG
     … When you look at the breath in line with the Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation, you start out by focusing mainly on the breath and on the process of bodily fabrication. But then the instructions themselves are a kind of verbal fabrication. You’re thinking about what you should do and tell yourself how to do it. Then you evaluate what should be … 
  6. The Gradual Path of Skill
     … Ajaan Mun’s final sermon focused in on this. He talks about the different aspects of the practice as being different parts of an army. And as for the warrior and his weapon: That’s the desire never to come back and have to suffer ever again. The desire not to suffer, which we all have, is what forms the foundation of how we … 
  7. Training Your Minds
     … Are you staying with the breath? When you’re focused on the breath, does it feel good, or are you focusing in a way that confines the breath, makes it ill at ease? Okay, try to change your focus. That’s what the third quality is, what the Buddha calls ardency: You’re trying to do this skillfully. If you notice that something is … 
  8. Food for Consciousness
    As we’re sitting here meditating, we’re focusing on something that nobody else can know—how our bodies feel from the inside, how our awareness feels from the inside. It’s an area that we ourselves don’t pay that much attention to, because our attention is too often diverted outside. And for that reason, we don’t have much of a vocabulary … 
  9. Hold on to Your Frame of Reference
     … Like right now, we’re focusing on the breath. This is part of the body in and of itself, and that’s what you want to hold in mind: that you’re going to stay with the breath in and of itself, regardless. Earthquakes can come, huge tidal waves can come crashing over on you, but you’ll just hold on to the breath … 
  10. When You Practice on Your Own
     … You start out focusing on the breath, and as you’re focusing on the breath, you can’t help but notice how the breath has an impact on feelings, and how the fact that you’re alert to the breath will influence what feelings you have in the body, and how you can develop them. That gives you some insight into the process of … 
  11. Open Are the Doors to the Deathless
     … The Buddha himself had found this on the night of his awakening by focusing on the breath, like we’re doing right now. You can breathe in ways that are intensely pleasurable. And, as he said, you can take that sense of pleasure and spread it through the body, together with rapture or refreshment. That way, the mind gets to feed on a healthy … 
  12. Calm
     … If you’re focusing on one that’s energizing and becomes unpleasant, then—after you’ve opened up all the escape channels—try to tune in to a calmer energy in the same spot where the excited energy is. It’s like digging a well. When I was living in Wat Asokaram, they had a constant problem because the monastery was right at the … 
  13. Appreciating the State of Peace
     … you into little pieces with a two-handled saw. Even in cases like that, he said, you should have goodwill for them. In fact, that’s where you start your goodwill: focused on them. Of course, you’re doing this both for them and for yourself, because you realize if you were to die at that moment, you wouldn’t want to die with … 
  14. Laying the Infrastructure
     … It’s by focusing your attention of the breath—getting really, really sensitive right here—that your sensitivity is going to take you where you want to go. Because the sensitivity involves not only very clear perception, but also continuity. If you really want to be sensitive to something, you’ve got to watch it continuously and not go skipping around. Think of a … 
  15. Doing Your Duty
     … He would be focusing on a particular dhutanga practice and trying to be very, very careful in adhering to it—and getting proud about it. Ajaan Mun would have his ways of breaking the practice to make him sensitive to his pride. In the same way, we have to watch out for the fear that can get in the way of dealing with the … 
  16. Dignity in the Face of Hardship
     … How are we breathing? How are we talking to ourselves about this? What perceptions, what feelings are we focusing on? It’s through those fabrications that we maintain ourselves both in dignity now and in well-being on into the future. So focus your energy, focus your attention on the areas where you do have power, where you do have control both in your … 
  17. Stillness & Clear Seeing
     … That’s why we practice concentration, focusing on the breath. Take some good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. And if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t feel good, you can change. Find a level of breathing—fast, slow, heavy, light, deep, shallow—that’s just right. The breath is the most responsive of all the elements in the … 
  18. Mindfulness of Death
     … It focuses on the fact that the mind goes beyond death and you’re going to need good qualities not to suffer from the death and to be able to establish yourself well in the next life, Or, if you can go beyond having to be reborn, so much the better. This means that these reflections don’t focus on death. They focus on … 
  19. Fabrication
     … Now it’s like that.” The directed thought and the evaluation are there as well, keeping you focused on the breath and on evaluating the breath. So these things are all together. If you stray away from here, you’re usually straying away into distraction, into the realm of further elaboration, in which you lose this basic frame of reference and create a whole … 
  20. The Raft of Concepts
     … That’s why we’re focused on the present moment: to look at our intentions. When you have right view, you realize that that’s why we’re here. This helps give focus to your meditation. Once the mind is still, you intend to keep it still. That’s a skillful intention. Then you can start looking at the process of intention in a … 
  21. Calm & at Ease
     … And only when it’s settled down can it stay firmly focused. The English word concentration is a good translation for samadhi, because it’s when the mind is firmly intent. Calm is more gentle. You’re beginning to settle down, so you have to induce a sense of ease. The Buddha teaches how to induce it through fabrication in his instructions on breath … 
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