Search results for: "Attention"
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- Discernment Fosters Concentration… In other words, in both cases, you develop analysis of qualities at the same time that you starve the hindrance of uncertainty by paying careful, appropriate attention to the skillfulness and lack of skillfulness in the mind. If you think about the Buddha’s description of how he got on the path, he learned how to divide his thoughts into two sorts: those imbued …
- Safety All Around… In fact, one of the biggest dangers is thinking that there is no such thing as an unskillful habit, that right and wrong are simply social conventions, and that you don’t have to pay attention to them. Or that your actions don’t really make a difference—that you don’t have freedom of choice, that because causes and conditions make you do …
- Cooking the Present Moment… That’s why we focus right here, right now, and pay very careful attention to what we’re doing and the results of what we’re doing, right here, right now. That’s what alertness is all about. Then we’re mindful to remember those lessons, and ardent in trying to improve our skills as cooks as much as we can.
- Concentration Food… With the formless states, like space or consciousness, you really depend on the consistency of the perception because there’s nothing else to hold your attention in place, nothing to fill in the gaps if the perception goes. So first you work with the breath, because the breath is there even when the perception lapses. That helps to create some continuity. In this way …
- Mission Possible… Or you can simply decide not to pay any attention to it at all. Let it chatter away in some corner of the mind, while you get to work. Or you realize that that thinking involves a certain amount of effort. Where do you feel that effort, especially where do you feel that effort in the body? Where is there a pattern of tension …
- Life in the Buddha’s Hospital… It’s important that we pay attention to our own course of treatment, and not worry about the treatments of others. If some people don’t seem to be recovering from their diseases as fast as you would like them to, well, again, it’s their disease. Try to keep this is mind. Remember what Ajaan Lee says: “When you look inside, it’s …
- Calm… There has to be some appropriate attention asking the right questions. When you figure out what your mind is doing that’s skillful and what’s not, then you can move on to persistence. Put forth the effort to encourage what’s skillful, discourage what’s not. There should come a sense of refreshment as you’re able to do that. That refreshment is …
- The Conditions for Goodwill… We work with the breath to develop our mindfulness to stitch together our moments of attention so that things don’t slip through the cracks. And as we work on the conditions, we get a goodwill that’s more and more reliable. It becomes totally reliable only with the noble attainments. That’s when the mind has found a basis for happiness inside that …
- Right Resolve & Right Concentration… What kind of mindstate are they reading in you right now if they happen to be paying attention to you? If you have any pride at all, you want to make sure that at the very least you’re struggling with the unskillful states and not just giving in. You can also make use of compassion. You realize that if you give in to …
- Tapping into the Breath… Focus your attention there. And then, when you feel more confident, you can go to the spot that’s actually malfunctioning and ask yourself, “Where is the healthy breath in here?” Notice the attitude not so much that you’re going to make it healthy. You’re just going to allow it. It’s in this way that you learn how to use your …
- Overcoming Complacency… It’s part of the fine print that we didn’t pay attention to when we signed on, but it’s there. You can’t deny it. And so the question, given this fact that we do have such a creative role in our experience, is: What we’re going to do with it? And the first thing you have to do is just …
- Attahi Attano Natho… So when the consequences depend on what you do, you pay careful attention to what you’re doing. Don’t let your focus get distracted outside. There’s an aspect of the practice that has an impact on other people, but it comes down to the qualities of your mind. You want to be unburdensome. You want to be modest. You want to be …
- The Management of Suffering… So what does that tell you about your actions, how much attention you should give to them, how much care you should take? That’s the first quality of a good friend and the first quality that leads to happiness in future lifetimes. The second quality is virtue: the desire to be harmless in your words and your deeds. This basically comes down to …
- Step by Step… Don’t focus so much attention on the goal that you misstep. Dogen the Zen master has a nice image. He says that, in walking the path, the realization of the cessation of suffering is the same thing as the development of the path. Now, this doesn’t mean that the path is the goal. What it does mean, though, is that in the …
- A Safe Home… They just go for whatever is attractive, whatever captures their attention. To keep this child at home, you’ve got to give it toys to play with, so play with the breath. You can try long breathing, short breathing, deep breathing, shallow breathing, heavy or light breathing, fast or slow. Think of the breath as a whole-body process. In other words, you don …
- Training Your Inner Teacher… You start by finding a teacher who’s reliable, and you listen to the Dhamma; you pay careful attention; you try to remember the Dhamma. All of that comes under discernment that comes from listening. The next steps are the discernment that comes from thinking. You take the Dhamma you’ve heard and you compare it with other lessons you’ve learned, and you …
- Ingenuity… Why do you do it? Because you’re not really paying attention, you don’t see the connections. Sometimes the perception of not-self or the perception of emptiness will hit home. There are lots of different ways of developing dispassion. The tools are there not for you to say, “Oh yes, this is the way things are: inconstant, stress, not-self. What’s …
- Mindfulness & Perception… Just focus your attention on the breath, and the mind’s old habits of focusing will do that. There will be an arrow and, for the least little while, the ability to remember. But then you forget. You drop the perception. It may take you a while before you come back. This is where you need to know exactly what the mechanics are, so …
- Take the One Seat… You need mindfulness to stitch together your moments of awareness, moments of attention, so that they become continuous. Mindfulness is the ability to remember you’ve got to stay with the breath. Alertness is what watches the breath. As you settle down with the breath, you notice there are a lot of other things right next to the breath: all the activities of the …
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