Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Endurance & Contentment… In terms of endurance, if you’re constantly focusing on what’s difficult, what’s painful, where you’re weak, it just aggravates the situation. Look for your strengths. Look for the things that do give you support. I found this very helpful when I was living alone on the mountain there in Thailand. The situation sounds like it should have been ideal: I …
- Fighting off Ignorance… For instance, while you’re focusing on the breath, to stay with the breath you have to keep it in mind. You can’t let yourself forget. Otherwise, you’ll go wandering off in your old ways. That ability to keep this one thing in mind is called mindfulness. Every time you breathe in, try to remember that this is where you want to …
- Ironclad Technique vs. No Technique… The point to having a technique is that it focuses you on your actions, what you’re doing in the present moment. This is where you can see the processes of fabrication in action. This is where you can see your intentions in action—all the factors of dependent co-arising that lead up to contact and can shape the course of what’s …
- Pushing the Three Characteristics… On different days, during different periods of time, even within one meditation sitting, you find past karma of different kinds will come up, so that focusing on the breath for one five-minute period will get results, and for the next five-minute period, it doesn’t seem to get any results at all, even though you’re doing the same thing. So that …
- Booster Stages… There’s a passage where the Buddha says that if you find that the way you’re focusing on the body makes you anxious, irritable, uncomfortable in the present, try to focus on a theme that inspires you, that gives rise to a sense of clarity, confidence in the mind. Then, when that theme has done its work, you can put it aside. That …
- The World Is Aflame… He focused on the suffering that comes from the mind’s own actions, because that’s where suffering is caused. He’s not here to save the world. He’s here to go beyond it, and that’s where our practice should be aimed.
- Friends with the Breath, Friends with the Buddha… When you’re focusing on the present moment, alertness is not about being with anything at all coming up in the present. Its focus is on what you’re doing. Be very clear about that. Then ask yourself: Are the results the results you want? If they’re not, what can you change? Give the teachings a serious try. They’re not all that …
- Free Sources of Energy… And of course, when you’re focusing on the breath, you have to have certain perceptions in mind and you’re developing certain feelings. That’s mental fabrication. In this case, what kind of breathing would feel energizing? What kind of perception of your abilities right now would be helpful? Your freedom to search for potentials that may not be obvious is something you …
- Working with Nature… And focusing on them, you get more observant. You get more alert. You notice things in the mind that you wouldn’t have noticed before, which is precisely what we’re trying to do here. We’re not just trying to squeeze it in a certain direction. We’re trying to get it to settle in so that we can watch it. The more …
- Test Everything… You want to keep the mind focused on the spot that you’ve determined for it to stay. After all, when you’re going to try to develop insight, it requires that the mind be very, very steady and not be moved even in the slightest way by the currents that come through it. So the practice of meditation is not just a matter …
- The First Noble Truth… You’ll notice with the clinging to views and clinging to habits and practices that a lot of the problem lies in this sense of I, I, I that develops around them; especially the “I’m better than somebody else because of my views or my practices.” As the Buddha says, instead of focusing on who you are, focus on what you’re doing …
- Immediate Knowledge… This is why we’re focusing on the breath. It’s something right here, right now. Even if you have doubts about other things, you can at least be confident, when the breath is coming in, you know that it’s coming in. When it’s coming out, you can know that as well. When you’re with the breath, you know what you …
- Seclusion… There can be just awareness focused on the body in and of itself. And whether the body is sick or healthy, young or old, that doesn’t matter right now. Just what does it feel like to be in the body right now? Focus on that. Be mindful. Be alert. And develop a quality called ardency, that you really stick with it. There’s …
- No Happiness Other than Peace… That’s how you know you’re properly focused in the present moment: if there’s a sense of well-being here. But concentration is not the goal, because there’s a certain amount of effort that has to go into keeping the mind concentrated. And it’s an acquired taste. Some people sit here and they’re miserable for a whole hour. What …
- Two Kinds of Cross-Questioning… Then you can try working with deep and shallow, heavy or light, focusing the breath energy in different parts of the body. There’s lots to play with here. But even though we have a technique, we’re not trying to force the mind into a mold. And we’re not trying to force it into believing certain things. As the Buddha said, the …
- The Veils of Delusion… And the solidity of mind, the solidity of your focus that can keep you focused from cause to effect, that’s missing as well. So you can’t see how these things get strung together, what leads to what, and then what that leads to, and where it comes around again. The mind has to be really steady to see this. So the time …
- The Best of a Bad Situation… He ended up not only surviving, but also discovering new ways of focusing on the breath, using the breath, connecting to the breath energies throughout the body to cure his heart. And he arrived at a way of teaching breath meditation that he used for the rest of his life. So the Dhamma is here to offer you something with which you can make …
- Progress & Regress… Dwell on that, because when you realize the potentials are there, it’s simply a question of which ones you’re focusing on, which ones you emphasize. Then it’s not hopeless. Just learn to hold on tight to whatever’s good within the mind, and as you stay with that long enough, it’ll begin to grow, gain strength, and get to the …
- Defilements with Their Bambi Eyes… So for the time being, put all your thoughts that are not related to the breath in the category of “under suspicion,” and get the mind still, focused on the breath. Any other thoughts not related to the breath, no matter how good they may seem, no matter how right they may seem, just say, “No, not right now.” No matter how true they …
- Self-Knowledge… What we’re focusing on is the unskillful side. People who are quick to see what’s wrong in a situation can do that either skillfully or unskillfully. People who are more laid back can do that skillfully or unskillfully. So that’s the issue you want to focus on. Whatever habits you have, look for where they’re unskillful and see what you …
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