Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Getting Your Head Around the Goal
     … Instead of focusing on our ideas of awakening, we’re focusing on the actual sensation of the breath. Instead of trying to figure out the goal, we keep coming back to the breath, exploring and figuring out what we’ve got here. It’s through these exercises of mindfulness and concentration that the mind’s powers of perception can grow. When the mind is … 
  3. Life’s First Question
     … And these are precisely the questions where the Buddha said, “Don’t bother.” He focused on something very mundane. You look at the two definitions of right view, and the very first one is essentially a teaching on action. Actions are not abstract, they’re not far away, they’re something you’re doing all the time. In particular, he focused on the issue … 
  4. Noble Wealth
     … It’s a small thing, focusing on the breath. How would you imagine that this would be the potential for developing discernment? Well, it comes from focusing on the breath in the right way. There was one time when the Buddha told the monks that it would be good for them to practice breath meditation. One of the monks responded, “Oh, yeah, I practice … 
  5. Secluded from Sensuality
     … So, if you’re mindful of things that are not relevant to staying focused on the body in and out itself, if you’re not mindful to put aside greed and distress with reference to the world, try to put these memories aside. Be mindful only of things that are relevant for what you’re trying to do right now, which is to get … 
  6. Do You Want to Stop Suffering?
     … How does it relate to this one thing? What does it mean for the mind to be focused on something? You can see that most clearly when it’s focused on one thing. When it’s playing a role in shaping its experience, it’s a lot easier to see those processes when it’s trying to shape one thing. This is why we … 
  7. Control
     … And as we meditate, this is what we’re focusing on. The element of choice lies in this intention: What are you going to focus on to make grow? You can make mindfulness grow. You can make concentration, discernment, all kinds of good qualities grow. It’s up to you. Meditation is devoted to gaining practice in focusing on the right things. Right now … 
  8. Farming Your Body & Mind
     … where it’s focusing, how it’s focusing, whether it’s staying with the breath or not. If it wanders off, just very patiently bring it right back. If it wanders off again, bring it back again, because the mind has wandered many, many times in the past. In fact, it spends most of its time wandering around. You don’t notice it that … 
  9. Restraint Leads to Freedom
     … So, to get the mind expansive, first you have to make it small, focused on the breath, focused on what’s right here, what’s right now, and say “no, no, no” to any thoughts that would wander away. It’s only when you exercise some restraint like this that the mind gains some solidity, some focus. Once you’re established the power of … 
  10. Calm & Insight
     … Sometimes you have many potentials coming up in the present moment, and your mind focuses on some and not on others, fabricating them into your actual experience of the present. For instance, you could be sitting right here focusing on whatever potentials there are for pain in the body right now and making yourself miserable. But if you focus on whatever potentials there are … 
  11. Levels of Truth
     … It’s simply a matter of focusing the level of your awareness, focusing the level of your sensitivity, so you can pick up on whichever level is appropriate. If the subtler ones are harder to focus on, stay with the blatant breath. But if you can manage the subtler ones, it’s a good part of your repertoire. See which ones you can stay … 
  12. Wise Choices
    As you sit here, there are a lot of different things you could be focusing on. But the wise choice is to focus on things that have a good potential, things that are conducive to long-term happiness. As the Buddha once said, wisdom begins by asking that question: “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” It … 
  13. Looking in Three Directions
     … Where are you focused? How is the breath going right now? To what extent are you controlling the breath, and to what extent are you allowing the breath to do its own thing? And how is it going? Do you need to make changes? Do you need to make adjustments? So in a sense, you’re looking in three directions all at once: a … 
  14. An Issue of Control
     … They don’t press on you so much when you’re focusing on the breath. We were talking today about a rash that really bothers you when you’re not meditating, but then seems to not really matter at all when you are. That’s because at that point, you’re focusing on the potentials for pleasure, and you’re not getting into the … 
  15. Everything Comes Together Right Here
     … He says, for example, that you stay focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Then, when you can do that, the Buddha says to stay focused on the body in and of itself, but don’t think any discursive thoughts related to the body, or feelings, or mind, or … 
  16. Heedful, Attentive, Mindful
     … Appropriate attention is when you ask the right questions, particularly, “Where is there suffering? What is the suffering? How is it caused? Can it be ended? And what is the path to its ending?” When you ask those questions, then you get a better idea of where your heedfulness should be focused—on ferreting out the causes of suffering and protecting yourself against them … 
  17. The Door of the Cage
     … So you’ve got a worldview that’s focused on action. You’ve got a self view that’s focused on action. And then the views about action: Those are the areas where he goes into a lot of detail about what kinds of actions are skillful in terms of your thoughts, your words, your deeds, how you engage with other people as you … 
  18. The Not-Self Discourse
     … So when there’s no place for the mind to focus its desires, this realization undercuts all possible craving, because as the Buddha said in the definition of craving, it delights here, delights there, focuses here, focuses there. It always has a place, always has a location, whether physical or mental. The purpose of the questionnaire is to deprive the mind of any possible … 
  19. The Buddha’s Protection
     … He teaches the distinction between what’s skillful and what’s not.” So, right now, what’s skillful? Focusing on your mind. Focusing on your breath. Trying to get the mind to settle down, because the mind, when it’s settled down, is in a much more secure place. It can watch itself. It can see its actions clearly. You’re going to need … 
  20. Wide-open Awareness
     … Even though the waves may go up and down, you keep your eyesight focused on the buoy. No matter what else is going on—the currents coming past, the waves, the wind, whatever—you keep your eyes focused just on that one spot, and you find that it’s tranquilizing. Even more so when you’re meditating on the body, meditating on the breath … 
  21. A Recipe for Jhana
     … He’d just say, “Stay focused on the breath. Tell me what the breath feels like as you stay focused on it.” If it felt heavier or whatever, he would say, “Okay, in that case do it this way, or think of it that way,” to guide you along the path, without giving you a lot of advance notice about what was going to … 
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