Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Centered on Concentration
     … As you look at all the other things you could be focused on, you realize that they don’t offer the happiness that you once thought they did. This is why the Buddha calls it awakening. We dream about things, looking for happiness here and there, and when we try to find it there, as he said, the fires of the mind scorch wherever … 
  3. Protecting Your Space
     … It’s just a matter of noticing—when you see that focusing on certain things gives more energy to your greed or more energy to your anger—that you learn not to focus on those things. You focus on other things. Or you look at the same thing in a different way. Say there’s a picture that gives rise to lust. Think about … 
  4. Bedside Dhamma
     … The stronger her powers of concentration and the more focused her mind, the stronger the anger. That, as my teacher said, was because she wasn’t trying to apply things. She just thought that somehow, magically, the practice of concentration would seep into the rest of her life without her trying to apply it. It doesn’t work that way. You have to realize … 
  5. Social Anxiety
     … It’s interesting that Ajaan Lee focuses on what other people say as one of the tests for a mind that’s really at peace. The Buddha makes a similar point in one of the Dhammapada verses. “If, when other people say harsh things to you and you don’t reverberate — like a cracked gong — that’s a sign that you’ve attained true … 
  6. Getting into the Body
    One of the Buddha’s terms for concentration is adhicitta, which can be translated as “heightened awareness” or “the heightened mind.” It can also be translated as “heightened intentness.” In other words, you really do pay careful attention to what you’ve got here, the object you’re focused on—in this case, the body, the breath. Give all your attention to how the … 
  7. A Culture of Restraint
     … You can look at them and say, “That’s not a thought I want to follow.” When you’re used to saying No to things already, it’s easier to say No to them when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed focusing on the breath. And vice versa: When you’ve got your eyes open you can remind yourself, “I’ve been … 
  8. The Heightened Mind
     … So, instead of being focused on trying to fit yourself into the world, try to see the world as being encompassed by this larger awareness—both the range of the awareness, and also the larger perspective that comes from this heightened, broadened, deepened, state of mind. That way, the issues of the world don’t loom so large, and you’ve got your priorities … 
  9. Totally Secure
     … This is why you want to keep your attention focused, realizing that the fabrications that come from within the mind are the big problem. What other people fabricate, that’s their issue. Your issue is how you maintain your even keel. As you do this, you begin to see the process of fabrication of the mind more and more clearly all the time. That … 
  10. Give of Yourself
     … When something comes up in your mind that entails suffering, how does it relate to the way you’re breathing? How does it relate to the way you’re talking to yourself? How does it relate to the perceptions and feelings you’re focusing on? How can you change those things, so as to get rid of that cause of suffering? That’s for … 
  11. The Dhamma Without Price
     … We do that by focusing on our practice, training the mind in an institution that places the training of the mind as its bottom line. As for the economics of buying and selling, that gets pushed off to the side. The fact that the Dhamma is supported by gifts is what keeps it pure, keeps it in line with its original principles, and keeps … 
  12. The Community of the Wise
     … I felt I really should be spending all my time focusing on the breath, and yet issues related, ultimately, to the value of what I was doing kept coming up. So I had to deal with them. It was only in retrospect that I began to realize that that, too, was an important part of the practice. It’s not that you can ignore … 
  13. Guardian Meditations
     … This is why a large part of the practice is focused on the issue of perception: the way you label things, how they fit into the larger picture of your thoughts. And this is why the Buddha didn’t just sit people down, and say, “Okay, just be in the present moment and don’t think about anything else.” He would often start his … 
  14. One Person
     … And you’ll find that focusing on this one person is not a selfish thing—although that was another issue that Ajaan Suwat liked to talk about. The phrase they have in Thailand for “don’t be selfish,” literally means “don’t look after yourself.” He said that’s wrong. You do have to look after yourself. But look after yourself in a skillful … 
  15. Learning & Respect
     … You’re just holding this theme in mind, focused on watching it. And there, he says, you’re entering the second jhāna. The implication there being that when you’re doing the basic steps in right mindfulness, you’re getting into the first jhāna, where you’re thinking about the breath, thinking about your mind being with the breath, thinking about the feelings that … 
  16. Nimble with Your Questions
     … Or the simple act of being with the breath—the simple act of focusing on the breath in the body: What’s going on? We know the stories of Ajaan Maha Boowa’s battle with pain, and it’s very impressive, the amount of pain that he was able to sit through. But the really important part of the teaching was not so much … 
  17. Ideals
     … You’re focusing not so much on “things as they are” as on things as they have come to be so that you can manipulate them and can figure out what things can be. You can make them into a path to the deathless. That’s when the practice gets really good. Otherwise, you just keep on giving in to that old cynical voice … 
  18. The World of the Body
     … When you’re focused on the breath, you’re right next to the mind, so the intentions that are causing suffering, the whole process of becoming that starts with potentials that we then actualize, are all going to be found right here. So try to make the most of this awareness. Of course, you’ll be dealing with the negative sides of the body … 
  19. Resistance
     … But unlike psychotherapy — which tries to trace your thoughts back to their origins, where they’re coming from in time — he focuses on where they’re going, where they lead. Do they lead you where you want to go? And he gives some recommendations on ways of thinking that really help you go in the right direction. As you carry through with his ways … 
  20. Reflect
     … You’ve got to develop insight.” So the monk abandoned his concentration and focused entirely on insight, but he found that he was getting more and more distracted, more and more scattered. He was getting no joy from the practice. He came to see me, and I told him, “You’ve got to get back to your concentration.” He said, “I can’t. I … 
  21. Unattractiveness
     … That’s what we’re focused on as we meditate. You realize you want to be able to put the mind in good shape before it has to leave the body. Or even before then: You want the mind to be in good shape as it’s going to age, because we can cause ourselves a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, if … 
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