Search results for: "Focusing"
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- A Point of Balance… So right here is where effort should be focused on developing a foundation. Without that foundation, no matter how much you read about insight or think about insight, it’s not going to be insight. It’s going to be, as Ajaan Lee once said, “outsights”: stuff you bring in from outside to impose on the present moment. It’s only when you can …
- Learn from Your Mistakes… It was a path of action that he was constantly focused on. He never thought that maybe some god would come down and save him, or that his own innate goodness would carry him through. And that meant that when he noticed he was not getting where he wanted to go, he had to look back on his own actions: What could he change …
- The Energy in the Body… the length of the breath, the spot in the body where you’re focused, the importance of getting the breath comfortable and then spreading those comfortable breath sensations throughout of the body until it feels like the whole body is breathing in unison, and your awareness can spread to fill the whole body as well. Those are the important principles. Once you’ve got …
- Noble Contentment, Noble Discontent… You watch it so that you can try to figure it out and then improve it. “What is it about the breath that’s uncomfortable? Why is it uncomfortable? Is it the way I’m holding my body? Is it the way I’m focused on the breath?” Some people, when they decide to concentrate on the breath, clamp down on all the energy …
- Protection from Fools… But it takes someone focused like the Buddha to really look at it and tease out its implications, that this is the big problem in life. What does that mean in terms of other problems? Some of them you have to work on, but a lot of them you can learn to let go. If you focus exclusively enough on this issue, then once …
- Selecting from the Teachings… Being more sensitive is one way of keeping check on whether your desire is too much, whether it’s getting in the way of your seeing things as they’re actually happening by focusing on what you want to have happen the next moment, the next breath, whatever. Stay right here and watch what’s happening right here, right now. Be sensitive to what …
- Questioning Impermanence… That’s their way of keeping something focused and under control. But that doesn’t last very long. How can you stay with the breath and yet be relaxed around it? The only way to find out about the pattern of cause and effect in these fabrications is by experimenting, by asking questions, asking friendly questions, and then listening. When you’re all together …
- Facing Pain… When you’re focusing on your comfortable center, one of your next steps is to think of that comfortable breath energy spreading out and going right through the pain. If there’s a pain in the shoulder, think of the comfortable breath energy in the chest spreading out through the shoulder down the arm and out the fingers. That way, you help to break …
- Trustworthy Judgment… Just this simple process of focusing on one object: Can you do it for a whole hour? You make up your mind to stay with the breath, and two breaths later another mind has taken over, wants to think about this problem or that. Sometimes the problems are big and important problems, but how can you trust the solutions you come up with if …
- Turtle Meditation… Goodwill, in terms of the concentration practice or focusing on the breath, means that you want the breath to be as comfortable as possible. Compassion here means that when you find that it’s uncomfortable, you do what you can to make it more comfortable, make it more pleasant. If it’s already pleasant, then you exercise empathetic joy, appreciating the fact that you …
- Easy to Instruct… It starts out: “This is what should be done by one aiming at a state of peace.” I happened to be sitting in on a course one time that was focused on translating the sutta. They took it apart line by line, compared different translations, and the group came up with what they liked, their favorite translation of each line. With that first line …
- An Auspicious Birth… But then for the fourth one, for developing, he focuses on tranquility and insight, which are the two main factors in right concentration. These are things you want to develop. As Ajaan Lee says, it’s like your left leg and your right leg when you walk. You have to lean to the left a little bit, then lean to the right. In other …
- A Sense of Yourself… As you’re sitting here focusing on the breath, you have to have the confidence that, yes, you can do this and that you really want to do this because you’re concerned about your future. That’s another aspect of conceit. You’re going to be receiving the results of your actions so you want to do them well. But this sense of …
- A Flammable Mind… Again, focusing on the details is like a spark for cool fire. With this kind of fire, though, you have to look after it to make sure that it does catch hold and it does spread. Once you’ve got that comfortable sensation, then think of it going into different parts of the body or else connecting up with other comfortable sensations that may …
- Awaken to Your Potentials… If you’ve been tired from the day, work on a way of breathing, a way of focusing, that’s energizing. It may depend on how you breathe, where you focus in the body, or what image you have of the breath. After all, perception plays a very important role in concentration. Everything up through the dimension of nothingness, the Buddha calls “perception attainments …
- A Good Purpose in Life… Discernment, the perfection focused on the development of the mind, is just one of them. The others all have to do with the good qualities of the heart: generosity, virtue, renunciation, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. In our practice, we have to develop all of these qualities and we have to see the opportunity to develop them as something really precious. There …
- Wisdom Requires Integrity… This means finding a place in the body where it’s congenial to stay focused and a way of breathing that’s congenial to settle on. What feels good for the body right now? Nobody else can tell you. You have to notice for yourself. And you have lots of choices. You can try long breathing, short breathing; fast, slow; heavy, light; deep, shallow …
- For the Sake of the Deathless… In the front of your mind, have the breath, have the mind focusing its attention on the breath, its alertness on what’s going on right now with the breath. Bring that mindfulness to the fore, as the Buddha would say. Dogen once said that the duties with regard to the third and the fourth noble truths are basically the same. You develop the …
- Consciousness, Name, & Form… So you comprehend the clinging to see where your craving is focused, and that makes it easier to abandon the craving. You do this so that you can realize the end of suffering through the end of craving, and you do that by developing the path: everything from right view all the way through right concentration. When you look at things on these terms …
- Discerning the Middle Way… So you have to hold just the right amount of pressure on the chick, just the right amount of pressure on the spot where you’re focused. And then try to maintain that. Like a person crossing a tight rope or a surfer riding a wave, you’ll need to make some adjustments here and there. This is a matter of learning how to …
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