Search results for: "Focus"
- Page 63
- A Seeker’s Habits… That means the focus is more on your intention as the source of the action, as the source of what you have to be careful about in the action. And that begins to focus your attention on what’s really important in your life: the intentions that shape what you do. Because what you intend to do then in turn shapes your experiences. If …
- Four Roles to Play… Where do you feel it? Then you focus your attention to where it’s clearest. The next question is: How does it feel? Does it feel good? You can try experimenting. Tell yourself to try long breathing for a while, then to try short breathing. Fast or slow, heavy or light. Deep, shallow. Broad, narrow. This is where you bring in another aspect of …
- A Mind Without Inertia… So the Buddha said to focus your passion in the direction of the Dhamma. Find the happiness that comes from generosity, the happiness that comes from virtue, from being principled in your behavior, and the happiness that comes from meditation. He compares these things to food—and particularly the sense of wellbeing, rapture, and refreshment that come from getting the mind into a good …
- Large-hearted Equanimity… This is where you focus inside. Try to get the mind into a state where it really is solidly here, right here, right now, with a sense of well-being.** When the Buddha talks about developing higher levels of equanimity, in some cases they come through insight. In other cases, they come through concentration. But in both cases, you have to have a sense …
- Grasping the Snake… They actually focus to a great extent on qualities in the mind, just looking at what your mind is doing right here, right now. They’re right for putting an end to suffering if you keep this focus in mind. Think of the Wings to Awakening: seven lists of dhammas that are useful for the practice—different ways of looking at the practice. You …
- Sticking with an Intention… This is why we focus on the present moment, so that we can see the process of intention in action as it happens and can have a say in where that intention is going to go. The more solidly you can stay in the present moment — the more steadily you can maintain your balance here — the more you’ll be able to see, and …
- Dissolving Your Thoughts… Here again, this ability to sense the thought as a disturbance in the breath energy in the body is really helpful because, after all, you’re with the breath already, and you don’t have to change your focus that much to deal with disturbances in the breath. It’s simply that you broaden your range, so that you’re aware of the whole …
- Samvega First… Sometimes the desire comes first and sometimes the world appears and you focus on something in that world that you want to desire. But in order to attain that desire, you have to take on an identity in that world. This happens in the thought worlds of the mind, and it happens on the large scale as well. This is why we’re human …
- The Door of the Cage (2)… And, as I said last night, the Buddha has you focus on clinging to habits and practices as a way out of clinging to views and a sense of self. Now of those four types of clinging, clinging to sensuality has no role on the path. Spending your time thinking about sensual pleasures is not going to get you anywhere. But there are skillful …
- Question Your Actions… What are you doing? Right now you’re trying to focus on the breath, trying to maintain the mind with the breath, trying to breathe in a way that feels good. And you’re talking to yourself about this: “How’s this breath? How’s the next breath? Where does it feel good in the body? Where does the breath feel clear in the …
- Where the Brightness Is… So as we focus on these issues of our thoughts and our words and our deeds, and realize that we have choices that we didn’t realize before, we’re getting more and more sensitive to the part of the mind that’s bright. In other words, instead of just acting under compulsion, we can step back a minute and look at our choices …
- Food, Shelter & Work… Now focus your attention on the breath. As you breathe in, take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, and notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Think of the breath not so much as the air coming in and out through the nose, but as the movement of energy in the body. Where do you feel that energy …
- Choosing & Watching Your Choices… Try to focus your attention on any spot where it’s most obvious and where it feels easiest to stay focused. If you wander off, just keep coming back. This is called establishing mindfulness. In other words, you keep reminding yourself that this is where you want to stay. And alertness: You want to watch what you’re doing so that if you wander …
- Asking the Right Questions… You have to learn how to focus on the breath but not get waylaid by the fact that there’s a nice pleasant sensation coming up and either getting excited about it or just wanting to wallow in the pleasure. You’ve got to learn how to ask the right question: what to do with that pleasure. See it as a tool or as …
- Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself… Then she would strike out everything except for one and two, and she’d focus just on those. That’s how she got things done. So in this case, the practice of meditation is something you want to identify with at the moment. Everything else, you strike out. And the parts of the mind that say, “Ah, you’re not up to this, you …
- Action & Result… In fact, that is the major focus of his teachings. The question of who’s doing the actions, who’s receiving the results, who’s behind everything, the questions we had this afternoon as to who designed saṁsāra, who designed nibbāna: Those are not the sorts of things you can test. But you can test the question of when you do this, what are …
- Training in Commitment & Reflection… Over time, you begin to gain a sense of when the breath is too heavy, when the breath is too light, when the mind’s focus is in the wrong place, when it’s focusing too hard, or its focus is so one-pointed that it’s actually disturbing the flow of energy in the body. You begin to notice these things and then …
- The Path Requires Effort… First, while you’re practicing with the breath, focus your attention on where the breath seems most obvious, so that you know: Now the breath is going in; now the breath is going out. And stick with it. It’s the sticking-with-it that makes all the difference. Sometimes you hear people say, “I’ve done a little concentration. I know what it …
- Goodwill for Bad People… But there are times when you have to focus on their good traits just as one way of reminding yourself that there is something there that it’s possible to feel goodwill for. But that’s a crutch. Ultimately you want to understand goodwill to the point where you don’t have to think about other people’s good habits or good traits for …
- Skillful Attachments… Once you reclaim the body in this way, then when other thoughts and feelings come in, you recognize them as intruders and you’re in a better position to choose which ones you want to focus on and which ones you don’t. All too often we blindly take on whatever comes in, but as you stay with the breath, you get a greater …
- Load next page...
