Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Here Be Tigers… He focuses on the problem of suffering because that’s what’s getting in the way of our happiness. But once that problem is solved, then there’s nothing to get in the way.
- A Mind Like Earth… So keep your desires focused on the causes, and your patience and equanimity for the results, and you’ll find it a lot easier to keep on the path. If you’re going to be patient and equanimous about everything, it’s pretty hopeless. The idea that we just accept everything as it is and that’s what awakening is, just being with things …
- A Position of Strength… We’re always so focused on running out all the time. To counter this, think of yourself backing into your body—feeling the back, feeling the legs, feeling the arms, all from within, being very conscious of where all the parts of the body are right now. If you give the mind this task, it won’t have any extra ability to take on …
- No Who or Where… I’m here to benefit from this.” But try to set your primary focus on, “What’s going on here? What are the processes? What are the steps?” This is why the Buddha focuses so much on these steps. As for the world, he does have a *sketch *of a worldview, but it’s only a sketch. Even in the longest list of all …
- Visakha Puja – True Homage… They say that the Buddha, on the night of his awakening, was focusing on his breath as well. So what’s the difference between his breath and ours? He was able to gain awakening, but where are we? The difference doesn’t lie on the breath, it lies in the qualities of mind we bring to it. But these are qualities we can all …
- Non-Verbal Discernment… Get a sense of what kind of breath feels right for settling the mind, where you want it focused, how broad you want your focus to be. Some people will verbalize this more than others, but the important thing is the skill. And remember, it took a Buddha to come up with the vocabulary that we use for our meditation. There have been a …
- Four Noble Truths to One… In the beginning, you’re focusing on the first two steps: You want to see the origination of the suffering and its passing away. That’s the only way that you’re going to be able to see that there’s suffering and clinging at the same time. The “origination” here, of course, means cause. And the cause is craving. So as you’re …
- The Psychology of Virtue… In the precepts, the Buddha focuses most attention on the precept around speech. As he said, if you feel no shame in telling a deliberate lie, the idea of something you shouldn’t do just is not there anymore. You can do all kinds of things. So restraint has to start with the mouth. That’s because the mouth is closest to the mind …
- To Be Worthy of the Dhamma… So you’re focused on the discernment that sees fabrication and on the ability to calm things down. Those are the first and the fourth determinations. The ability to arrive at calm comes through the other two: truth and relinquishment. In being true, you really see what you’re doing. This principle is so important that the Buddha put it at the very beginning …
- Truth Is Where You’re True… That’s one of the reasons why we keep focused right here—because right here is where that quality is, where it functions, and where it can be trained.
- True, Beneficial, Timely… First, is it true? Two, is it beneficial? And three, is this the right time and place for that? If you can hold all your thoughts to these tests, it helps get rid of a lot of unnecessary chatter inside and focuses you on the things that are really useful to say. What you say to yourself, the Buddha classifies as directed thought and …
- Solid Inside… In focusing on the breath, we get to know our own minds. Then we can talk about our own minds. We don’t have to bring in the terms Buddhist or Christian.” The first step in the meditation is simply that: to bring your mind to the breath and keep it there. The qualities you develop—mindfulness, alertness, concentration—are qualities that are useful …
- The Gatekeeper Doesn’t Just Note… staying focused on one thing in and of itself. Put aside all other topics that you might be thinking about. You do both these activities with mindfulness, you do them with alertness, and you’re ardent. When you stick with them, you can get a sense of comfort. This is where your ardency turns into evaluation. As Ajaan Lee teaches it, you evaluate the …
- How to Read Yourself… Discernment Fosters Concentration, pointing out that some people find it difficult to get their minds to settle down by just focusing on a meditation word, so they have to think their way to cut off all the various routes by which the mind would leave the present moment, to see that those things are not worth thinking about. All the places the mind could …
- A Full Heart… We make it very narrow, very confined, focused on a few things, a few issues that we worry over. But we often worry about things that really can’t give us any fullness. Like that image from Ajaan Lee of the dog chewing on a bone. Whatever meat was ever on the bone is not there anymore, but the dog keeps chewing on it …
- Steps in Concentration… You’re focused on the body—for example, the breath—in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. So where’s your breath right now? Anything that’s not related to this breath at the moment: Include that in “the world.” You’re going to give total importance to the breath in and of …
- Rottweilers in the House… When someone says something that could be aggravating, instead of focusing on what would make you angry, think instead that’s that person’s karma. They’ve probably got their issues and you don’t have to get involved. Even if they’re talking to you and you have to respond, you don’t have to get involved in the idea that they’re …
- Virtues & Values… So even though, as we’re meditating, each person is focused on his or her own breath—we can’t look at anyone else’s breath—we’re still helping one another. At the very least, when you’re sitting here in a group like this, it’s hard to get up and give up on the meditation, saying, “I don’t feel like …
- The Governing Principle… So as you’re focusing on the breath here, keep the same principle in mind. Whatever ease there is, appreciate that, cupping it in your hands, protecting it. It may just be one spot in the body to begin with, but think of it as like a small fire that you try to light in the midst of a windy plain. You’ve got …
- Useful Vocabulary… This is why you have to catch the mind to see which layer of the mind, which layer of awareness, which layer of the aggregates you’re focused on, where your craving looks for its satisfaction or finds it. So meditation is not just a blanket cloning of awakening where you say, “Awakened people are unattached, so whatever comes up, I’ll just be …
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