Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Metta Can Hurt
     … You find that you stay focused there very easily. And a lot of people like the brahma-vihāras.* *It feels good to be sitting here thinking, “May all beings be happy” or to think of anyone who’s suffering and send compassion: “May that person be free from suffering.” You see people who are happy or doing things that are good, you’re happy … 
  3. Strength of Concentration
     … The themes of right concentration are the frames of reference in establishing mindfulness, and the three big frames you’re going to be focused on right away will be body, feelings, and mind. The body, of course, is how you experience it right now, and how you experience it is going to come through the breath. So what you’re evaluating is: “Is this … 
  4. The Goldsmith
     … Is it because you’re not focused on the breath or because the breath isn’t spreading well or you’re not letting the different breath energies mingle well, or you’re at the wrong focal point in the body? There are lots of ways that you can take those basic principles and ask questions around them to get some handle on what might … 
  5. The Web of Pain
     … Why is that? Because your attention is focused outside, away from the pains in the body. As a result, you don’t start knitting together a web of pain. But here you’re sitting with nothing to distract you, except for your own thoughts. It’s just you and the body sitting here breathing, and you’re going to start noticing that there’s … 
  6. Older than the Cosmos
     … Even when you get focused in concentration and try to fabricate just one thing continually, you have to fight to begin with. But it’s doable and it’s part of the path out, but still, it’s just part of the path. It’s not the goal, because it, too, has to be constantly fabricated. Then you begin to wonder, “Is there anything … 
  7. Sit with It
     … You’ll realize that there are times when you have to change the breathing and other times when you have to change the posture or change the place you’re focused. Sometimes you have to drop the breath and do some contemplations: contemplating goodwill, contemplating death. Some people might say, “Why contemplate death?” Well, it reminds you that you don’t have much time … 
  8. The Awful Truth
     … That’s a lot of what the skill that we need—so that we can be in charge of where our mind focuses, the questions it asks, the issues it takes up. This requires mindfulness, it requires alertness: the basic skills we work at when we’re staying with the breath. So have a sense of the importance of these qualities, and the importance … 
  9. The Missing Truth
     … In other words, your intentions are focused on the breath. Your awareness fills the body. The breath fills the body. The sense of ease fills the body. In this way, you give the mind a good place to stay in the present moment. If you have very narrow awareness of the present moment, it’s not a very pleasant place to stay. You feel … 
  10. The Flow of Time
     … What are you doing with your time? What is the best thing to do with the flow of time as it flows away? We train our minds focusing on the breath, letting the breath be comfortable, trying to develop a sense of feeling at home here in the present moment and not letting ourselves be pushed around by impulses that come in. Ajaan Chah … 
  11. Skilled in Aims
     … So your goodwill has to go straight to the bandits and then, from them, you spread it for everybody because, as you’re dying, you don’t want to be focused on ill will for anybody at all. As you go through the Canon, you get impressed by how much emphasis the Buddha places on your attitude at that last moment of life. You … 
  12. Skillful Distress
     … But renunciate distress focuses your attention in a different direction: toward the people who have attained awakening. They were noble people. Instead of hanging around with uninspiring people, maybe you can hang out with people who are noble. I was reading yesterday about how the idea that there is an attainment that you can attain—one that gets you out of this up and … 
  13. Recollecting the Buddha
     … I’ve known some people who’ve studied in Tibetan traditions who say, “What’s wrong with you Theravadans, focusing on the breath? When you die, the breath’s going to leave you, and at that point, when you need your meditation object most, it’s not going to be there.” But that ignores the point that when the Buddha teaches breath meditation, the … 
  14. Karma as an Island
     … When the Buddha teaches karma, that’s what he focuses on—the good that can be done. This is why the reflection on karma is meant to give rise to confidence—that you have it within you that you can do this. If your habits are unskillful, you can change them. They’re not written in stone. Past karma doesn’t control everything. In … 
  15. Indulge in the Pleasure of Jhana
    Focusing on the breath; evaluating the breath so that you get on good terms with it: Ajaan Lee calls this concentration work. And there is work involved. You have to figure out how to get your mind to stay with the breath, exactly what to do with the breath. How do you adjust the breath in a way that’s comfortable, that allows it … 
  16. Three Types of Equanimity
     … So instead of getting upset about the areas where he can’t make a difference, he focuses on the areas where he can. So that’s one kind of equanimity, the equanimity in the brahmaviharas, the equanimity of a doctor. Another kind of equanimity occurs in the context of the Buddha’s teachings on concentration practice. It’s there in the fourth jhana and … 
  17. Painful Feelings, Hurtful Words
     … And even when you’re focusing on the body, you’ve got to learn how to put aside certain parts of the body that you cannot make comfortable. Focus on the parts that you can, and use that as your space here in the present moment. As for the words of other people, try to develop a state of mind that allows the words … 
  18. Don’t Get Discouraged
     … How did you do that? Usually you focused either on how much you wanted the results or how much you were afraid of what would happen if you didn’t master the skill. Then you learned how to channel both the desire and the fear into practical action. And ask yourself: What did you do to maintain yourself, to keep yourself going even when … 
  19. The Steadiness of Your Gaze
     … Why is the mind causing itself suffering? Why is it causing itself stress in ways that don’t have to be there? In the context of the Three Characteristics, the Buddha does point out that anything fabricated is stressful, but in the Four Noble Truths he focuses more on the issue of the stress of clinging and craving. The craving causes the clinging, and … 
  20. The Gift of Discernment
     … It keeps focusing you back on your actions and the results you’re getting from them. This is what the four noble truths are all about. You’re suffering? You can’t blame it on the weather. You can’t blame it on the economy. You can’t blame it on the political structure. Those things may be miserable, but you don’t have … 
  21. To Depend on Yourself
     … So here’s a good Dhamma, and it keeps focusing you on what you can do. It’s putting the power in your hands. A lot of us, when we find we have that kind of power in our hands, realizing that it really will make a difference what we do and say and think, want to abdicate that power to somebody else. But … 
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