Search results for: "Attention"
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- Choiceful Awareness… The point he was making is that the monk was really not paying much attention. There’s a lot to doubt; there’s a lot to question yourself about in the practice. And this is not a matter of unskillful doubt. There are lots of things you can have skillful questions about. You want to explore. This especially applies to your choices. Too often …
- Purity… So you should pay very careful attention to that. Oftentimes, we feel our lives are shaped by the events that happen around us, the things that other people do. And to an extent, that’s true. But the important factor is what you do with the events that are presented to you. It’s like being dealt a hand of cards in a card …
- sBeyond Acceptance… It’s simply that you haven’t been paying careful attention, which is why that part of the mind gets away with doing what it wants. But there are other things in the mind where you give them your steady gaze and they stare right back. They’re not going to be embarrassed. That’s where you have to do what the Buddha calls …
- Xtreme Drama… And the way he got around this was to decide not to pay any attention to this idea—he didn’t care whether it was progressing or regressing, he was just going to stick with his practice. In his case it was repeating the word buddho. In other words, he decided he wasn’t going to buy in to the drama that had begun …
- The Breath Soufflé… There’s physical fabrication, which is the effect of the breath on the body; verbal fabrication, what you talk to yourself about; and then mental fabrication, the feelings you create through the breathing, through your attention to the breathing, and the perceptions you hold in mind to be aware of the breathing as a whole-body process. They’re all right here. We take …
- Over the Pass… feelings, perceptions, acts of attention, acts of intention, contact among these things, without any reference to whose they are. When they first arise, that’s what they are: just events. But then we turn them into worlds, and we turn them into ourselves, and create becomings out of them. This is why part of the formula for right mindfulness is putting aside greed and …
- The Treasure of Equanimity… what your mind is doing right now, what choices it’s making, where it’s focusing its attention, what it wants to change and can try to change, and what other things are not worth trying to change. We had an old man dying of cancer back at the monastery in Thailand, who was staying up in the chedi. His faculties left him, one …
- Barriers in the Heart… The Buddha says that the hindrances are fed by inappropriate attention, which means that when they come along we’re willing to play along with them. We’re willing to forget about the truths of suffering and stress so that we can get a little immediate gratification. That’s what we’ve got to deal with. Look at the state of mind that wants …
- Levels of the Breath… So focus your attention on the intersections and try to keep them open all the time. That’s what Ajaan Lee is pointing to when he talks about the resting spots of the breath. Say you’re focused in the middle of the chest. Keep that sense of the middle of the chest wide open all the way through the in-breath, all the …
- A Foundation for Restraint… In this image, you block off five of the holes and you keep your attention right at one hole—in other words, right at the mind—so that you can catch the civet cat when it comes out. Because it’s not sights that are causing the trouble; it’s not your eye that’s causing the trouble. It’s not your ears or …
- Patience & Urgency… It means that you simply have to pay very careful attention to your actions, to your words, to your thoughts. Because your thoughts come quickly, you have to be quick in your discernment, quick in your alertness. And you have to learn how to judge things. The judgment here is especially important when you find issues in the mind that you would like to …
- Hindrances… The Buddha says the best way around doubt is to pay attention to what’s skillful in the mind, what’s unskillful in the mind, and what happens if you develop the skillful qualities and abandon the unskillful ones. You don’t overcome doubt by just swearing on a stack of the Pali Canon, saying, “Yes, I believe.” It’s more that you look …
- The Dhamma Mirror… You don’t wait until your concentration gets really strong, and you don’t wait until halfway through a retreat and say, “It’s time to switch.” If you’re paying attention to what you’re doing as you get the mind to settle down, that’s where the insight comes. Look at the Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation. You discern short breathing …
- Take Heart… If you think too much about where the path is going and focus all your attention on the fact that you’re not there yet, that kind of desire can get in the way. Tell yourself, “Okay, this is a path that goes in this direction, and the next step is going to be right here, and the next step is going to be …
- Food Insecurity… your acts of attention, your acts of intention, the way you relate to sensory contact. You’re coming from a position where the mind is feeding on better food, so it doesn’t have to go out and feed on bits and scraps and go dumpster-diving in the world. You can relate to your body in a better way, you can relate to …
- Past Intentions, Present Intentions… Is it because you’re not paying careful attention right now? That’s something you can work on. In other words, you have to learn which things you should just let be and which things you really have to focus on, where you can’t rest content. You have to make the distinction. When the Buddha described the insights of his awakening, the part …
- Heedfulness… This attitude is called appropriate attention. In the beginning, you see things in terms of skillful and unskillful actions. And then it develops from that into seeing things in terms of the four noble truths: “Okay, where is the stress right now? What are you doing to cause the stress? How do you comprehend the stress enough so that you can abandon it? What …
- Free from Animosity… That’s where we have to focus our attention. But first we have to understand, what does it mean to hold on to something, to cling to something? Because we also chant, *pañc’upādānakkhandā—*we’re suffering because of our clinging to those five aggregates. As a psychologist once said, your strongest sense of self is when you feel you’ve been wronged, you …
- Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence… Talk yourself into wanting to do them, getting yourself psyched up to sit longer, to sit more often, to pay closer attention to what you’re doing as you meditate and not just drifting off into a pleasant feeling. It’s in this way that mindfulness and discernment go together to make intelligence. It’s a pragmatic coupling, realizing that there are things that …
- Work on Your Mind… Ask yourself, “Where do you feel the breath most clearly right now?” Focus your attention there, and then ask yourself, “What would feel really good right there?” The word “feeling good” here can mean anything from energizing to soothing to relaxing. In other words, what would you like right now, given the state of your body? What would bring things into balance? What would …
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