Search results for: "Attention"

  1. Page 68
  2. Mindfulness Gets Intimate
    We focus our attention on the present moment because of the way the Buddha taught karma. He said that our actions influence the future, and they also influence the present moment. In fact, it’s our present actions that will determine whether we’re going to suffer in the present or not. So we want to look into the present moment to see exactly … 
  3. Sensuality
     … That makes it easier to put aside the obstacle of sensuality, at least for the time being, so that you can really give your full attention to the breath, to the sense of the energy of the body as you feel it from within, and give it a chance to grow.
  4. Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt
     … If it doesn’t pay much attention to what it’s doing and it’s not really determined to change things, it just goes along in its own ways, forgetting that it’s creating all kinds of influences on people and things around you. The mind is an active principle. If you’re wise, you want to train it so that it can be … 
  5. Appreciating Dispassion
     … You stay tuned into one that’s more refined, and as you pay less attention to the coarser levels of energy, they begin to fade away. After a while, even the need to breathe feels oppressive. You develop a perception of the breath originating in the body, so you don’t have to pull anything in from outside. All the breath energy you need … 
  6. Fighting Spirit
     … That will give you a clue as to where you should turn your attention so that you can figure out which kind of thinking is helpful, which kind of thinking is not; and then eventually, figure out what the problem is. Learn to identify exactly which movements of the mind are causing the problems. When you see that they are choices, you realize you … 
  7. Better to Give than to Consume
     … You have to give your energy, you have to give your attention, to develop your mindfulness. When you’re focused on the breath, it’s good not to hold anything back. Just think of yourself plunging into the breath and the body, totally. The reward is that you develop an all-around experience of ease and refreshment. If part of you is pulled back … 
  8. Modest, Unentangled, Unburdensome
     … It’s going to involve developing external qualities that place some restraint on us, but that simply focuses our attention where it should be focused: If there’s restraint on how you behave outside, you have to turn your eyes around. If you’re going to find true happiness, you’ve got to look inside. So these restraints are for the sake of freedom … 
  9. Basic Stuff
     … breath in mind, alertness by watching over the breath, watching over the mind—and then there’s the third quality called ardency, which means you really do this with your full attention, you try to do it as well as you can. When you catch the mind wandering off, you bring it right back. You don’t wait. You don’t say, “Well, I … 
  10. Your Own Karma
     … You know that that kind of thinking is there in the background of your mind but you can focus your attention someplace else. Let the thought continue chattering as long as it wants, but you don’t have to get involved. It’s like dealing with a group of chattering people you don’t want to get involved with. The chatter is in your … 
  11. Honesty & Integrity
     … He said, “All this attention on what you’re doing here and what you’re doing there, cause and effect: Why not just open up to the Buddha nature that’s already there, that’s unmade and unfashioned? You’re distracting yourself from the real point.” But I remember noticing, in the course of the retreat, the person’s girlfriend was there at the … 
  12. Clinging & Its Cure
     … What that comes down to is that you notice how, when a thought comes into the mind and it grabs your attention, there’s going to be a little pattern of tension someplace in the body that’s your marker for keeping that thought in mind. If you can locate that pattern of tension and release it, the thought goes away. Some people have … 
  13. A Path Rooted in Desire
     … Where is it most prominent right now? Focus your attention there. Stay there. Then ask yourself if the breath is comfortable. You can experiment for a while. See what kind of breathing feels best—whether long or short, fast or slow, deep or shallow, heavy or light. Take some time to get to know the breath—how you feel the breath from within. Then … 
  14. The Karma Snake
     … And although it may seem as if the teachings on karma focus your attention a lot on the past and future, the Buddha would always bring the issue back into the present, because the future and past are very much intimately connected with what you’re doing in the present. It’s not as if the present is something that stands outside of time … 
  15. Our Sense of Self
     … Don’t wait until they get really blatant before you suddenly turn your attention to them, because by that time, your sense of self has probably latched on to them. Notice them when they’re small. Notice them when they’re just beginning. And be very conscious about reminding yourself, “That’s not me. That’s just a pain.” Part of mind will say … 
  16. Defabricating Anger
     … Then you begin to realize this is how it shapes these experiences all the time, just that we’re not paying attention. We just go with the flow. As a result, we just get the same old results over and over and over again. Our problem is that we see the drawbacks of anger when we’re outside of the anger. You have to … 
  17. Strategies for Happiness
     … And as for purity, as the Buddha told his son Rahula, really paying careful attention to your actions and their results, and resolving not to repeat mistakes that cause suffering for yourself or for other people: That’s how people attain purity. So compassion, wisdom, and purity — the qualities we associate with the Buddha — come from taking our quest for happiness seriously. Good things … 
  18. Think
     … Our attention, for the most part, gets directed outside, outside, outside. Even when we’re practicing meditation, we’re watching certain events in the mind, but who’s doing the watching? The observations about what you’re watching: Do they apply to the watcher as well? They do. That’s where the mass of ignorance is, so turn around and look there. If you … 
  19. Physical Pains & Painful Words
     … The question as to which one you’re going to pay attention to most depends on the issues that come up. In the beginning, you do want to focus on the breath and get used to being with the breath, because the ways of working with the breath are going to be essential for dealing with problems that come up in terms of feelings … 
  20. Humility
     … Humility requires being attentive, watchful, not assuming that you already know, that you’re already good, realizing that there’s always room for improvement. You have to delight in that fact, to delight in actually making the improvements, letting go of the unskillful qualities in the mind, developing the skillful ones. This is how we follow the customs of the Noble Ones. And that … 
  21. A Safe Harbor
     … We pay too much attention to other things. But if you want to see cause and effect, the first things you’ve got to see are the causes, and particularly the causes you’re making. What are you actually doing? If you know the effects but you can’t remember what you’ve done, and you weren’t watching what you’re doing when … 
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