Search results for: "Attention"

  1. Page 69
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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