Search results for: "Attention"
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- Healthy Conceit… That’s where the critic comes in, as the members try to jostle among themselves for who’s going to get attention, who’s going to dominate the discussion. A lot of the training in the meditation is training the critic, the one that looks at your actions and passes judgment on them—because the critic has a large role to do with conceit …
- Elephant Training… Your intention is related to attention, the things you choose to look at, and to perception, the labels you give to things. Those things can be more malleable than you might have thought. So when you realize there’s a broader range of ways that you can approach the present moment, you can approach it with less fear, with more confidence. As Ajaan Fuang …
- Here to Learn… The questions funneled their attention in the wrong places. As for the question: “How can I deal with people in way that I don’t hurt their feelings?” Remember we’re here not to harm them, but hurt feelings are not harm. Saying things that hurt people’s feelings is not necessarily wrong speech. The Buddha said, there’s a time and place for …
- The Power of Intention… There’s an intention in the way you pay attention to certain feelings and not other feelings, certain perceptions and not other perceptions, certain thoughts, certain sensations in the body. That element of intention is the really important thing we’re after here: seeing how we shape our experience out of the potentials that are here. There are potentials for pain in the body …
- How to Leave Meditation… Even while watching the visual realm, your attention doesn’t need to go out into the visual realm. You can still maintain a sense of the breath realm in the body. This accomplishes a lot of things. The more sensitive you are to the breath as you go through daily activities, the more you’ll be able to see when the mind leaves, what …
- Choices… If you don’t pay them much attention, after a while they go away. As the breath calms down, it’s a lot easier to see subtle things going on in the mind, and that’s what we’re here for: to see the subtleties. After all, as the Buddha said, it’s ignorance that causes us to suffer. And it’s not ignorance …
- Equanimity in Heart & Mind… As we bring attention to the breath, you want the mind to settle down, to be still, both because it’s a good place to be in the present moment to get a sense of well-being in the mind, and because it allows you to see things more clearly. So focus on your breath, something that’s right here. You don’t have …
- Sensitive to Fabrication… We’re applying appropriate attention; we’re applying the right framework to this fabrication. That’s what the ajaans keep reminding us. That’s why it’s good to have the voices or the attitudes of the ajaans in your head as members of the committee. They keep bringing you back to these questions: “Where’s the stress? What are you doing to cause …
- Friends with Pain… In other words, learn to pull your attention away from what seems to be the obvious point to focus on: one, to give you a safe place so that you don’t feel threatened by the pain; and two, so that you can notice the mind’s tendency to keep wanting to go back to the pain. It’s only when you learn to …
- Gratitude, Goodwill & Generosity… You don’t pay careful attention to what you’re doing, thinking, “Well, it doesn’t matter, the sun’s going to go nova some day.” But what the sun’s going to do then doesn’t really matter in terms of your life right now. What you’re doing right now really shapes your life, and it’s good to have that attitude …
- A Concentration Diet… But the cause of the pleasure to begin with was the fact that you were focused attentively on the breath. That’s your foundation. When you abandon your foundation, the pleasure may last for a while but then it stops. And if you keep that up, your concentration practice doesn’t really develop. You’re like a person who gets a job and then …
- Dispassion Isn’t Depression… the choice to drop the meditation, drop the breath, and give all our attention to things outside. We have to overcome some old habits if we want to choose to maintain a sense of well-being inside. We have to give it importance, because that’s what all the Buddha’s reflections give importance to: our actions. So, what are your actions in terms …
- Letting Go… Or if they keep coming back, you can just make up your mind you’re not going to pay them any attention. Even though the thoughts come in, the breath is still there. Think of them being back in some corner of the mind, churning away on their own, but you don’t have to get involved. The image in the Canon is of …
- Unentangled Compassion… Notice where you sense the breath or the process of breathing most clearly, and focus your attention there. Then allow the breath to find a rhythm and texture that feels good. That’s it. Those are the basic ingredients. The important thing is that you keep them together as continuously as possible. You’re taking your raw materials here and you’re trying to …
- The End of Karma… The little islands of security that we make for ourselves can get us deluded, can get us complacent, which is why the Buddha spent 45 years wandering around northern India, warning people, “There’s danger, but the danger can be avoided through our actions.” So that’s where we have to place our hopes, that’s where we focus our attention: in our actions …
- Right View: Feeding Instructions… This is where your first level of attention should be. This should be the foundation from which you do all your other things – this awareness of the breath energy here in the body – because you’re coming from strength when you do this. And it leads to greater and greater strength until, as I said, you reach a point where you find something even …
- Training Your Moods… So when you’re looking, you ask yourself, “Why are you looking? What are you looking for?” When you’re listening, “What are you listening for? What’s directing your attention?” As you’ll notice if you look carefully at the process of engaging the senses, it’s not that everything out there is going to be attractive. It’s not that everything out …
- Culture Shock… And of course there will be culture shock when your ordinary old desires, your old habits are thwarted, screaming for attention. But you have to look: Exactly where are they going to take you? They take you back to that world of opposites, the world where there’s nothing in a really pure form. If you’re nurturing your desires in that context, you …
- Close to What You Know… That shows you the power of your thought, the power of your assumptions, what they call attention, or manasikara , in the texts. So again, the knowledge here is knowledge of what you’re doing and the results you get: that’s the basic data, that’s where your knowledge is clearest. When you move out away from that and make assumptions, you get more …
- Question Your Perceptions… Try to give them all equal weight, equal attention. See what that does. Admittedly, these are sketches, but they’re sketches with a purpose. As you’re practicing concentration, you want to get really clear about what your perceptions are, and what purposes they serve, because as you develop insight, perceptions will play a huge role as well. The forest ajaans talk often about …
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