Search results for: "Attention"
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- The Seven Treasures… But again, there’s a sense of peace that comes when you realize that you’ve been careless in your actions, it’s brought to your attention, and the mind pulls back from its carelessness. That can also make the mind radiant. The sixth treasure is relinquishment: learning how to give things up, realizing that in giving things up it’s not self-deprivation …
- You Are Not a Textbook… So the lesson there is to be very attentive to what you’re deciding to do right now. Be very sensitive to what you’re doing and the results you’re getting from your actions, because as he taught in the four noble truths, some of the things you’re doing now are leading to suffering. There are other things you could be doing …
- Ajaan Fuang’s Stories… He’ll support the monastery.” The arahant said, “Okay, you can put your minds at rest.” So the king came to see him, but the monk didn’t pay any attention to the king at all. He just sat there with a stick in his hand, drawing little designs in the dust. The king got offended, left. The monks were upset. And again, the …
- Harmless & Clearheaded… Three, you have to be very observant, really pay close attention to what you’re doing. And finally, use your imagination; use your ingenuity. When things aren’t going well, try to figure out ways that help it along. This way, you begin to master the Buddha’s skill, and it changes the balance of power in your mind, because now you have access …
- Oneness… When the breath is the one item on the agenda, you can give it your full attention and you’re totally free to explore it. What kind of breathing would really feel good right now in your stomach? Let the body breathe that way. Focus on your stomach for a while and see what kind of breathing really feels good there. What kind of …
- Coming into the Present… Then, by the time you turn your attention to the present moment, it’s with a lot more calm and understanding. So if you find it easy to focus simply on the breath, go right ahead. If you find it difficult, if you’ve got issues that you’re carrying with you, then stop and think in more universal terms. Because often when people …
- Actualizing Your Potentials… But make sure that your top priority gets the time and attention it deserves.
- Understanding Pain… Find a part of the body that’s not in pain and allow your attention to settle there. It doesn’t have to be intensely pleasant but just pleasant enough so that you feel at ease settling there. Meanwhile, the mind is going to keep telling you, “There’s pain, pain, pain over there, focus over there.” You don’t have to listen to …
- Mature Strategies… You do anything you can to put the thought of suffering out of your mind — the idea being that if you avoid thinking about it, pay it no attention, ignore it, it’ll go away. And there may be a few cases in life where that works — where focusing on your pains makes them worse — yet there are so many cases where it works …
- Layers of Selves… If you’re not paying careful attention, you might miss it. This is why it’s a mistake to say, “All you have to do is just be the knowing. You’ll be apart from any self, and that’s the purpose of the practice”—because there’ll still be desires in that knowing. The knowing may be aware of the desires. The problem …
- The Questions of Suffering… This is why there’s suffering, and this is how you can change things inside—change your intentions; change what you’re paying attention to; change your perceptions. Where there once was suffering, now there’s a sense of well-being. The more you stick with this, the deeper the sense of well-being grows. The more precise you are in seeing where there …
- Mindfulness 2.0… When it comes back, pay careful attention to two things: One, what would be a really comfortable breath to stay with so that the mind will want to stay here? And two, watch out for the fact that it’s going to wander off again. You want to be able to catch it before it goes. The more quickly you can catch it, the …
- A Sense of Yourself… So this is where you focus all your attention, all your energy. And learn how to define yourself as someone who practices. Anything else inside that doesn’t want to practice, you don’t have to identify with it. That’s how you use the concept of not-self as you’re on the path. This is where the battle is really worth fighting …
- Persistence… Don’t let there be any jumps or gaps in your attention, no matter what. That’s when the effort becomes right. Now, sometimes it’ll require a lot of energy to stay and sometimes just a little bit. But you apply whatever effort is needed and, with practice, you learn how to read the needs of the body and the mind. If your …
- Establishing Priorities… All too often when we open our eyes, all our attention goes flowing out into the visual world and our sense of the body gets shrunken down, pushed aside, blotted out. You want to learn how not to do that. In other words, you can be aware of the visual world at the same time that you’re aware of the breath-energy world …
- Exploring the Basics… Allow your attention to settle there. Then there’s the quality of focus. It’s very easy to fall into old habits, that when we focus on something we tense up around it in order to highlight it in our awareness. But that simply creates a sense of discomfort, blockage in the body. So one of the skills of concentration is knowing how to …
- Setbacks… But over time it gets easier and easier as the child pays attention. If we approach the meditation with an attitude of patience, it gets a lot easier. Realize that this is a long-term project, a big project. There’s a lot to be learned. And it’s learned by being observant, by making mistakes and learning from them. We don’t like …
- The Pursuit of Excellence… And even though you don’t focus your primary attention on the goal—the strategy of having a path is that you focus instead on each step of the path—be confident that the path is leading you to a place so good that you can’t even imagine how good it is. It’s that special. And it’s way better than anything …
- Heedfulness is the Path… first, being honest with yourself, being truthful to yourself, and then, second, being careful to focus your attention on your intentions, on your actions, and on the result of your actions. He said to look at intention every time you act. What results do you expect from this action? If they’re going to be harmful, don’t do it. Here the important point …
- Pure Action… things that are very close to us, and yet they seem to be mysterious because we don’t pay careful attention to them. This is why the Buddha’s first instruction to his son were on intention. His last instructions to all the monks were about sankharas, which basically are intentional acts in the mind. Our intentions with regard to the body in terms …
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