Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Mental Seclusion… That’s what you’re really focusing on, not so much the air coming in and out through the nose, but the energy flow in the body. It’s going to be more prominent in some places than others. Keep your attention right there, wherever it’s prominent. As for anything else that comes up, your rule of thumb right now is that anything …
- Living Honorably… to gauge if something you’re focusing on is really worth taking as a goal, if it’s really an answer to the question of discernment. The first test is that if it’s not constant, it’s not going to be trustworthy. It’s not going to be long-term. Is it stressful? If it’s stressful, it’s not going to be …
- Becoming Consummate… You open your eyes, and if the mind is focused on just one point, it goes. But if your awareness is a whole-body awareness, it can’t go flowing out your eyes or ears. It’s too big. As long as you maintain that awareness of the whole body, you’re firmly grounded here in the present. Your hands are in your hands …
- Saying No to Distraction… The defilements like it when the mind has a spotlight attention—when it’s focused on one thing from one angle, and a lot of the mind is in the dark. Here we’re trying to illuminate as many dark spots from as many angles as possible. Think of the whole body, be *aware *of the whole body—all around, in front, behind. You …
- Groundwork… Directed thought is focusing your mind in a particular direction, and then continually reminding yourself to stay there, because the nature of the mind is that it doesn’t listen to directions well. You tell it to think about one thing, and it’ll think about something else. In fact, the more you tell it not to think about something, the more it’s …
- Energy Channels… Notice where there are places where there’s still stress that you’re causing and learn new strategies so that you don’t have to cause that stress and still able to keep the mind at ease and focused. It’s in the course of this that you discover the important things you’re looking for. One way you can think about the development …
- Injustice… Meanwhile, your emotional feeding habits have to be taken away from the world and focused more on skillful qualities of the mind inside. When you’re feeding well inside, then your actions outside tend to be more skillful because you’re not trying to find emotional gratification out of changing the ways of the world or changing other people. That kind of feeding tends …
- Peace Requires Character… Because it’s ultimately right here where the Buddha focuses his teachings. Sometimes we hear that the Buddha wanted to get rid of all forms of suffering, but actually he was looking at, “Where does suffering come from? Focus on the cause.” Stop setting fires that you then have to put out. Find a place where you’re setting a fire, stop doing it …
- The Power is in Your Hands… This is what we’re here for, focusing on the breath so that we can bring some knowledge to the present moment because the breath is our anchor in the present. And it turns out that it’s one of the forms of fabrication that, if you do it in ignorance, is going to lead to suffering. So focus right here. That’s your …
- For When the World Can’t Help You… You’ll need your ability to keep the mind focused, along with strong sense that there is an awareness that’s not dependent on the body, and you want to find it inside. It’s something you can take as your refuge. We talk about taking the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha as our refuge, and refuge occurs on many levels. There’s …
- Practice All Day… As we go through the day, so much of our attention is focused on things coming through the other senses, especially the senses of sight and hearing. We have to share our time with the affairs of the world, but now you can give all of your time to the mind. The trick in learning how to meditate properly is learning how to balance …
- Mud Houses… There’s the feeling of pleasure you’re trying to create by staying focused on the breath. There’s your perception of the breath, the image you have of it that allows the breath to flow through the body and can direct the flow in the different ways you want it to go. There are your thought fabrications, starting with directed thought and evaluation …
- The Buddha’s Vipassana… You’re going to be talking to yourself about the breath and using perceptions—images you hold in mind about where the breath comes in; where it goes out; where you are focused in the body. Those are perceptions for the sake of giving rise to feelings of well- being and ease. As you get the mind to settle down, you find that other …
- Bare Attention… by beginning to see the difference between cause and effect, skillful and unskillful, by focusing on the actions of his own mind. This means that to develop appropriate attention in our own practice we’ve got to look in our own minds for what’s skillful and what’s not. That’s the gauge for everything in the practice. This is why the Buddha …
- The Buddha’s Standards or Yours?… Or maybe I shouldn’t hold onto that particular preference in this particular circumstance.” This is probably one of the reasons why the Buddha focuses on suffering, because it’s only when you see yourself creating suffering that you’re willing to change your ways. Otherwise, you just keep banging your head and complaining about the wall being in the way, without thinking, “Maybe …
- The Four Precepts… That gets you more and more focused inside, which is where the real issue lies. If you’re going to find a pleasure that’s true, lasting, and reliable, you’ve got to look inside. The restraints you place on the way you look for pleasures outside help maintain that focus. Purity of livelihood reminds you that you’ve got to consider the consequences …
- Asalha Puja… Right view, which was part of the path, was focused on the question of how to understand suffering. In other words—why is it that we suffer? Where is the cause? Then he set forth four noble truths. This is the right view of the path. He said there are four noble truths. What’s noble about the truths? It’s not that suffering …
- Deconstructing Suffering… a good place here in the present moment. Right concentration is a creation. It’s made out of directed thought and evaluation, which count as sankharas, or fabrications of the mind. Focused on the breath—which is a bodily fabrication—you’re dealing with perceptions and feelings, which are mental fabrications. What you’re doing is taking this process of fabrication and turning it …
- Controlling… You get more and more focused on the sensation of the breath, not as the air coming in from outside or even energy coming in from outside. After a while, the energy in the body gets full, and you’re more taken with the fact that you can sense the energy originating inside. So you hold that perception in mind. That allows the breath …
- Pain & Patience… The Buddha was unique in his time in that he focused on the question of pain, suffering, stress—that’s what the word *dukkha *is—as the main issue in his teaching. And it’s interesting that he never tried to define it. He didn’t try to pin it down. You see some of the commentaries where they try to define dukkha based …
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