Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Dependent Co-arising Right Now
     … Just focus on what you’re doing right now, and put your sense of self out of the way. Put your ideas of world—in other words, how you compare with other people, what you’re going to do after you leave the meditation—put all of that aside. And then you can look: Is the breath pleasant or unpleasant? If it’s unpleasant … 
  3. What We’re Here to See
     … I’m going to undo that decision now, I’m not going to go.” There’ll be a back and forth, but as you get better and better at this, you’ll begin to see the stages by which the mind loses its focus on the breath, and you can nip that process in the bud. At the same time, you can get to … 
  4. Attachment to Precepts
     … You try to minimize the variables that the things you’re studying are subject to so you can focus on where the real problem is. The precepts close off a lot of unskillful variables in your life so that you can focus on the actions happening in the mind right here, right now, without having to deal with the added problems of remorse over … 
  5. Patterns to Happiness
     … You can focus in different spots in the body. Then you can explore the way the breath energy feels in the body. How does it feel when you breathe in? What kind of posture do you have? What happens if you change your posture? Try to sit with good posture and notice how that might change the way you have to breathe. Or you … 
  6. Gladdening the Mind
     … One way is to drop the breath for a while and focus on some of the other recollections that the Buddha recommends: recollection of the Buddha, recollection of the Dhamma, recollection of the Sangha. With recollection of the Buddha, you remind yourself that you’re following a path set out by someone who was totally free of defilement — who had no agendas, no ideas … 
  7. Skills to Take Home
     … how to focus on the mind, how to focus on the breath, how to allow the breath to be comfortable—not just the in-and-out breath, but the breath energy throughout the body. That’s an important skill right there. It gives you a link to what you’ve been doing here. These are skills that are useful not only when you’re … 
  8. Goodwill for the Real World
     … It’s just realizing that there are some people you cannot influence, no matter how intense your goodwill, so you have to focus your efforts on people who will respond to your goodwill. There are stories in the Canon of the Buddha extending intense goodwill toward individuals and changing their behavior, but that largely has to do with the power of his mind and … 
  9. Facing Pain Straight On
     … So try to focus on this issue: How does the mind create pain? How does it create suffering? Then you’ll find that the insights that arise are very productive in giving rise to a happiness that lies beyond the four noble truths, totally unconditioned. Because that’s the earnest question in life: Why do we create suffering when we want happiness? And how … 
  10. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … When the body’s feeling heavy, you can focus on the breath energy and things will lighten up. When you feel dizzy, you focus on the earth, a sense of solidity inside. There are ways of balancing things out inside. If your mind is beginning to drift off, try to fill your body with your awareness. This way, you’ve got your post that … 
  11. Delighting the Mind
     … Even though your focus is the breath, the feelings are right there; the mind is right there; mental qualities are right there. Sometimes you’ll notice that it’s easy to get them together, and other times it’s hard. When it’s hard, you have to see which frame of reference is the problem. Is it the breath? Work with the breath, play … 
  12. A Real Education
     … We give it something good to focus on, like the breath, because the breath can be comfortable. Not only that, it’s your guarantee that you’re staying in the present moment so that you can watch the mind in action. You’re not concerned with memories of what you did in the past or with anticipations of what you’re going to do … 
  13. Breathing through Daily Life
     … What do you want to do with it? What’s a worthwhile use of your time? Often you hear of people who are told by the doctor that they have, say, two or three months left to live, and suddenly they start dropping a lot of unimportant activities to focus on the things they find really important in life. It’s good that they … 
  14. Treating the Diseases of the Mind
     … Does it work? If you change the breath, does it work? If you figure out all the different ways you might be able to work with the breath and nothing seems to work, then there are other topics you can focus on: recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha. These are good medicine for times when you’re feeling discouraged. You think about … 
  15. Seeing the Stillness
     … When you shift your focus from the things to the jumping, you can see that tendency more and more clearly. You can detect it more quickly, to the very beginning points where the mind is beginning to stir, getting ready to jump, getting ready to flow out. That’s what the word asava means: the tendency of the mind to flow at this thing … 
  16. Generating Energy
     … You don’t know where to focus your mind. Well, if you have a meditation practice, you know you can focus right here at the breath. Maintain this awareness of the present moment so that the mind doesn’t go flailing around. You’re going to need mindfulness, you’re going to need alertness, you’re going to need as much concentration and discernment … 
  17. Choiceful Awareness
     … For example, you can focus on the way you perceive the breath. When the breath comes in, where do you think of it coming in? From which directions does it come in? You might want to explore first to see what those directions already are before you decide to make changes. Sometimes, when you breathe in, some parts of the body are getting their … 
  18. Purity
     … His teachings on suffering focus on not the suffering that comes from the body, the suffering that comes from what other people do, but the suffering that you’re creating for yourself right here, right now. If you can learn to stop that, he says, then the other suffering doesn’t matter, doesn’t reach into you, doesn’t touch you. So we have … 
  19. Fully Absorbed
     … In the beginning, it’s going to be small, so you protect what small concentration you have, what small focus you have, until it catches and it’s strong enough. Then you can think of it spreading out. Find a spot where you can stay focused and think of protecting it, cupping it with your hands from all the distractions outside. And wait till … 
  20. Cook Your Mind
     … It’s interesting that right resolve doesn’t focus on abandoning the three types of craving the Buddha said cause suffering. Instead, it focuses on three mental attitudes that get in the way of concentration. In fact, all the other factors of the path starting with right resolve through right mindfulness are aimed at getting the mind in right concentration. As you do that … 
  21. Thinking About Rebirth
    Put your focus on the breath. Put aside all the narratives about today, yesterday, last month, next month, that tend to fill up your mind. For the time being, you want to be right here. There’s no real narrative about the breath. There’s a breath coming in and there’s a breath going out. You can comment on it, but once you … 
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