Search results for: "Attention"

  1. Page 74
  2. Things As They Function
     … Focus your attention there, and then think of that coolness seeping through the rest of the body. If you can hold to the perception strongly enough, consistently enough, you see that it actually does change your experience of the body. The same principle applies to the qualities of the mind. The Buddha applies the same theory about dhatu, or properties or potentials, to the … 
  3. The Context for No Context
     … So pay attention to simple things like that. Show respect for the situation around us, for the things that people have provided for us so that we can practice. The practice starts there, and it builds up. When you talk with one another, try to be frugal in your words. Remember that each of us is here to learn how to develop quietude. If … 
  4. Top Priorities
     … You’ve got to learn how to read those messages, so pay full attention. The next quality is relinquishment, realizing that there are some things you’ve got to let go: like all those outside victories, or the idea of having to straighten out this person, deal with that person. You need to realize that some things are just not worth the effort. If … 
  5. The Prison Break
     … Focus your attention there. In other words, you learn how to take things apart, bit by bit by bit. As the mind settles down like this, you’re peeling away this layer, peeling away that layer, and it’s in the peeling away that you see the movements of the mind, how the mind puts things together. That’s when both the mind and … 
  6. Fabricating the Present
     … After a while you find that it naturally gets lighter and shorter, if you’re paying attention. There may be longer and longer gaps between an in-breath and an out-breath — that’s perfectly fine — until everything gets still. There may be a little bit of breathing in and out right at the surface. Ajaan Lee’s analogy is of the vapor coming … 
  7. All-around Eye
     … So he took it, reflected on it, and realized that Ajaan Mun was pointing to some pride that he hadn’t been paying attention to. In both of these cases, Ajaan Mun exemplifies the all-around eye that sees things from all angles. When the Buddha gave instructions to Mahāpajāpati Gotami, he talked about eight ways in which you can test the Dhamma – what … 
  8. Radiating Goodness
     … You’re giving your attention. You’re trying to give your calmness. Now, some people may pick up on it, others may not, but as long as you’re generating calmness, you’ve got your refuge. If anything bad comes your way, it’s going to be blocked because you’ve got generosity flowing out. You’ve got your patience flowing out so that … 
  9. A Haven for Inner Wealth
     … The Buddha said the sense of pleasure comes from staying attentive to the breath, being alert to the breath. So keep the cause going, and the results will come. You have just the right attitude toward the pleasure. Then the fourth quality for developing wealth, which applies to both outside and inside, is having good friends. And these friends can be outside and inside … 
  10. A Noble Path
     … But for the actual care and attention, mindfulness, alertness, and all the other qualities that are needed to develop that skill, that’s something they’ll have to stir up from within themselves. We ourselves have the example of the Buddha. As he said, if it weren’t for him, nobody would be following the noble eightfold path. So the fact that he provides … 
  11. Shaping the Present
    Bring your attention to the breath and notice where you feel it as you breathe in and breathe out. Do you like the way it feels? If you do, keep on breathing that way. If you don’t, you can change. This is one of the most important principles in the practice, one that gets overlooked or ignored or even denied: that you have … 
  12. The Path to Stream Entry
     … They all come together in this process of being very attentive to what your mind is doing—what its intentional actions are; what the results are—and how you keep refining, refining, refining what you’re doing. It’ll get so refined that it leads you to something that’s not done. So, when you wonder why your practice isn’t developing as it … 
  13. The Dhamma Wheel Shakes Up the World
     … You don’t have to pay attention to anything outside. You can let the Dhamma talk just be in the background. You want to focus in on your breath. Work on your Dhamma wheel inside. It’s December 12th, the twelfth day of the twelfth month, a good day to chant the Dhammacakka because the Dhamma wheel has twelve spokes. You may have noticed … 
  14. Metta Metacognition
     … We hear so much about how the Buddha taught to pay attention to the present moment, but it’s not just the present moment for its own sake. It’s always in the context of realizing that we don’t have much time left. Death could come at any time. Are you ready to go? If you realize you’ve got some qualities in … 
  15. A Private Matter
     … Society often teaches us to give all our attention to things outside. What happens of course is that we lose touch with our own inner sensitivity. We become strangers to ourselves. So reintroduce yourself to this inner sensitivity. Open up this area of your awareness, and be as sensitive to it as possible. In that way the meditation will grow in an organic way … 
  16. Tranquility & Insight in Tandem
     … You can’t stay with one thing unless you can keep reminding yourself to stay there, because moments of attention in the mind are normally very fleeting. They come and they go very quickly. So you need mindfulness to stitch them together. That way, you can watch what’s going on and watch it in a way that gives rise to a sense of … 
  17. Circumspection
     … You get your attention focused on one thing, and other things shift in your blind spot. Then when you turn around, you see that something’s changed. You find yourself in a whole different place. So we focus on the breath not only to see the breath but also to see all around it, to see what the mind is doing in relation to … 
  18. At the End of the Day
     … Pain is a magnet that draws your attention. But you can start thinking of the space around the pain—the parts of the body that are comfortable. Focus there; settle in there. In Ajaan Lee’s analogy, it’s like eating a mango. There may be a wormy spot in the mango, but you don’t eat the wormy spot. You cut it out … 
  19. Skills to Make You Free
     … In the same way, here you’re focusing on the parts of the body that are not immediately calling for your attention, but you can make them comfortable. Then you can think of that sense of comfort spreading through the area that has pain. Say there’s a pain in your knee. You let the comfortable breath energy go down the leg, through the … 
  20. Independent Values
     … We’re focusing our attention on other things, so we don’t see the potential of the breath: that it really can provide a soothing energy throughout the whole body. When the breath feels comfortable, think of that that sense of comfort spreading out, seeping out, permeating the whole body. Then see if you can maintain that. It requires a sense of balance, so … 
  21. Not-self as a Raft
     … What are we doing wrong? That’s where we should focus our attention. And then we use these perceptions of self and not-self as they’re helpful in trying to solve that problem. When the problem is solved, it’s the ultimate happiness. It’s not a happiness that’s a feeling. The Buddha simply says it’s outside of the aggregates. It … 
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