Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 74
  2. Genuine Happiness
     … So wherever it seems most blatant, most obvious, focus your attention there. Then ask yourself, “Does it feel comfortable? Could it feel more comfortable?” You can experiment. Try breathing deep down into the abdomen. Or even further: Think of the breath going all the way down to your feet. You can try heavier breathing or lighter; longer, shorter; faster, slower; deeper or more shallow … 
  3. Make the Most of This Breath
    When the Buddha has you focus in the present moment, it’s because there’s work to be done here, and you don’t know how much time you have to do it. But you do know that you have this moment, this breath. As the Buddha said, you should reflect, “If I live just for one more breath, there’s a lot of … 
  4. Angry
     … As Ajaan Mun said, you have to focus on the body as your basic practice and deal with the mind’s issues around the body if you’re going to get really far in the practice. But he would also recommend that people develop goodwill as a framework practice. In other words, first thing in the morning, spread goodwill to all beings; last thing … 
  5. Challenges
     … It’s very easy when we sit down to meditate to focus immediately on where the pains are and to ignore all the other parts of the body. This is because our mind seems to be primed to look for where the problems are. So we can retrain it, re-prime it. There may be pain in the back, but there doesn’t have … 
  6. A Sense of Time & Place
    When you focus on the breath, you’re creating a home base for the mind, a home base for your actions. This is the place where you’re going to take your stance: being with the breath all the way in and all the way out—being with the direct sensation of how it feels to breathe, and learning to relate to that in … 
  7. Working Hypotheses
     … But try to make your focus as steady as possible, because only then can you read the mind. In particular, you want to see what its attachments are: When the mind leaves the object of concentration, where does it go? And why? How does it go? Sometimes it’ll make a decision in a secret part of the mind, not so secret that you … 
  8. The Skill of Not Suffering
     … You’re here to focus on the present moment, and particularly, on the breath. Breathe in really deep a couple of times to see how it feels, so that you notice where you feel the breathing process in the body. When we talk of focusing on the breath, it’s not so much the air coming in and out of lungs, it’s more … 
  9. The Karma of Self & Not-Self
     … I have more important things to focus on.” The same with discernment—and this is where the range of not-self starts getting bigger and bigger: As you look at the different things you crave and cling to, and you realize that even though they may help in some ways, they’re actually pulling you down, so you have to regard them as not … 
  10. Skillful Thinking
     … In other words, he teaches you where to focus your thoughts and he gives you instructions on how to evaluate what’s going on. Here you direct your thoughts to the breath, the sensation of breathing in the body. Try to broaden your concept of the breathing, so that it’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs, but it … 
  11. Bewildered
     … Or you can focus on the mental parts, what the Buddha calls name. One of those is intention. What is your intention around the pain? If your intention is to make it go away, that just adds more pain on top. Your intention should be to see that it’s not going to invade the mind and remain. That’s all. It can be … 
  12. Agreements to Perceive
     … And when you don’t glom them all together, then you can focus on whichever level you want to. It’s like tuning in your radio. Right now all the airwaves going through the room right now are going through your body right now, too. There’s Rush Limbaugh in there. There’s the San Diego classical music station. There’s hard rock. There … 
  13. “May I Be Happy”
     … So learn to focus on your good actions; caganussati, recollection of the times you’ve been generous, sīlanussati, recollection of times you’ve stuck to your principles even in the face of the temptation to throw them out. Reflect on these things and remember that your strength lies there. The happiness that comes from these reflections is not like the happiness that comes from … 
  14. Many I’s, Many Eyes
     … We’re also focusing on the sensation of the energy flowing through the body, as you breathe in, as you breathe out, and that’s something you can focus on anywhere, anywhere in the body at all, anywhere where you have a good clear sensation that tells you now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. Try to bring two … 
  15. A Good Dish of Concentration
     … Now, to focus on the breath what do you use? You use *sañña, *or perception, which is a mental label that you apply. This can either be simply the word “breath” or your mental picture of what exactly happens when you breathe in. You have a mental picture: maybe the breath coming in and out through the nose or in through the pores of … 
  16. At Home with the Breath
     … Then you bring them to focus on the topic of your meditation, such as the breath coming in and going out. Here you add another quality from observing the precepts: ardency, which means you really try to do this skillfully. In other words, as soon as you notice you’ve slipped off, you bring yourself right back. And you learn the skill of coming … 
  17. Action & the End of Action
     … So it’s important that you focus on what you’re doing. As he said, the Dhamma is nourished by committing yourself to doing the practice and then reflecting on what you’ve done, the results you’ve gotten, and how you can improve. So, you’re paying a lot of attention to your actions. As for who’s doing the actions, in the … 
  18. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
    As you focus on the breath and stay with the breath, you’re developing good qualities of mind: mindfulness, alertness. As you apply these qualities to the process of breathing, you’ll see that it’s a kind of fabrication. There’s a willed and intentional element in there. And because there’s an element of will, you can change it. You can find … 
  19. The Story-telling Mind
     … It’s an ordering of your priorities, telling you to stop wasting energy on things that can’t be changed, and to focus it instead on areas where good will, compassion, and appreciation can make a difference. So you look at the stories you’re telling yourself and try to inject them with these attitudes, and especially the teaching on kamma. There’s no … 
  20. Lessons from the Buddha’s Awakening
     … So as you think about the Buddha’s awakening and what it means to have conviction in it, remember that the huge focus is on the third knowledge. That’s where all the details come. The other two are more for background. And as I said, they’re just a sketch. There are very few stories of the Buddha’s previous lifetimes in the … 
  21. Victory
     … You have to focus on your intention and the fact that, in implementing your intention, you didn’t harm yourself, you didn’t harm any others. You didn’t harm yourself by breaking any of the precepts, by stirring up greed, aversion, delusion. And you didn’t harm any others by trying to get them to break the precepts or intentionally trying to stir … 
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