Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Impatience
     … being mindful, being alert, keeping mindfulness and alertness focused on our actions and their results. Sometimes this may sound wearisome—that you’ve got to watch yourself all the time—which is why we practice concentration. Give the mind a good safe place to be, an easy task where it’s not so difficult to watch what you’re doing, not so difficult to … 
  3. The Flowing Mind
     … You sit here, focused on the breath, and you can breathe in ways that are comfortable, energizing when you’re feeling tired, soothing when you’re feeling frazzled, relaxing when you’re feeling tense. There’s a lot you can do with the breath energy in the body, both with the in-and-out breath and with the general sense of breath flowing through … 
  4. Right View from Right Effort
     … then another for three—in other words, you keep moving around and you have to keep counting your breaths—it gives you something to do, gets you engaged, helps keep you focused and awake. Or you can think about the different parts of the body. We have that chant on the 32 parts of the body. You can make your own list or you … 
  5. Patience & Endurance
     … When the Buddha talks about endurance and patience, those are the two topics he focuses most of his attention on: physical pain and hurtful words. With hurtful words, he talks about how you have to realize that human speech has different kinds. There’s true and there’s false. There’s kindly and there’s unkindly. There’s useful and there’s useless. Well … 
  6. Right Action & Right Livelihood
     … You may be very focused on some of those sensual thoughts, but it’s wrong concentration. Here you’re trying to provide the mind with a better source of happiness. After all, the way you think is going to bend your mind, and when your mind is bent, it’s going to bend your actions. So don’t think that when you’re sitting … 
  7. When Nothing’s Happening
     … You’re focusing not so much on where you want to go, and more on what might be in the way. You can’t intend to see the deathless and just stick with that intention, because that intention will get in the way of developing the path. You have to focus your intention on what’s getting in the way. So one thing you … 
  8. The Intelligent Heart
     … We find that simply by focusing on the breath in a way that’s comfortable allows the mind to settle down and feel at home in the present moment. That right there is a huge, huge thing. There are so many people who can’t do even that, either out of regret for what they’ve done in the past, or just a simple … 
  9. Not-self Is a Value Judgment
     … You’re going to be sitting here meditating, focused on the breath, and all of a sudden the breath seems far away and you’re in some other thought world. You want to be quick to recognize that and quick to see the disadvantages of staying with that thought world. And then retreat from it. Let it go. There are other identities, of course … 
  10. How to Feed Mindfulness
     … That means that you could sit here focusing on whatever potentials for pain there are, and you could turn almost anything into a pain—but you don’t. You focus on the potentials for pleasure. Notice, when the breath comes in, where it’s feeling good, which part of the breath cycle feels nicest. Is it the middle of the breath, the beginning of … 
  11. The Right Medicine
     … That’s why we work with the breath, both because the breath can be very calming—it can provide a good, steady foundation for the mind so that it can stay continually in the present and feel content to stay in the present—and also because the breath is about as close as you get to the mind without actually focusing on the mind … 
  12. Taking a Stance
     … When Ajaan Lee talks about mindfulness practice, that’s where he focuses the quality of discernment: in your ardency. You realize that if there’s going to be happiness, it has to come from your actions. And you can’t wait around. Whatever you can do now, you do now. We focus on the present moment not simply to hang out here, but because … 
  13. Skillful Desire
     … Find a spot in the body where it’s easiest to remain focused on the breath. Watch over your breath so that it stays comfortable at that spot. When the sense of comfort seems relatively steady, you expand it. Think of it seeping through all the nerves and blood vessels in the body, as far as you can go. And then see if you … 
  14. Skills Needed at Death
     … You’ve got to keep your mind focused, because as the Buddha said, we’re going to be reborn: For most of us, that’s what’s going to happen. Only a very few of us don’t have to be reborn. But if we’re going to be reborn, it’ll happen in line with our clinging and craving. The image he gives … 
  15. Empathetic Joy
     … All of this helps make for an easy break with all the issues of the day so that you can focus on the work at hand, which is your awareness right here, keeping your awareness focused on the breath. If you can’t be generous in practicing the brahmaviharas, it’s really hard to settle down. There’s a passage where the Buddha actually … 
  16. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … This is why we meditate, focusing on the breath here in the present moment, because the breath is about as close to the mind as you’re going to get until you can look at the mind directly. It’s a good place to bring your attention, because the breath is very sensitive to what’s going on in the mind. Fear arises in … 
  17. Grief & Regret
     … It keeps the mind from being focused on its own pains. And it’s strengthening to be able to have goodwill. It’s something that makes you strong. So these are some of the ways for dealing with loss. They call come down to having this foundation with concentration. Goodwill does lead to concentration—it’s one of the topics that leads the mind … 
  18. Not-self for the Sake of Happiness
     … This is one of the reasons why the Buddha is so adamant about focusing on the negative side of worldly pleasures to let you realize that what you’re holding on to is suffering itself. He’s saying this not to bad-mouth your pleasures. It’s because he’s got something better. He’s saying negative things, but he has a positive purpose … 
  19. To Know the Buddha
     … So you’re meticulous in focusing your desire in the right place, i.e., on the causes. Then you put forth the effort, whatever is required, and you pay careful attention to what you’re doing. This is the beginning of the reflection. It’s not that you do and then look. You look while you’re doing. And then you look at the … 
  20. A Refuge from the Winds of the World
     … And so how do you keep the mind rightly established? Well, right now you’re focused on the breath—that’s part of right mindfulness, remembering to stay with the breath in and of itself—and you’re putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Any thoughts of the world that come up right now, you’ve got to put them … 
  21. Appropriate Attention Always
     … Often it’s not so much focused on the object itself, but on you in your fantasies. But you have to ask: Are the fantasies worth it? What do you get out of them? Ajaan Lee’s image is of a dog gnawing on some bones that have no meat at all. What does it get out of it? The taste of its own … 
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