Search results for: "Attention"
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- Off the Continuum… In other words, you begin to realize that your sense of the body from within has become distorted, because you’ve been paying attention to other things. This is a very good way of exploring and then healing it, so that you get a greater sense of the whole body working together. You try to identify which parts of the body you’re not …
- Strength in Humor… So, from that principle comes the conviction that we really do have to pay careful attention to our actions, but it’s going to pay off. Sometimes it seems really difficult to do the skillful thing. There are so many other things we’d rather do. The impulses come up and say, “I want to say this,” or “I want to think that,” or …
- Love is Conditional, Goodwill Is Not… But it’s the kind of work that involves all of your attention, which is why the Buddha taught Rahula those different meditations—so that when something comes up that disturbs you, you have a way of dealing with it and then can get right back to the matter at hand. When the breath meditation starts getting dry, or you’re having trouble sticking …
- A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness… This is going to require continued attention. The three qualities the Buddha recommends for this are mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Mindfulness means keeping things in mind—in this case, remembering what you’re here for. You’re here to stay with the breath. And if you’ve learned any particular techniques that work, have those ready at hand so that if any issues come …
- Battling Negativity… When you look at the mind, you see that there are many different selves in the mind, many different ideas of who-you-are, what-you-want, clamoring for your attention at any one time. And they can pull you in all sorts of different directions. With some desires, you act on them but you don’t feel very good about acting on them …
- Pissing on Palaces… As for anything that pulls attention away from that, you know you’re listening to something that’s not Dhamma. This is where you have to develop your equanimity, so you can detach yourself from anti-Dhamma ideas. You need compassion and goodwill so that your detachment doesn’t become cold, indifferent, or hard-hearted. But you also need the detachment of equanimity so …
- Hope… That’s the most effective place to focus your attention, because that’s where you really can make a difference. The nature of the world is that it’s inconstant, stressful, not-self. This is just the way it is. No matter how much we’d like to be something else, that’s the way it is. But what you do doesn’t necessarily …
- Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength… Try to make your attention on the breath steady and constant, and that will help smooth out the breath. As for whether long breathing feels good or short breathing feels better, that’s up to you to decide. You develop not only your mindfulness—i.e., your ability to keep things in mind—but also your powers of judgment as to what’s working …
- Relationships… But if you focus your attention more and more on the breath this way, you find that your awareness gets more absorbed into the body here in the present moment. And the mind that used to fill itself up with multi-tasking can now fill itself up with the sensation of the body, breathing in, breathing out—the whole body breathing in, the whole …
- To Comprehend Suffering… So pay some attention to how you experience the energy in the body, in what ways you can conceive of it: flowing up, flowing down, coming from the center of the body, coming into the body through the pores of the skin, thinking of the body as a big sponge—whatever perception helps you relate to the energy in the body in a more …
- Horror Stories… But when you let go in that way, of course, what happens is as soon as your attention is diverted, you pick things back up again if that’s your old habit. The other way, the way that really works, is that you have to see through the habit. You have to figure out: Why do you try to hold on to things to …
- Hold on for All You’re Worth… Where is it most prominent right now? Focus your attention there. Then the next question is: Is it comfortable? Watch it steadily for a while, and sometimes simply watching it steadily will make it more comfortable. Sometimes not, in which case you consciously ask yourself: Would longer breathing feel better? Or shorter? Deeper? More shallow? Focus your effort on the in-breath. Let the …
- Mastery… We begin with the right intention, the attention to be truthful, the intention to be sincere in trying to give rise to a happiness, trying to put an end to suffering. So before you do anything, ask yourself: Where is this action going to go? If it’s going to give rise to harm, you don’t do it. But if it seems harmless …
- Not Crushed by the World… It also means developing appropriate attention, looking at things in terms of the question of how to develop skillful qualities in the mind, how to abandon unskillful ones—and thinking in the long term, remembering that your actions have consequences and asking yourself: What kind of consequences do you want to create? You have the choice. In other words, have a sense of your …
- The Triple Training… Also, the fact that you’re following the precepts means you have to be very attentive to your intentions, because that’s what makes the difference between breaking a precept and not breaking it. Only when you break it intentionally does it count as broken. When the time comes to get the mind into concentration, you’re basically firming up the intention to stay …
- Working Through the Breath… This means the hormones will still be sloshing around in your bloodstream for a while, so you learn to make a distinction between what you’re doing with the breath and the leftover effects of what you had been doing with the breath before you were really paying attention. This gives you a better place to stay so that you can look at the …
- Friends & Enemies… Ideally, you give a gift attentively and with empathy for the recipient. So make sure you give your criticism with the same attitude. In that way, you can really be helpful, in that that kind of criticism can actually help make things better, help make society more sociable place to live. As for genuine help, you don’t do favors just for show. Instead …
- The Economy of Goodness… That’s related to the interior quality the Buddha said was important for awakening, which is appropriate attention. You look at your actions, not in terms of whether you want to do them or don’t want to do them or like them or don’t like them, but in terms of their consequences. Where are they going to take you? What do they …
- Heedful, Ardent, & Resolute… Try to focus your attention there and keep it there. And to make it more interesting, try to notice what type of breathing feels good. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Short in long out. Long in short out, or short both in and out. Deeper, more shallow. Heavier, lighter. Faster, slower. Try to find what rhythm …
- Worldly Narratives… That’s why practicing in daily life is not just a matter of what techniques you do in order to maintain mindfulness and your attention on the breath. It’s also a matter of having a perspective on things. Exactly how important are the things that are happening around you? You have to realize that it’s very easy to get sucked into the …
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