Search results for: "Focusing"

  1. Page 75
  2. Some Assembly Required
     … But it’s because you can make a difference here—and it’s going to make a huge difference between whether you’re going to suffer or not suffer—that’s why we’re focused here. The Buddha saw that on the night of his awakening. People can do things skillfully for much of their lives, and you’d think that they would have … 
  3. Help Others, Help Yourself
     … Stay focused. As you do this, developing more skillful qualities in your mind, the people around you are going to benefit, too. Your greed, aversion, and delusion don’t go prowling around the neighborhood, disturbing the neighbors. Other people benefit, too, from your practice. But in that sutta, the Buddha isn’t talking just about how helping yourself helps others. He also talks about … 
  4. Fear of Death
     … Use it, especially focusing on the breath, as a means for getting past your attachment to sensuality, but then also learn to get beyond being attached to the body. You can develop a sense of space around the body, through the body, and that helps you with the perception that you don’t really need this physical body in order to be aware. You … 
  5. Shame & Acceptance
     … These are all the things you need.” And so a lot of his Dhamma talks focused on, one, the fact that people were suffering; and, two, they had the resources that, if they worked at them, could take them out of suffering. That’s the important point: if you work on them. You need to have a strong sense that where you are is … 
  6. The Happiness & Suffering of Others
     … Instead of focusing on his own pain, he thought of the happiness of all beings. It’s a useful strategy to adopt in lots of different situations where your pain is pretty heavy and it’s weighing you down. Try to get out of yourself, think about other beings. Remember the pattern on the Buddha’s night of awakening. When he got his mind … 
  7. A Home of Your Own
    When we focus on the in-and-out breath, we’re focusing not so much on the air coming in and out through the nose as on the feeling of breathing as we feel it from inside. When you breathe in, which parts of the body move? Do they feel coordinated or do they feel like they’re working at cross purposes? Do they … 
  8. Taking Stock
     … You’re sitting here focusing on the breath: That’s form. You breathe in ways that give rise to a sense of ease, fullness, pleasure, refreshment: That’s feeling. You hold the perception of breath energy in mind and look for the sensations that correspond to that. You evaluate how things are going and make adjustments as necessary; That’s fabrication. And then you … 
  9. The Good We Already Have
     … Other good qualities both in body and mind can develop in the same way—just by focusing your attention on them, giving them the right chance to grow and whatever other things they need for their nourishment. You tune in to all kinds of good things. There are many different levels, for instance, of the breath energy in the body. They’re all there … 
  10. True Friends & False
     … A lot of traditional medicine in Asia focuses on the breath energy in the body as an important element in your health, which means that if you breathe in a way that’s good for the body, it’ll have all kinds of good effects. And it turns out that comfortable breathing—energizing and relaxing at the same time—is the kind of breath … 
  11. Intelligent Design
     … If the chant lasts for about four hours, three of those hours are focused on the nine months of pregnancy — the months of morning sickness, the months of something kicking in her stomach. And then there’s birth. They say that the most extreme pain that a human being can endure is the pain of giving birth. And it’s no fun for the … 
  12. An Exercise in Sensitivity
     … You get into what Ajaan Lee calls delusion concentration, where everything is very pleasant, very misty, but you’re not really sure where you are, what you’re focused on. It’s like someone who takes on a job, gets a paycheck, and then quits the job to enjoy the paycheck. It’s pleasant for a while, but then you’re hungry again, and … 
  13. Issues of Control
     … So you stay focused on the breath. Any other thoughts that would get in the way of the breath, you put them aside. And for the time being, thoughts of jhāna might count as thoughts related to the world because all too often you want to come out and say, “Well, I got this jhāna, I got that jhāna…” I noticed that when Ajaan … 
  14. Craving & Clinging
     … We’re focusing on other things. That’s basically what craving is—the mind going out after something else and not being very aware of itself. That’s why there’s ignorance in the craving. Then it lands on something. When it lands on something, the relationship is very complex. To stay, it has to cling. In other words, it has to keep going … 
  15. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … Sometimes Theravada is criticized for being focused solely on getting your mind in shape and not caring about others, but that’s not the case. From the Buddha’s point of view, there is no clear line between the goodness you do to your own mind and the goodness you do to others. They nurture one another. So try to develop goodness in both … 
  16. The Importance of Being Truthful
     … As when we’re sitting here right now focusing on the breath: You’ll find the mind wandering off. As soon as you catch the mind wandering off, you have a choice. Will you allow it to wander a little bit further to see what it can dig up, to overturn a few stones? Or are you going to get right back to the … 
  17. Conserving Your Strength
     … It’d be better to live your whole life focused on what’s important. This is why you should remind yourself of the normalcy of death. It’s all around. As Ajaan Lee says, it can hit you at any time. We can die so easily. A little piece of blood clot starts wandering around your body, gets lodged in your heart, and that … 
  18. Doing Favors & Making Merit
     … It’s interesting that when the Buddha introduced the topic of karma, the two areas he focused on were generosity and debts of gratitude. It’s because we have freedom of choice that generosity means something. If we had no freedom, the fact that you gave something to someone else would have been forced on you by the stars or whatever influences are coming … 
  19. We’re All Learning the Ropes
     … Right now we’re focused on our breath, we’re working on the inner work, but it’s good to keep in mind some of the outer things we do. As the Buddha said, there’s no way you’re going to get into right concentration if you’re stingy, there’s no way you’re going to get into any of the noble … 
  20. Strength of Mindfulness
     … Of the various qualities of the path, the Buddha focuses on mindfulness as your refuge so that all the other things you’ve learned about the path will be there at your fingertips. Otherwise, the things you’ve learned wash away, wash away, and they serve no purpose. But if you can store them away in the drawers of the mind and keep yourself … 
  21. Identifying Weeds
     … If you’re feeling irritated and want to find a good reason to get angry, be careful to look for the good side of whatever you’re focused on. In other words, try to be a person with two eyes, not just one. When you can begin to read your mind while your eyes are open, it gets a lot easier to read it … 
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