Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Delight in Persistence… You’re focusing your attention on the breath. You’re maintaining an intention to stay with the breath. You’re holding a perception in mind: how you picture the breath to yourself. You’re trying to develop feelings of pleasure. Well, all those mental acts come under the factor what the Buddha called “name” in name and form. If you bring knowledge to these …
- Evaluation… Drop that.” She couldn’t think of it on her own because she was so totally focused on the one object. We found out later that she would visualize the different elements in the body—with breath, it was an image of wind—and she would just stare at that image of wind. That’s a case of concentration with no powers of observation …
- Dhamma is Timeless… It focuses on a universal problem and a universal solution. The problem is the suffering we cause ourselves. The principles by which we do that were the same in India in the Buddha’s time as they are now. So even though the Dhamma may not have lots of new things to tell you with the passing of time, that’s actually one of …
- To Understand the Path… So when you’re focused on the breath, try to do in such way that you stay alert, stay mindful, and that your attitude is not that you’re going to wallow in the comfort, but you’re going to use the comfort as a foundation. As Ajaan Fuang once said, there are basically two types of people who come to meditation: those who …
- The Committee of the Mind… So we’re focusing here on this sense of energy in the body. How do you picture it to yourself? This is another way of making the breath interesting. You can think of the air coming in and out through the nose, but when the Buddha talks about breath, he’s talking more about the energy flow as you feel it in the body …
- Basic Intro… Your mind in position means focusing on the present moment. A good way to stay anchored in the present moment is to focus on your breath. As long as you’re with the breath, you know you’re in the present moment. So notice where you feel the breathing. What sensations in the body tell you, “Now the breath is coming in; now the …
- Take Nothing for Granted… This, too, gives you a purpose, tries to keep you focused. The question is, can you maintain your focus? Can you maintain your purpose, even as things get very still? I talked to an anthropologist years back. He talked about how modern-day anthropologists, when they study a tribe, try to master all the different skills that the people of the tribe have mastered …
- Factors for Stream-entry… You might wonder why Ajaan Mun focused on this. Well, it wasn’t the case that everyone in Thailand was already practicing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma. Lots of customs had built up in Thai and Laotian Buddhism that he began to realize were really contrary to the message, contrary to the customs of the noble ones. There was a lot of …
- The Joy of the Battle… In other words, you’re sitting here meditating, focusing on the breath. You have visions of nice states of concentration: bliss, ease, expansive full-body awareness. Yet you find yourself doing battle with the hindrances. Sensual desire comes up, ill will can come up, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, doubt and uncertainty. Instead of blissing out, you find yourself doing battle with these …
- Self-Doubt… The other day I talked about the hindrance of doubt, and I focused on one kind of doubt, which is doubt in the Buddha, in the Dhamma, the Sangha. But there’s another kind of doubt that can also get in the way of your practice. That’s doubt in yourself. It often comes when there’s a setback. You’ve been trying and …
- Prevention… So that element of intent, really focusing on what you’re doing, is a very important part of right exertion, so that you can actually fulfill your motivation, which is to protect the mind from habits you know tend to get it into trouble. Another way of preventing unskillful things from arising is when you’re going to go into a situation where you …
- There’s Work to Be Done… When you’re focusing on the breath, where is a good place to focus? There are instructions that tell you to try different spots in the body. You remember those, but you remember particularly the ones that you’ve tried and have worked in the past. Then you remember different ways of thinking about the breath. Ajaan Lee recommends thinking of the breath as …
- Discernment All Along… learning from the object you’re focused on. In his case, you learn from the silver. Silver reacts to heat in different ways. You can get rid of impurities in different ways. If you’re observant, over time you get a better and better sense of what you’re working with, and you can make better and better things out of it. The same …
- Discernment… When the Buddha talks about the principles of causality, this is where he’s really focused. He’s not concerned with causality out there in the world so much, except when he uses it to illustrate points having to do with causality in the mind. The causality in here, of course, is intention, which is based on contact and also colors contact. The intention …
- Meaning & Purpose… As he focuses our attention to meditate, he wants us to focus attention on that first kind of contact, our immediate sense of the body as we feel it, unmediated. The breath is the most obvious of the different elements, so focus there. It’s the element you can most easily control. You can make it longer, shorter, faster, slower, deeper, more shallow. So …
- Anti-slacker Dhamma… This is why the Buddha focused all of his teaching on solving that problem. If it were no big deal, that’s what the first noble truth would be: Suffering is no big deal. But that’s not the truth. Suffering is aging, illness, and death; it’s sorrow, lamentation, and despair. All of these things are a big deal. And what use would …
- The Gift of Meditation… When you’re focused on your development of mindfulness and concentration, other people benefit, too. So think of meditation as a gift, both to yourself and to the people around you. This is a major misunderstanding that people have, that we’re just here for ourselves, that we’re selfish, parasitic, not doing anything for the world. But how much can you do for …
- A Rite of Passage… But sometimes the problem is how you’re focusing on the breath. So there’s a double stepping back. You’re stepping back from the other thoughts, and you’re also stepping back and watching your mind as it gets settled down with the breath so that you can figure out how to do it well. Ajaan Lee talks about how, as you’re …
- Bad Friends Inside… Try to keep your attention focused right here in the present moment. Because all the important things in life are happening in the present moment. And in particular your intentions. The things you intend to say, intend to do, intend to think about: These are the things that shape your life. And all too often we’re not paying that much attention to them …
- Defeatism? - Anything But… And it’s worth attaining, worth focusing your efforts toward, simply that you have to learn how to be mature in how you go about it. The four bases for success are desire, persistence, intent, and ingenuity. The desire there comes first because it’s your motivation. You have to want to do the practice. William James once made a distinction between two kinds …
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