Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 77
  2. You Can Make a Difference
     … You let the comfort do its work, but your main focus stays with the breath coming in, going out, and the breath energies running through the body. That’s how you train the mind not to be overcome by pleasure. Training it not to be overcome by pain: Again, there are going to be pains as you sit here—pains in the hip, pains … 
  3. Comfortable with Yourself
     … Some types of breathing maybe relaxing for the body but just they’re a little bit too slow and blurred for the mind to focus on. So, make adjustments for that, too. This is a very immediate way of showing goodwill for yourself. There’s a potential for comfort in the body that we often overlook. We’re too busy concerning ourselves with other … 
  4. Lessons for New Monks
     … In particular, if you notice that certain details of what you’re looking at or listening to tend to provoke greed, aversion, or delusion, either don’t focus on those details or else learn how to look at them in a different way. In the instructions for the new monks during the ordination procedure, the preceptor is supposed to teach them the five topics … 
  5. Analyzing Suffering
     … If you can focus on this issue, you take care of everything else. And because it is such a big issue, the Buddha tries to break it down. He talks about suffering in various terms in different contexts, but his most condensed analysis is the five clinging-aggregates. Form as a clinging-aggregate, feeling as a clinging-aggregate, perception, fabrication, and consciousness as clinging … 
  6. Actualizing Your Potentials
     … This means that you have to figure out what’s important in life and focus your energies there. As for the other things you have to do, anything worth doing is worth doing reasonably well. You need a clear sense of priorities, otherwise everything gets done to a small extent, a certain extent, but you find yourself pulled in so many different directions that … 
  7. Understanding Pain
     … Meanwhile, the mind is going to keep telling you, “There’s pain, pain, pain over there, focus over there.” You don’t have to listen to it; you don’t have to believe it. Sure enough, there may be pain there, but you don’t have to focus there, you don’t have to get in the line of fire. You’re in the … 
  8. Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas
     … You realize that some parts of the body won’t change no matter how well you breathe, no matter where you focus, no matter how strong your concentration—but you can work around them. You don’t have to let them be obstacles. You just do your best in spite of them. And this is how you have to deal with people outside. There … 
  9. One Thing Clear Through
     … If you focus on feeding on things outside, even the good things of the heavenly world, the mind deteriorates. You can imagine what it’s like living in a land where there’s nothing but pleasure all the time: Everything you can think of, everything you would want, keeps coming back, right there when you want it. You get spoiled. But then when the … 
  10. Establishing Priorities
     … This means that you want to do your best to strengthen your focus, strengthen your mindfulness, strengthen your alertness. And one way to do that is, as soon as you catch yourself wandering off, immediately come back to the breath but without engaging in self-recrimination. Don’t berate yourself for losing the breath. If you do, you’ll tie yourself up in another … 
  11. Preparing to Meditate
     … just focus on the breath and there it is. Other times, there’s a resistance. Something’s wrong. Sometimes what’s wrong may be the breath itself, but other times it’s attitudes you carry around in the mind. We like to think that meditation is a process of not thinking. But it’s interesting to see how many of the meditation topics the … 
  12. The Uses of Equanimity
     … The secret to patience or endurance is to focus not on the hard things you have to endure, but on where you can still find sources of help, sources of strength. Learning how to be with the breath in a way that induces feelings of pleasure, feelings of rapture or refreshment is an important source of strength both for the body and for the … 
  13. The Pursuit of Excellence
     … And even though you don’t focus your primary attention on the goal—the strategy of having a path is that you focus instead on each step of the path—be confident that the path is leading you to a place so good that you can’t even imagine how good it is. It’s that special. And it’s way better than anything … 
  14. Into the Cave with the Tiger
    As you focus on the breath, you want to be alert to what you’re doing. You want to be sensitive to the fact that you are doing something right now. The mind is not totally passive. It’s an active principle. The fact that we experience the present moment comes from fabrication. If it weren’t for the fabrications we’re doing right … 
  15. Seriously Happy
     … Breathe comfortably, allow the comfortable breath to spread through the body—or focus on whatever other topic of meditation attracts you right now. This is one of the reasons why it’s good to have a stable of practices, or a whole repertoire. Something that the mind is happy to do tonight, it may not be happy doing tomorrow morning. But that’s okay … 
  16. Questions of Skill
     … The Buddha wants you to focus on what you’re doing in the present moment and the results you’re getting. Then, as part of your desire to do this well, you ask yourself: Are you getting good results? If not, what could you do to change? That’s where ardency comes in. These are the questions you ask: how to approach suffering so … 
  17. The Wisdom of Tenacity
     … So you focus on arising and passing away, but with a specific purpose. When those moments of stillness come, you want to understand why. What did you do? When they go away, you want to understand: What did you do? You’re not just watching them arising and passing away, and leaving it at that; you also have an agenda. Once you begin to … 
  18. Mindfulness of Death
     … If you can maintain your focus, then the Buddha has you focus particularly on the issue of feelings in the body, because those are the things that’ll stand out most at that point. If there’s a feeling of pain, he has you reflect on the fact that this feeling of pain is dependent on what? It’s dependent on the body. Is … 
  19. Three Recollections
     … He says either there’s a fever in the body that comes when you try to focus on the body, or the mind is sluggish and just doesn’t want to go there. Or it gets scattered around. As soon as you focus on the breath, it’s like trying to balance a needle on top of a ball-bearing: It slips off. Or … 
  20. For Goodness’ Sake
     … The primary case of renunciation is just sitting here giving up your sensual thoughts, learning how to focus on the breath, to focus on the sense of the body as you feel it from within, and learning how to find pleasure there. Because that search for pleasure really is strengthening and is totally harmless. The search for pleasures outside, or the fascination of thinking … 
  21. Bare vs. Appropriate Attention
    As you focus on the breath, it’s important that you try to be as sensitive as possible to how the breathing feels—in particular, to which ways of breathing feel comfortable, and which ones don’t. Observe the breath carefully with that question in mind. When you find yourself stuck in uncomfortable breathing, experiment with other ways to see if you can make … 
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