Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Technique & Attitudes… When there’s a sense of ease or comfort in the breath, think of it spreading out from the spot where you’re focused. You don’t have to leave the spot, just think of the boundary around that spot opening up and letting all the ease, relaxation that you can feel with the breath spread out to whatever part of the body it …
- Dhamma Books & the Actuality… That’s the actual energy you’re focusing on. And you want to notice how it relates to different parts of the body. When you’re breathing in, which parts of the body tend to be overworked – the parts that are doing the breathing for somebody else in the body? Give them a chance to have a little breath energy of their own. To …
- Analyzing Anger… So as you’re focusing on the breath and it seems to be far away from the big issues of life, remember, you’re learning to take things apart so that you can see how a lot of the big issues in life come down at these little tiny building blocks. If you can see the building blocks and see that you don’t …
- What You Can’t Change, What You Can… So as you’re focusing on the breath, try to see what lessons you can learn about change and not-change; the stress you can’t do anything about and stress you can do something about. When you’re sitting here breathing, how much awareness do you actually bring to the breathing process? Is it clear? And when you breathe in and breathe out …
- Between You and Your Eyes… Out attention is mainly focused someplace else—on our plans for the future, issues from the past—so that what’s immediately present is simply used as a means to something else. As a result, the important issues in life—the things that are immediately present to our awareness, the things we’re doing right now—we don’t really comprehend. Even something as …
- Hold onto the Breath… We’re focusing on where the real problem is, which is inside, that we’re creating suffering, and we’re trying to solve it. It’s a message we don’t like to hear—that we’re the ones causing our suffering—but again, the Buddha offers us the sense of well-being that comes from being generous, a sense of well-being that …
- Recollection of Hell… the most skillful path to make out of these potentials. The Buddha says the most skillful thing we can fabricate is the noble eightfold path, like we’re doing right now: focusing on the breath. That’s a form, one of the elements of form. You direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath: That’s a type of fabrication. You hold …
- Strength of Mind… Sometimes, when we’re focusing on the breath and we’re told to stay with the in-breath and stay with the out-breath, we try to squeeze it a little bit at the end of the in-breath and a little bit at the end of the out-breath to mark it clearly. But that makes it uncomfortable. Think of the in-breath …
- 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 …
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