Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. “May I Be Happy”
     … He even has you use it as a topic of focused contemplation. When things are going dry in your meditation and everything seems to come to a stop, remind yourself of the ways you’ve been generous in the past. The other topic the Buddha uses to introduce the topic of kamma is gratitude. Think of all the people who have helped you in … 
  3. What Are You Doing in the Present?
     … So as long as you’re with the breath in the present, you’re focused on the right spot. That’s where you can begin to see the movements of the mind in the present: where they go and what purposes they have. We find this most easily by giving ourselves the purpose of just staying here with a breath, so that the other … 
  4. A Meritorious Heart
     … As you go beyond the practice of goodwill into focusing on the breath, developing mindfulness, developing concentration, it’s all best done with this attitude of a meritorious heart, a heart that wishes happiness for all, wishes true happiness for all. This is why we meditate. This is why we practice to begin with. We want a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody. We … 
  5. The Source of Goodness
     … Several questions that were addressed in that group of people focused on the issue of the Dhamma of relationships, or relationships as a path. Although the Buddha never said that that path was equivalent to the path of meditation, you can’t just meditate and hope that it’s going to straighten out your life. You have to work on developing certain qualities in … 
  6. Chronic Pain
     … You keep your focus focused on the comfortable parts, but you expand your range of awareness and you think of the breath not just going up to the pain but going through it. That way, it helps to dissolve any bands of tension you may have built around the pain. You’re testing to see exactly how much of the pain is a result … 
  7. The Brightness of the World
     … If it’s only a little bit, you have to be careful about focusing specifically on the goodness, so that you don’t mix it up with the dirt. With someone with a lot of goodness, enjoy their goodness, soak it up, because that’s what gives nourishment to your goodness. There are four qualities the Buddha says to look for in a friend … 
  8. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
     … So as we’re sitting here, trying to stay focused on the breath and noticing when the mind wanders off: That ability to drop a thought mid-sentence, drop a thought even when it’s all loose ends, is an important skill. You catch yourself in the middle of creating a little reality there but then you can reestablish your frame of reference in … 
  9. The Image of the Raft
     … For instance, you’re sitting right here, focused on the breath—that’s the body, or form. You’re trying to breathe in a way that gives rise to a feeling of pleasure—that’s feeling. You hold in mind your image of how the breath runs through the body and you try to choose a perception that allows the breath energy to flow … 
  10. Study to Practice
     … What kind of feelings are you focusing on? The Buddha gives lots of recommendations for how to deal with these three kinds of fabrication. He tells you even how to breathe: Breathe in a way that gives rise to rapture, breathe aware of the whole body, breathe in a way that calms the breath. It makes you sensitive to the different kinds of fabrication … 
  11. Artillery All Around
     … Another cure for sleepiness that I’ve found is that if focusing on one spot in the body gets you really blurry, make up your mind to focus on one spot for three breaths, and then another spot for three breaths, and then another spot, and another, and another, and just keep chasing these spots around the body. That could wake you up. Or … 
  12. Choices Now & at Death
     … If you’ve been focusing on some past bad actions, then if a vision of a bad place to go comes up, you’re likely to fall for it, because that’s one of the things we fear as we approach death: that maybe there will be some punishment lying in wait for the bad things we’ve done in life. This is one … 
  13. The Regularity of the Dhamma
     … Any feelings and perceptions will be the feelings and perceptions of a mind really focused on the breath. As the mind gets more and more still, those fabrications fall away. Directed thoughts and evaluations fall away. The movement of the breath falls away. All you have is a still breath energy filling the body, a clear, bright awareness filling the body. That’s Powell … 
  14. Lessons from the Buddha’s Awakening
     … You focus on that, and you’re focusing on the right spot. Which is why we’re here meditating, developing some of the factors of the path—right mindfulness, right concentration—or, at the very least, trying to. But by doing this, we’re putting ourselves in the same spot where the Buddha was. That’s the other part about having conviction in the … 
  15. Descartes’ Error
     … When you really want to get precise about pain for instance, you want a very focused concentration. But you want that in the context of a larger frame of reference: mindfulness filling the body, mindfulness immersed in the body, saturating the body. These are the images that the Buddha uses. Concentration with a large frame doesn’t get knocked over easily. If your concentration … 
  16. Separate
     … So when you’re meditating, it’s not a selfish activity, even though you are focusing on training yourself. The important point is that you’re training yourself to be reliable. So you have to learn how to see things as separate. We talked this morning about seeing how your awareness of things is something separate from the things themselves. That separate awareness is … 
  17. The Six Properties
     … There was no place in the body where you could focus your awareness and have any sense of comfort at all.” So for a moment she felt lost, but then she remembered, “Well, there’s the space property.” So she focused in on the space property, and all that sense of the house on fire suddenly disappeared. There was a very strong sense of … 
  18. The Practice is Wherever There’s Mindfulness
     … For it to be right alertness, it has to be focused on what you’re doing and the results coming from what you’re doing. And finally, right ardency means you’re trying to do this well, with your whole heart. This is your main focus. So the ability to keep in mind what’s skillful and unskillful, and to notice whether you’re … 
  19. Love for the Dhamma
     … The real problems lie in the mind, which is why we sit here focusing the mind on the breath as a way of bringing the mind into the present moment, where we can watch it. We turn our gaze inward, instead of outward. What do you see when you look outward? You see aging, illness, and death. You see other people’s issues: their … 
  20. Protect Your Inner Center
     … So watch for a while to see what feels best and what kind of breathing is easiest to stay focused on. You bring three qualities to this. One is mindfulness: You remember to stay with the breath. Two, alertness: You watch what’s actually happening both in the breath and with the mind, so that you can get a sense of how well they … 
  21. Dhamma in Vinaya
     … Then there’s the action, which is the act of focusing. We talk about watching the breath. That’s an unfortunate image because it tends to involve the eyes a little bit too much. Think of sensing the breath, wearing the breath. Think of it all around you. See if that helps. What you’re trying to do is to become sensitive to the … 
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