Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Fabricating with Awareness
     … This is why Ajaan Lee has you focus on the breath energy in the different parts of the body. The Canon doesn’t speak about breath energy very much. It simply notes the fact that there is a type of wind element or wind property that goes throughout all the organs of the body. It talks about the diseases that come when that wind … 
  3. Fears
     … And yet the texts don’t treat fear all that much, largely because there are many different kinds of fear — fear associated with greed, fear associated with anger, fear associated with delusion — and the texts focus more on the emotions behind the fears than on the fears themselves. The implication here is that if you want to understand your fears, you have to understand … 
  4. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … So when you’re willing to put up with whatever happens to come in terms of food, clothing and shelter, you’re free to focus on your real duties. Again, this is something I learned in my experience as a new monk. The cook we had in the kitchen was miserable. I had learned how to cook before I ordained and it was always … 
  5. Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing
     … These mind-states will be related to the way you breathe, they’ll be related to the way you think to yourself about things, the way you talk to yourself about things, and the perceptions and feelings you focus on. All these things are what the Buddha calls fabrication. He says we engage in fabrication in ignorance, which is why we suffer. But when … 
  6. Questioning Your Unconscious Actions
     … This is one of the reasons why the Buddha has you focus on this as bodily fabrication. He tells you to be aware of the whole body as you breathe in, breathe out. As you do that, you begin to notice that there’s more going on than just the air coming in and out of the lungs. There’s a movement of energy … 
  7. To Comprehend Suffering
     … We tend to be leery of staying with the body because sometimes we focus on the body and there’s a pain here and a discomfort there and we don’t like it. And the mind is immediately ready to go off and create an alternative world for itself where it can think about other things and just drop the body for the time … 
  8. Moving Between Thought Worlds
     … We focus on certain things in the world around us, certain ideas about who we are in that world, and everything else gets filtered through that particular picture. Other people’s actions, for example, get filtered in this way, so that someone acting with perfectly good intentions may seem to be evil, sneaky, unreliable. Or vice versa. They actually may be evil, sneaky, and … 
  9. Hold on for All You’re Worth
     … Where is it most prominent right now? Focus your attention there. Then the next question is: Is it comfortable? Watch it steadily for a while, and sometimes simply watching it steadily will make it more comfortable. Sometimes not, in which case you consciously ask yourself: Would longer breathing feel better? Or shorter? Deeper? More shallow? Focus your effort on the in-breath. Let the … 
  10. The Grass at the Gate
     … Allow that to happen, but don’t lose your focus on the feet and the hands. Just let that sense of relaxation spread and keep watch over its source. The focusing on the sensation here is directed thought. Watching over it, protecting it, is evaluation. Staying consistently with the relaxed sensation is singleness of preoccupation. And in that relaxed sensation there’s the potential … 
  11. The Energy You Broadcast
     … If you find that you need more energy, okay, focus on that. But again, don’t push it too much. You’re feeling your way into a sense of well-being that then creates an energy that radiates out, without your having to think about it radiating out at all. It radiates on its own. Just like the brainwaves in the body: They say … 
  12. Wise About Pleasure
     … You breathe in a way, focus on the breath in a way, that gives rise to a sense of well-being, a sense of pleasure, even a sense of fullness and refreshment. The potential for that refreshment is there in the breath right now, so ask yourself, what kind of breathing would feel good right now? Try not to pre-determine what you think … 
  13. The Triple Training
     … There has to be a certain amount of insight into how you’re fabricating your mind-states—the way you talk to yourself, the perceptions you use, the feelings you focus on—if you want the mind to settle down. If you don’t see these things happening in the present moment, it’s going to be really hard for the mind to settle … 
  14. Heedful, Ardent, & Resolute
     … Try to focus your attention there and keep it there. And to make it more interesting, try to notice what type of breathing feels good. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Short in long out. Long in short out, or short both in and out. Deeper, more shallow. Heavier, lighter. Faster, slower. Try to find what rhythm … 
  15. The Buddha’s Basic Therapy
     … Notice, the focus here is on action, because that’s what can be really special, the things that people do when they go out of their way to do something good. Having appreciation for that, having gratitude for that, makes it easier for you to go out of your way. The gout-weed doesn’t have any intention at all; it just grows. You … 
  16. The Practice of Right View
    The Practice of Right View April 22, 2009 When there’s a talk during meditation, don’t focus your attention on the talk. Focus on your breath. The purpose of the talk is to act like a fence, to catch you when you wander away from the breath, to keep pointing you back to the breath. Because it’s right at this spot—where … 
  17. Taking Initiative
     … That allows you to focus on your sense of discontent with where you are in your meditation. You take what you’ve got and you figure out, “What would be the best use I can make out of this?” Like right now: You’re focusing on the breath. If you just look at it for a couple minutes, it doesn’t seem to have … 
  18. The True Cause of Suffering
     … Move your focus around. There was one time when I was looking after Ajaan Fuang and I had the 2 a.m. to 8 p.m. shift. As you can imagine, around 3 a.m. I was pretty tired. But I found that if I would focus on one spot for three breaths and then another spot a few inches away for three breaths … 
  19. Victory over Death
     … You focus on the present moment not because it’s a wonderful moment or because your awakened nature is here. You focus on the present because there are things you need to do here, duties you have to fulfill, because tomorrow death may come. Your duties, of course, have to do with the duties of the four noble truths. We’re here to comprehend … 
  20. Dealing with Confusion
     … You can focus your attention on any one spot in the body that seems convenient or you can focus on the body as a whole right from the start. The choice is yours. What’s important is that you allow the breath to be a good place to stay, a comfortable place to stay. If the body seems tired or weak, think of breathing … 
  21. Life Well Lived
     … You can focus anywhere in or around the body: the tip of the nose, the base of the throat, the middle of the chest, around the abdomen. Any place where it’s easy to notice that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. And allow the breathing to be easy. Don’t struggle with the breath. Don’t force … 
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