Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 83
  2. Appropriate Attention
     … In the Forest Tradition, they focus a lot on perception, because the labels we apply to things really color everything else in the mind. So you might want to start with that. See if there’s some way that you can develop dispassion for the things you’re clinging to. So this principle of appropriate attention starts with the ordinary, everyday issue of skillful … 
  3. It’s up to You
     … Or you can focus on the perception of breath. Think of the breath energy spreading everywhere. Or think of the fact that everything all around you is earth. Just earth. You don’t have to think of its being trees or rocks or whatever. Just the earth property. Those perceptions of breath and earth have a lot less of disturbance than the perception of … 
  4. Growing Up Inside
     … But the task here gives you some focus: how to get the mind to settle down, and step back from its thoughts. This is an important part of growing more mature. You see certain identities that you’ve been taking on, and you step back from them, and say No. A while back I was reading a book by a psychologist who had focused … 
  5. Ingenuity
     … This is one of the reasons why Ajaan Lee would focus on getting the spine cleared up as the first order of business. If energy does come up the spine, it doesn’t get blocked, it doesn’t get diverted off to one side or another. At the same time, you’ve got to keep that sense of the energy coming down through the … 
  6. Wide-open Awareness
     … You don’t have to shut them off, but you don’t want to shift your focus to them, either. Keep your focus right here on the breath. You can choose any spot in the body where it’s easy to see that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. And try to maintain that spot with a sense … 
  7. How to Be Alone
     … They give you a good measuring stick for how things are going as you’re alone; they give you something specific to do, a task to focus on, so as to create a sense of purpose over time, and of wellbeing in the present moment by being with your breath. At the very least, you learn how to approach from the physical side whatever … 
  8. The Ennobling Path
     … We want to focus on this issue. This is where you focus: simply what you’ve got, right here right now, without adding anything, without taking anything away, just looking at things as they’re directly experienced. For most of us, we can stay here for a little while, but then our old habits kick in. We start creating this issue, start creating that … 
  9. The Inner Saboteur
     … At the very least for this hour, let’s really get together and focus our attention on trying to do something about the mind, learning how to bring it to its object, how to keep it there, and really paying attention to what’s actually going on in the mind.” These, you might call them traitors inside you, the parts of you that sabotage … 
  10. How to Use the Teaching on Kamma
     … That’s why we focus right here, right now. Also, the fact that things are not totally determined by the past is also why we focus right here, right now, because what we do right now can make a big difference. So for simply understanding what you’re doing while you’re doing it as you meditate, the teachings on karma are really important … 
  11. Look Around
     … Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about how when Ajaan Mun would see him getting a little bit too narrow in his focus. He was very proud of the fact that he was holding to the dhutanga practices, the various ascetic practices, when the monks around him were not. Ajaan Mun saw that holding to the practices was a good thing, but being proud about it … 
  12. Fear of Death
     … Some things carry over, but you have to focus your energies on the mind if you want to have good things to carry over. Otherwise the things you carry over are bad. This is why our effort here is aimed in two directions. One, if you can gain total release, this is the path to total release. Two, if you don’t gain total … 
  13. Selves with Skills
     … As the Buddha pointed out, we construct our experience of the present moment through the way we breathe, through the way we talk to ourselves, through the feelings we focus on, the perceptions we use—in other words, the mental labels and images we use to identify things. We use these processes, what he calls fabrications, to put together the raw material that comes … 
  14. Potentials for Awakening
     … One thing you can do as a little trick is to focus on your hands. As you breathe in, breathe out, think of your hands relaxing, every muscle in each hand. Nothing tenses up as you breathe in, and the muscles maintain a sense of sameness throughout the in-breath, throughout the out-breath. Everything’s relaxed. When the muscles relax like that, then … 
  15. Breath by Breath
     … Try to make the focus of the mind just right—in other words, not too heavy, not too light. If it’s too heavy, it’s like holding a chick in your hand and squeezing it so hard that it dies. If it’s too light, you’re holding the chick so loosely that it flies away. So try to figure out exactly how … 
  16. Gather Around the Breath
     … Some people object to the idea of working on having one focus for the mind, because it requires desire. But the Buddha is very clear that desire is part of the path. It’s part of right effort: You’re trying to generate desire to give rise to skillful qualities, and this is one of them—to get the mind still, focused on the … 
  17. The Choice Not to Suffer
     … If you focus on the issue of suffering, a lot of things are brought right there together. Because right where there’s feeling there’s also attention and intention, perception—particularly intention. And when these issues are solved, everything important gets solved as well. One of the big issues that really stares you in the face when you think about the Buddha’s teaching … 
  18. Path & Raft
     … But on the other, you can’t focus all the time on the goal. If the path leads to a mountain and you spend all your time looking at the mountain, you’re going to walk off the path. So you have to pay attention to where you’re stepping now—right now, right now, right now—the kind of lesson you learn when … 
  19. Fire Escapes
     … Then you see that it’s easier to focus, or more quiet to focus, on the space between the drops. And then you sense that there’s no limit to that. That’s what they mean by infinite space. It’s not that you go out and check the edge of how far it goes out toward infinity, but simply that you don’t … 
  20. Looking at Your Life
     … It tends to focus in one area and then moves to something else, and moves to something else, and is very good at keeping everything else compartmented, hiding things from itself. But as you open up to the breath energy throughout the body, you begin to open up all those closed doors in the mind as well. When thoughts come bubbling up, you see … 
  21. Fighting Attitude
     … With sensual desire, you want to focus on the drawbacks of whatever it is you’re feeling attracted to. Actually, the object itself may not have all those drawbacks but the fact of being hooked on that object: That has a lot of drawbacks. But one of the ways of helping get you unhooked is to look to the negative side of whatever the … 
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