Search results for: "Focus"

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  2. Always Willing to Learn
     … Don’t focus primarily on that. We have ways of typecasting ourselves: You fall here or there on the enneagram; you’re a smart person, a dumb person, a sensitive person, a clod, or whatever. If you think in those terms, you tend to limit yourself. What those types are, are the areas you tend to fall back on, the range of skills you … 
  3. When You Practice on Your Own
     … There’s a lot of intentional activity going into how you focus on a feeling and what you do with it. As you learn how to deal skillfully with feelings, you gain more and more insights into the mind as the mind is settling down. At the same time, you’re making sure that the mind doesn’t wander off to other things. You … 
  4. Thinking Seriously about Happiness
     … He said, “Try to squeeze as much goodness as you can out of your body before you have to throw it away.” In other words, focus on the good things you can still do, even as you get older, even as you get sick, even as you die. There are good things you can do with your mind. You can develop your concentration, develop … 
  5. Open Are the Doors to the Deathless
     … So when the Buddha talks about feeling, you focus on your own feelings. When he talks about perception, you focus on your own perceptions. The same with thought constructs and consciousness: You look at these things as they’re happening, as he talks about them. And ask yourself, “How do I cling to these things? What’s the passion? What’s the desire I … 
  6. Admirable Intentions
     … What is it like to have a body, right here, right now? You realize that the breath is probably the most prominent of the different properties of the body, so you focus simply on the sensation of breathing. As the breath comes in, the breath goes out, realize that breath here isn’t so much the air coming in and out through the nose … 
  7. Don’t Just Do It
     … You can focus on the breath and not get very deep if you just go through the motions. Think about what the Buddha said: If you want the Dhamma, there are two qualities you have to nurture. One is commitment, and the other’s reflection. In both cases, you can’t just go through the motions. In the case of the commitment, think of … 
  8. Looking after Yourself with Ease
     … We’re bringing knowledge to all three processes as we focus on the breath. Try to breathe in a way that’s soothing for the body right now if it needs to be soothed, or energizing if it needs energy. Start with a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, and notice how the breathing feels in the body. We’re focusing … 
  9. Dealing with Pain
     … you can understand what this other level of suffering is, the mental pain. There are three stages in all. The first one is: Don’t pay attention to it. Focus on your breath. Focus on the parts of the body that you can make comfortable. Ajaan Lee compares this to going into a house where you know that some of the floorboards are rotten … 
  10. Being Right
     … When you find those qualities, you focus on them. Like a monk who’s looking for robe material: He wants to make a robe from thrown-away scraps, and he’s found a piece of scrap cloth. Part of it is dirty and filthy, and can’t be used. So the monk learns how to tear off the dirty part and take just the … 
  11. Wake Up from Addiction
     … in this case, remembering to keep your focus on the breath, which is an aspect of the body in and of itself. You’re ardently trying to stay here, alert to what’s going on. Mindfulness means remembering not only to stay here, but also what works in order to keep you here. Then you’re ardent to do whatever needs to be done … 
  12. Take Your Time
     … Your mind is ready, you see the value of training the mind, and so you can focus in on the breath. But sometimes you find that it takes a while to get into the mood, and that’s perfectly fine. If there are mental habits or ways of thinking that get in the way of the mind settling down, sometimes you have to spend … 
  13. Acceptance
     … He has you focus instead on what you do. And what are you doing? Is it skillful or is it not? If it’s not skillful, then, one, you’ve got to admit the fact that it’s not skillful and, two, accept the fact you could make your behavior more skillful. This is the part of acceptance that many of us resist. We … 
  14. A Sense of Yourself
     … You often hear the forest ajaans saying to put your studies aside and just focus on what you’re doing. Well, what you’re doing is going to be guided by what you learned in the past. Sometimes, when an issue comes up in the meditation, you’ll be able to remember, “Oh, there’s this passage where the Buddha said this, or another … 
  15. Two Eyes, Not Just One
     … It’s easy to focus on one problem in the mind, solve that one, and discover that lots of other problems have developed as a result. Yet we may hide those other problems from ourselves, which, of course, then becomes still another problem. This is one of the reasons why we’re trained to be patient and not jump to conclusions. As Ajaan Lee … 
  16. Overcoming Fear
     … It’s a real challenge to maintain your virtue in situations like that, to maintain your right view, because it’s so easy to focus on how unjust the situation is, on how much you want to get revenge, and on how much the situation justifies whatever you might do. But remember: The Buddha didn’t teach the Dhamma only for people who are … 
  17. But Not Sick in Mind
     … But for the time being, focus on the skills you’re going to need so that when the body is sick, the mind doesn’t have to be sick—because it’s not latching on to things that would pain it. That’s one of the most important skills you can master, and here’s your chance.
  18. Worth
     … You’ve got to learn how to focus your mind, keep it focused on what you know will strengthen the mind. This is why the perfection or parami that underlies all the others is determination, realizing that you want to make something of your mind. And it’s going to depend on you. So you make that determination to do what’s right, and … 
  19. Stick with It
    Close your eyes and focus on the breath. When you breathe in, notice: Where do you feel the sensation of breathing? Where do you feel it when you breathe out? Keep your awareness focused right there. It can be any part of the body. The important thing is that you allow it to be comfortable. Don’t tense up or force the breath or … 
  20. Factors for Awakening
     … This is why the Buddha says that you can focus on any of the four and follow it all the way to awakening. You choose one of them as being primary and then you relate the other three to that primary focus. For instance, right now we’re with the breath, which is the frame of reference that the Buddha recommends most specifically for … 
  21. The Dhamma Channel
    When you focus on the breath, also pay attention to the perception you have of the breath: the image you have in mind. Think of the body being filled with breath channels and that they all connect—so that when you breathe in, every part of the body gets nourished by good breath energy. If one part of the body has an excess and … 
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