Search results for: "Focusing"
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- Learning How to Learn… When you focus on the breath, are you focusing too hard? How can you tell? Or is your focus not strong enough? What are the telltale signs? You’re the only person who’s going to observe this for yourself. Here is your laboratory right here for seeing cause and effect in the present moment and for developing the skills that allow you to …
- Levels of the Breath… Say you’re focused in the middle of the chest. Keep that sense of the middle of the chest wide open all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and then think of that sense of openness spreading throughout the body, wherever it’s going to go. Get in touch with the awareness that already fills the body as …
- Pain & the Middle Way… the pleasure of the mind in concentration, focused on the breath with a sense of ease, well-being, and refreshment that spreads throughout the whole body. That’s the other alternative to pain. And it’s a good alternative for several reasons. One is that it keeps us from simply being bounced back and forth between our pleasures and pains. And two, it gives …
- A Foundation for Restraint… Putting it down means putting it aside and not focusing so much on it. If we focus on the body to get the mind to settle down, we can focus on different aspects of the body and ask ourselves, “Why are we so attached to it?” So the body plays a double role. On the one hand, it’s our place of refuge, so …
- The Truth of Perceptions… Depending on the power of your concentration and your ability to stay focused on single perceptions, you find you can get a very strong sense of solidity. Ajaan Fuang had a student one time who, as he was going through the different elements, found that he had a perception that his body was made out of brass. It was that solid and stiff. Okay …
- Hindrances… In some cases, as you’re focusing on the breath and it’s making you sleepy, switch your topic. Try to find something else that’s more energizing, that requires more active thought. Then there’s the sloth and torpor that comes from boredom, in which case you have to ask yourself: Why do you find watching your mind boring? Well, because nothing much …
- The Dhamma Mirror… After all, you’re focused on the breath. What is that? Form. Feelings—you’re trying to give rise to a feeling of ease, pleasure, refreshment. Perception—what’s the image you have of the breath as it flows in the body? What image would be best, most conducive, to a sense of ease and well-being? Thought fabrications—your intention to stay here …
- Take Heart… Just make sure that it’s focused on the steps that lead to the goal. If you think too much about where the path is going and focus all your attention on the fact that you’re not there yet, that kind of desire can get in the way. Tell yourself, “Okay, this is a path that goes in this direction, and the next …
- Food Insecurity… Of course, there’s always that worry that if you haven’t gotten far enough along the path, what’s going to happen to you when you die? You have to remind yourself that the only way you can guarantee something good is by focusing more and more and more on the path. It involves an act of will to change the way you …
- Educating Equanimity… I’ve heard people complain about Ajaan Lee’s method of meditation where he focuses on the comfort in the breath, saying that this gets you attached to comfort. But if you don’t have a source of well-being to hold on to, it’s going to be really hard to deal with the difficult situations that the breath can’t cover, that …
- Potentials Past & Present… But the Buddha found that by focusing attention on his breath, breathing in different ways to help the mind to settle down—energizing it when it needs energizing, calming it when it needs calming—that was his path to awakening. So there’s a lot of potential right here. Take some time to explore it. This is in line with the principle that he …
- How to Listen… You begin to realize that once you’ve got the mind firmly settled, firmly focused in a state of singleness, the thinking that got you there is now the disturbance. So you let that go. In other words, you’ve been adjusting the breath, relating to the breath, getting the breath so that the breath and the mind can fit snugly together. Now that …
- Because the Mind Is Purposeful… Concentration, the heart of the path, is something fabricated, and that means it requires desire—the desire to get the mind focused and to settle down. So you use these processes, you use this movement of the mind that’s always for the sake of something, and you direct it to be for the sake of the path. So observe yourself as you settle …
- Voices in the Mind… You find that being able to be with the breath helps pull you out of a lot of dialogues by creating a new dialogue focused around the breath. But then through the force of old habits you get pulled back into old dialogues—your parents, your old friends, all sorts of inner voices. And so in addition to learning how to stay with the …
- Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence… You start out, say, with the body, staying focused on the breath in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. “Mindful,” of course, means keeping things in mind. “Alert” means noticing what you’re doing while you’re doing it, and “ardent” means trying to do it well. It’s in the ardency that mindfulness …
- Sensuality… Why is the Buddha focused so much on the negative side of sensuality? It’s because we tend to focus so much on what we see as the positive side, all the pleasure we get out of thinking about these things. But that, too, gets in the way. As these thoughts come into the mind again, and again, and again, they create ruts. From …
- Appreciating Dispassion… When you start out getting focused in the breath, you’ve got to talk to yourself about it to adjust it. There are perceptions of the breath that allow you to visualize the breath going through the different parts of the body to create a sense of the well-being. You can maintain it and you can spread it around. If you find a …
- Lessons from Stilling the Mind… From that level, the Buddha says, you stay focused on the breath in and of itself. There’s a formula: “ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” You’re with the breath, he says, but you don’t think thoughts associated with the breath. In other words, you drop your thinking and evaluation of the breath—your discursive …
- Better to Give than to Consume… When you’re focused on the breath, it’s good not to hold anything back. Just think of yourself plunging into the breath and the body, totally. The reward is that you develop an all-around experience of ease and refreshment. If part of you is pulled back, there’s a part of you that’s not sharing in this, that’s not gaining …
- Start Out Small… Don’t let it clutter up your mind, because any progress in the meditation has to come from being very solidly focused on the present moment, fully intent on what you’ve got right here. If a lot of expectations are cluttering up your view, you’re not going to see what you’ve got right here. Whatever progress you make won’t be …
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