Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 90
  2. Distraction & Drowsiness
     … Then move your focus of attention down around the different parts of the body. To the left, to the right. Up to the solar plexus: left, right. Up to the chest: left, right. Your throat. Your head. Down the back, out the legs; down your shoulders, out the arms. Move the breath around for a while and notice how the body’s holding its … 
  3. The Buddha’s Narratives & Yours
     … That’s what the Buddha did, and in doing so he was showing by example that you should put aside questions of your identity—who you were, who you are, who you might be—and focus just on the question of actions. What are the actions that were done in the past that are yielding their results right now? If it’s a result … 
  4. The Dhamma Points Inside
     … You focus on the breath: You don’t have to push anyone out of the way who’s already trying to look at your breath. It’s totally yours to look at. Your sense of the body that you feel from within: No one else can feel that. If you can find some well-being here, then you don’t feel the need to … 
  5. Fence Me In
     … You’re allowed to focus on different spots in the body. How much difference will that make? You’re allowed to stay in one spot as long as you like. How much difference will that make? Things you otherwise wouldn’t notice at all suddenly become really enlarged, because you restrict the range of your awareness. It’s the same with the precepts. Once … 
  6. Mundane Right View
     … what we do, how we think, how we focus the mind, how we position our awareness. These are all very important things in the meditation. When the Buddha starts with the principle of karma, he starts in two very interesting ways. The first is the principle that there are things that are given. In other words, the act of giving is important. It has … 
  7. Endurance Through Discernment
     … And it’s not a selfish quest to try to focus on solving this problem, because the less suffering you create for yourself, the less you’re going to be leaning on other people. That way, when the time comes when you are really sick and you are dying, and you can’t just breathe through the illness or breathe through the death to … 
  8. Karma-ism
     … So the Buddha’s advice is just to drop the whole issue and focus on what’s doing right now? What are you doing right now? You should be focusing on your breath, reminding yourself to stay with the breath, to be alert to the breath, and to make an effort to be more consistent in those things. Because those qualities – mindfulness, alertness, and … 
  9. Self-doubts
     … I’m becoming a different person.” Focus on that. So when the dismissive voices come, you have something to show them: They’re not all that authoritative, not all that believable—you can’t trust them. And as for the lazy voices, ask yourself that question, “Which path is longer, the path to awakening or the path away from awakening?” And go for the … 
  10. Seeing with the Body
     … To work around this problem, the Buddha has us focus simply on the problem of suffering without asking who’s causing this, or who you are, or what you have to do to your sense of self to make it better. He says, “Just look at the suffering in and of itself.” That’s important: the “in and of itself.” That helps get you … 
  11. A Quality of the Character
     … how to analyze things, how to focus on the breath, how to develop concentration. But it always has to be within that context of virtues. And these are best picked up by being around people who are virtuous. Part of those instructions to Rahula was that if you saw you’d made a mistake, you talk it over with someone who’s more advanced … 
  12. Noble Treasures
     … If nothing else, he’d make a vow to focus his energy and his attention to really understand a problem. This aspect of meditation is all too often overlooked, especially in methods that give you a set body of instructions and say, “Just do this and don’t make any variations.” But how do you know that the results you get from just following … 
  13. Pay Careful Attention
     … The Buddha himself said that when you listen, try to focus your attention so that your mind is one with the topic that’s being discussed. In other words, it’s gathered in oneness around it. And then, he said, apply appropriate attention. Think about, “How does this apply to the problem of suffering and the end of suffering? What is it telling me … 
  14. Introduction: Meditation as a Skill
     … You focus on your breath, make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath. When it comes in, you know it’s coming in; when it goes out, you know it’s going out. Try to be as consistent as possible in staying with the breath. This means you have to develop mindfulness, to remember to stay with the breath each … 
  15. Dangers Outside & In
     … That’s why we focus on developing the mind. As we develop the mind, we learn that we can respond to outside dangers in a skillful way because we don’t feel so threatened by them. One, we accept them. But we don’t just stop with acceptance. In the case of pain, the Buddha teaches how to be with pain but not overcome … 
  16. No Arrows, Nothing
     … We train the breath—focus a lot of attention on the breath—because it’s one of our main tools in helping us settle down. But ultimately, the real issue is what the mind is doing. We mentioned this a little last night: the way the mind puts together sensations, puts together thoughts, puts together feelings—glues everything together. And then the things we … 
  17. To Disturb Your Complacency
     … Which is why when the Buddha talks about things in space and time, he tends to focus on the negative—because there’s something better. He’s not being negative just to show how negative he can be. He’s negative with a purpose—for you to want to find a happiness that’s better than this, a happiness that’s not subject to … 
  18. Protection Through the Practice
     … The focus is not just on the dangers. It’s also on the potential for your actions to make a difference, to offer you protection. If there are nothing but dangers and you couldn’t do anything about them, then heedfulness wouldn’t make any difference. It’s because you can make a difference by developing good qualities, skillful qualities, solid qualities, inside, that … 
  19. Taking the Long View
     … So, paradoxically, by taking the long view, the focus gets focused right back here, right now. But then again, that’s how the Buddha gained his awakening. He took the very long view. He saw the cycles of rebirth that beings can go through. Then his immediate reaction was to turn around and look at the mind right here in the present moment, realizing … 
  20. After the Fire
     … It’s only when you find the mind is really lopsided in one direction that you really have to focus your attention on either the more active side or the more passive side. But once things have been brought more into balance, you want to have all seven of the factors of awakening present. Sometimes you see them presented in such a way that … 
  21. On Your Own Two Feet
     … So it’s not a Catch-22, it’s simply that these two faculties of the mind—the ability to watch things and observe and come to reliable conclusions; and your inventiveness in trying out different ways to experiment with the breath and the way you focus on the breath—go hand-in-hand. They develop together. After all, a lot of things are … 
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