Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 93
  2. King Asoka’s Vow
     … Where are the best places to focus? What is the best way to breathe? What’s the best way to picture the breath to yourself? These are things you do and then you check up on the results. You’re alert to what you’re doing. If you’re not alert to what you’re doing, then you can’t really gauge the results … 
  3. Bowing & Chanting
     … We always say that when you’re meditating and listening to a Dhamma talk at the same time, you want to focus mainly on your meditation. But when you’re chanting, try to think about the meaning of the chants and what that meaning implies. It gives you something to think about. It pulls you away from all the garbage that’s being disseminated … 
  4. The Safety of Jhana
     … You can breathe, learn to focus the mind, let the mind settle down, become unified around the breath, and you’ve got a source of pleasure that’s totally your own and has no drawbacks, carries no blame. It does have its limitations. After all, it is conditioned. And the Buddha says, if you stay attached to it—in other words, if you’re … 
  5. Gradually Sudden
     … If you develop your powers of concentration, develop your mindfulness, and focus on the question of how not to fall for these things, the steps gradually begin to slow down, and you can see them clearly. When you see them clearly, you begin to see how empty many of them are. The mind does have its funny reasons. And one of the reasons it … 
  6. The Size of Your Eyes
     … And when you come to sit and meditate and focus on the breath, the greed and the anger and the aversion – all these other distracting things – are going to be in charge. And then it’s going to be a big battle. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be impossible to settle down, but you’re just making it that much more … 
  7. Boxed Stories
     … Just be in the sense of the body as you feel it from within, and see what you can do to make it as comfortable as possible, through the way you breathe, through the way you focus. Or just relax certain muscles in different parts of the body—the backs of the hands, the tops of the feet—and see if that pattern of … 
  8. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … Heedfulness doesn’t focus just on the negative. If everything were negative, heedfulness wouldn’t make any difference. The whole point of heedfulness is that you can make a difference through the way you act. You can make a difference through the way you think and talk to yourself. There is safety that can be found. So spend as much time as you can … 
  9. Respect for Concentration
     … How does this breath feel? Is it good enough? If it’s not, well, what would make it better? This helps you focus on what the real issue is, which is that you’ve got to get the mind to settle down in a place where it likes to settle down. So you do your best to create that nice spot. And then your … 
  10. Pleasure on the Middle Way
     … We have the choice as to which ones we’re going to focus on and develop. So as we practice, we make the most of that by being very conscious of what these feelings can do to us. There are some pains that are actually useful for the practice, others that are not. There are pleasures that are useful for the practice. They have … 
  11. Friendship Leading to Seclusion
    We come here to gain some seclusion so that we can focus on what’s going on inside the mind. The texts talk about three kinds of seclusion: bodily seclusion, mental seclusion, and then seclusion from your attachments. Bodily seclusion is when you’re away from other people, as when you go off and sit in your hut, sit in your tent, sit under … 
  12. Gladden, Steady, Release
     … Your best preparation for the future lies in these qualities that get developed as you stay with the breath, as you focus on the breath. This is your safe place. If you stay here long enough, you can develop a sense of ease, a sense of well-being that nobody else can touch. Nobody even has to know that you have it. But you … 
  13. The Problem Is Birth
     … In the beginning, you don’t have to focus on the unattractive side of these things. Just be objective—“What have you got in here?” As the Buddha said, it’s like opening a sack filled with beans and rice and seeing what kind of beans you have, what kind of rice you have. Or you can develop thoughts of goodwill. Get the mind … 
  14. The Pursuit of Happiness & Goodness
     … Find the sensitive spots in the body that respond to different ways of breathing, that let you know, “Okay, this way of breathing is really good,” and focus there. As the Buddha said, indulge in it. Not to the point where you lose the breath and just go for the pleasure. Remember the breath. The fact that you’re attentive to the breath is … 
  15. Endurance
     … Which spot in the body seems to be most sensitive to the breath coming in going out? Focus your attention there. And see what kind of breathing feels really good there. If the mind wanders off, bring it back. You’re trying to protect this sense of well-being right in that spot inside. That will be something you can learn to depend on … 
  16. A Point of Balance
     … So as you focus the mind right here on the breath, you’re putting yourself in a position where you really can solve the problem of suffering and its cause. If you’re not right here, you’re wide of the mark.
  17. Like Earth and Space
     … So you put them out of your mind and you just focus on the fact that everything around you is earth. Your body is earth. The things you’re sitting on are earth, the trees above you. Here we are in a building, the building is earth property. As the Buddha said, it’s like taking a cowhide and stretching it with a thousand … 
  18. Noble & True
     … through the body, so that no part of the body is untouched by that sense of wellbeing. There may be little pains here and there, but don’t pay them attention. Focus primary attention on the sensation of comfort that you’re gaining here right now, because it’s a blameless comfort; it’s a blameless pleasure. Again, that’s something that makes the … 
  19. Guarded
     … You focus on doing good where you can—both inside and out—and that becomes your strength. The ajaans talk often talk about the need for a fence. As Ajaan Maha Boowa says, virtue is a fence for your thoughts, words, and deeds. Concentration, in particular, is a fence for your mind. It’s through discernment that you learn how not to need those … 
  20. Selecting from the Teachings
     … So focus on the breath, because, to begin with, that’s the element through which you experience the whole rest of your body. We tend to think of ourselves as being in the solid part of the body, and that the breath comes in and out of that. But actually our whole awareness of the body, from the head down to the toes, out … 
  21. Hitting a Wall
     … If your energy is running out, your mind is distracted, it’s hard to focus, okay, you’re pushing yourself too hard. If you’re not pushing yourself hard enough, there are also telltale signs. You’re going to sleep without any sense of having expanded your range in the course of the day. That’s a telltale sign right there. There should be … 
  22. Load next page...