Search results for: "Focus"
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- Questioning Impermanence… the body, how do they affect the breath? How does the breath affect them? When you think about the breath, does that change the breath? Some people, as soon as they focus on the breath, tense up around it. That’s their way of keeping something focused and under control. But that doesn’t last very long. How can you stay with the breath …
- Trustworthy Judgment… Set up the question in your mind and then put it aside, focus on the breath, stay with the breath. Get the mind so that it’s really solid and still, and then from that perspective you can start contemplating the issue. Then do it again, and then again, just to make sure. You want to develop the kind of habit where you don …
- Truths of the Will… So you focus on the breath. And whatever energy is required to keep the mind with the breath, you apply that energy. Whatever skill is needed to pull away from any disturbances, any hindrances, any distractions, you apply that skill. You keep at it. Of course, truths of the observer require a certain amount of will for you to know them. In other words …
- The Intelligent Heart… If you want to succeed in that desire, you have to focus it on the causes. You have to make sure that the desire is well-balanced, not so intense that it gets in the way of seeing clearly what you need to do, and not so weak that you don’t have the energy to do it. You train your desire to be …
- Mindfulness Like a Dam… But if you focus it on one channel, it has a lot of force. So we’re going to use this force to clean up what’s in the mind. You’re going to find things you don’t like in the mind, but they’re not going to stay there. Your ability to see them is the first step toward washing them away …
- Harmlessness… And even when you can’t focus entirely on the breath, or give it your 100% attention, you can still make it the framework. Even though you’re aware of what’s going on outside and you’re responding to what’s going on outside, you can still be aware of the breath energy in the body. It may be too much to ask …
- The Sport of Wise People… But you can’t let yourself lose your focus on keeping the bowl of oil balanced on your head. You should have that kind of respect for your concentration—and, as I said, for the concentration of the people around you. There’s that old saying that silence is golden. So if you’re going to break silence, what you have to say should …
- Insight from Developing Concentration… Ajaan Lee recommends that you use, not the perception of air coming in and out of the lungs, but the perception of the energy in the body as your main focus. Think of the breath as going throughout the body, the energy throughout the body. Hold that perception in mind. Note the words in those instructions: attention, intention, feeling, perception. Those are mental actions …
- Feeding While You Work… So you focus on the breath and learn to how to enjoy the pleasure at the same time. When things aren’t quite balanced, you bring them back into balance again. This requires a lot of attention, a lot of concerted intention. The best parallels are with manual skills: playing music, creating a piece of carpentry or joinery like a set of drawers. You …
- Awaken to Your Potentials… It may depend on how you breathe, where you focus in the body, or what image you have of the breath. After all, perception plays a very important role in concentration. Everything up through the dimension of nothingness, the Buddha calls “perception attainments.” So what perception would be best right now? You’re getting the mind to settle in with a sense of awareness …
- Ask Yourself the Buddha’s Question… But if you think in terms of “What am I doing?” then you can focus on the actual causes of your problems. Your sense of “you” is too large and vague to tackle. But an action, a thought, a word, a deed: Those are things you can look at. You can break them down—and you can change them. So follow the Buddha’s …
- Relating to Kamma… You focus on the practice. You may not be able to get all the way to nibbana in this lifetime, but your efforts are not wasted. You can pick up in the practice again; you can create the conditions for being able to pick it up again after you die. So there are lots of ways you can learn how to get a better …
- Coping & Beyond Coping… We create that place by giving the mind something good to focus on, something nearby—the breath, the way you feel the body from inside. When we talk about the breath, it’s not the air coming in and out through the nose. It’s more the feeling of energy that flows through the body as you breathe in, as you breathe out. It …
- Licking Yourself Clean… Your focus isn’t interfering with it. You feel good just sitting here. The amount of pressure you put on the present moment is just right: not too light, not too heavy. That’s something that comes with practice. So, pay careful attention to what you’re doing, because that’s how you learn. That’s how the meditation becomes your own.
- Visakha Puja – True Homage… suffering and how we can learn how not to cause suffering. Those are the symbols, but we don’t want just the symbols. We want the reality. So let’s meditate. Focus on your breath. Know when the breath is coming in, know when it’s going out. They say that the Buddha, on the night of his awakening, was focusing on his breath …
- Non-Verbal Discernment… Get a sense of what kind of breath feels right for settling the mind, where you want it focused, how broad you want your focus to be. Some people will verbalize this more than others, but the important thing is the skill. And remember, it took a Buddha to come up with the vocabulary that we use for our meditation. There have been a …
- The Psychology of Virtue… We focus on something we really want, and then we take on an identity as the person who might be able to get that and will enjoy having it; and then there’s the world in which that, whatever it is, is going to be located: That’s becoming. So you’ve got to learn about how to undo these things—not so much …
- Duties… It’s simply a question of where you focus your desires. That determines what duties you have to take on. And although the path may seem long, the not-path is longer. The Buddha’s image is of a person driving a cart. As long as you stay on the road, the cart will be okay. When you get off the road, you break …
- Loving Yourself… The trick is not to let yourself get depressed or down about your unskillful intentions—whether past or present—but to focus instead on the fact that you do have skillful intentions in here, too. And the more you follow those skillful intentions, the stronger they’re going to get. They may seem artificial sometimes. You might find yourself saying, “That’s not the …
- Endurance & Equanimity… You’ve got your point of focus. So try to use some discernment in your restraint. Realize that you don’t want your goodness to depend on the goodness of other people, because their goodness is an extremely undependable support. You want to depend on your determination. Remember we’re here to develop the perfections, and the perfections have to be developed by determination …
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