Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 95
  2. Single-minded Determination
     … When you observe the precepts, you have to focus on your intentions all the time. As you get to know your intentions, you begin to realize that the mind is like a committee. Sometimes it’s not just a committee — it’s a whole crowd. Even concentration is not the kind of single-mindedness we’re talking about, but it’s a basic prerequisite … 
  3. Magha Puja: Showing Respect with the Practice
     … To focus on the breath, to know when it’s coming in, to know when it’s going out, is called focusing on form—the way you feel the body from within. And allow it to be comfortable. After all, the mind won’t stay if it’s not comfortable. As you can depend more and more on the sense of feeling centered, it … 
  4. The Identity Crutch
     … I’ve got some tools I can use with to deal with this problem—things I’ve been learning in dealing with the breath, learning how to focus on the breath, learning how to spread a sense of ease through the body, learning to develop that sense of ease in a way that’s not dependent on things outside. That may be a useful … 
  5. False Friends
     … You’ve got to have your one spot that’s your primary focus, but once you’ve developed a sense of ease at that spot, you think in the ease spreading throughout the different parts of the body. You could think of it as honey spreading through all the open spaces in the body, around any spots of tension or tightness, and going all … 
  6. The Languages of Right View
     … But here we’re trying to focus it on training the mind to see how we’re creating unnecessary suffering for ourselves and how we can stop doing that. That means learning how to step back and watch the mind talk and not get too involved in the conversation. Ask yourself, “This conversation, where is it going? Is that where I want to go … 
  7. All of a Piece
     … As you focus on the results, developing these habits on an outside level helps you develop them on the inside levels as well. This way, the good things you do are all of a piece. The good you do on the external level is a very important contribution to good you’re going to find inside.
  8. Potentials for Energy
     … And if you believe that the Buddha was awakened, and that he proved that human beings can do this, that gives focus to your desire—and a lot of energy right there. Ven. Ananda would recommend that you augment your conviction with conceit and craving. Conceit, for him, was the thought, “There are beings who have found an end to suffering. They’re human … 
  9. Noble & True
     … The desires that are good for you are the ones that focus on trying to give rise to skillful qualities when they’re not there, and to develop them when they are. Or the desires to abandon unskillful qualities and once you’ve abandoned them, try to keep them from coming up again. Those kinds of desires are worth fostering because they’re part … 
  10. Trading Up
     … So focus on something here in the present moment that’s not a sensual pleasure, but is a pleasure: the way you breathe. And if you’re not sure that the way you breathe is a pleasure, try holding your breath for a while. Finally, when you can’t hold it any longer and you start breathing in, the in-breath feels really good … 
  11. An Ennobling Pleasure
     … You’ve got an alternative type of pleasure to focus on. As the Buddha once said, no matter how much you may understand and mentally assent to the fact that there are dangers in sensuality, if you don’t have access to this alternative pleasure, you’re not going to give up your sensual desires. You’ve got to have this alternative to fall … 
  12. Discernment Through Ardency & Evaluation
     … You’ve got to develop your powers of evaluation, one, to evaluate cause and effect; and two, to figure out, okay, what’s a good effect? And when you’ve got something good, what do you do to develop it, to make the most of it? So you focus on the breath and find which way of breathing feels good. Once you’ve got … 
  13. Tuning Your Lute
     … If you can’t get the mind focused in a broad way, okay, focus on a small part of the body, but make it really strong. Do whatever it is needed to lift your level of energy. Then you can retune your lute as you play. It’s important that you understand that analogy. It’s not the case that everything goes up together … 
  14. Take an Interest
     … When anger comes, when fear comes, when you’re lying awake at night and can’t get to sleep, you can focus on the breath. It’s like having something to play with, or a friend to talk to at any time at all. And as with any friend, when you don’t know the friend very well, you just sit there and you … 
  15. Delight in Conviction
     … There are a lot of potentials you have here for understanding yourself, understanding your breath, understanding the way you talk to yourself, understanding the perceptions you hold in mind—even the feelings you focus on. These are not just random things. They’re things that you play a role in shaping. With some good guidance, you can learn how to shape them well. The … 
  16. The Mind Set Tall
     … We often focus on the good side of the lust without wanting to look at the bad. And again, you’re not going to be able to uproot that until you’ve looked at both sides. Exactly what gratification do you get out of it? Sometimes it seems obvious, but it’s not really. You have to look little bit deeper. And you have … 
  17. A Meditator’s Environment
     … But you start with the right view in general, to give yourself the right perspective, to focus your eyes in the right direction. Then do your best to see clearly what’s there. This is how you create a good environment for the practice. This applies to monks; it applies to laypeople. It gives you a strong sense that you’re not just on … 
  18. Shelter Through Restraint
     … The part of the mind that doesn’t like the idea of restraint feels like it’s being hemmed in, but when you narrow your focus like this, you see things a lot more clearly. You stay in what the Buddha calls your ancestral field as a meditator. This is where our ancestors all stayed. By staying here, you get to see anything that … 
  19. Look at Yourself
     … That’s the primary focus because that’s where the primary problem is—and it’s also where the solution could be found.
  20. There’s Work to Be Done
     … If you focus directly on them, they’ll resist even more. They’re like wild animals. If you stare at a wild animal, it’ll run away. If you act like you don’t know that it’s there, it’ll hang around for a while and not feel so threatened. So when you’re first dealing with these blockages inside—and they’re … 
  21. A Taste of Freedom
     … This is why we focus on the breath. It’s your anchor in the present moment. There’s no past breath you can watch. There’s no future breath you can watch. When you’re with the sensation of the breathing, you know you’re in the present. And when you’ve made up your mind to stay here, then with anything else that … 
  22. Load next page...