Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 96
  2. Unhindered at Death
     … Maintain your focus on the present moment, because that is the spot where you’re going to be making your choices. If you’re just drifting off, drifting off, the choices are getting made for you in one of the subconscious areas of your mind Now, the subconscious tends to follow old habits. It’s the part of the mind that doesn’t really … 
  3. Fear of Mistakes
     … As you focus on the breath, you have the breath as your topic. You direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath, evaluate the mind in relationship to the breath: Is the breath comfortable? How do you know if it’s comfortable? Well, you test it. Try different ways of breathing, and then you can decide which one is best for giving … 
  4. The Alternative of Concentration
     … One of the reasons we focus on the breath is because you can create a sense of ease that makes it easier for the mind to settle in. You breathe in such a way that the body doesn’t feel tense. You adjust it so that you don’t go off into the other extreme of getting so loosened up that you get really … 
  5. The Strength of Conviction
     … So as you focus on the breath, don’t expect that it’ll always settle down in the same way. Sometimes you find yourself suddenly focused on the earth element in the body. Everything gets very solid. And depending on how you feel about it, it can be either very pleasant or very unpleasant. It’s unpleasant when you want it to be something … 
  6. Attached to Concentration
     … In his Method Two, Ajaan Lee gives a fairly detailed guidelines on where you can focus on the breath and the different ways the breath can flow in the body, but if you look in his Dhamma talks, you’ll see that he played with the breath in lots of other ways as well. He was always coming up with new ways of conceiving … 
  7. Wearing the Breath
     … Where do you feel the flow of energy as the air comes in, the air goes out right now? Where is it most prominent? Focus your attention there and try to figure out which ways of breathing feel best. Again, you’re feeling it; you’re wearing it. It’s what nowadays we call proprioception: your sense of the body as you feel it … 
  8. Comparing Mind
     … So if you find yourself comparing yourself with other people, try to focus in on the actions that you can learn from. And even then you have to learn how to look all around. Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about the pride he developed over the fact that he was able to observe the dhutanga practices better than any of the other monks staying with … 
  9. Sober Up
     … You have to look at the way you’re breathing, you have to look at the way you’re talking to yourself, you have to look at the perceptions you hold in mind and the feelings you focus on. You have to see where they’ve been kidnapped by your defilements, and where you’ve got to exert yourself to get them back. The … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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.
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
  22. Load next page...