Search results for: "Focus"

  1. Page 96
  2. Calm & Insight into Pain
    Focus on your breath. Notice where you feel the breathing process in the body. It’s good at the beginning of the meditation to breathe in a way that feels energizing, because you’re going to be calming things down, and if you start out already calm and a little sluggish, calm breathing just makes you more sluggish. So deep in-breaths can energize … 
  3. Brahmaviharas at the Breath
     … Can you switch your focus to see where it emanates from, and to make sure that it doesn’t run into any restrictions as it spreads through the body? And how are you relating to the breath? Breath instructions often begin by saying, “Watch the breath.” But that can create some problems. Tell yourself, “Don’t watch the breath. Feel it. Wear it. Bathe … 
  4. To Gladden the Mind
     … In that case, you drop the breath and focus on an inspiring theme to give rise to a feeling of joy, which will have a good effect on the mind. In his breath meditation instructions, he says a similar thing: First you get sensitive to the state of the mind, and then if you need to gladden it, that’s what you do. Give … 
  5. The Core of Experience
     … In other words, you focus on “What does this action lead to?” The treasure of compunction is something the Buddha encourages us to develop within us so that we can find the happiness he found in the same way that he found it: by looking inside and seeing that there is a core in here—not something you would say is you or yours … 
  6. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … The more confident you are in just staying with whatever sensation seems like breath, staying with whatever focus you have on the breath, the more you open up possibilities. It’s in this way that you can settle in and become steadfast. You stay right here. And then be resolute in pushing through. In other words, any other obstacles that come up, just push … 
  7. Universal Truths
     … Or if you find it difficult to sit and focus on stress, then you might want to develop some of the qualities that go into making up the path. So these are the duties of right view. The Buddha doesn’t impose them on anyone. He doesn’t force anyone to carry out these duties—but the stress and suffering that we suffer from … 
  8. Caring Enough to Doubt
     … Do you really care about happiness? Are you serious about it? Not serious in the sense of being grim, but have you had enough of false happiness, happiness that’s let you down? If you decide you’ve had enough, okay then, focus on the practice. One of the ways to you get yourself motivated to practice, the Buddha said, is to have the … 
  9. Disenchantment
     … These are the basic elements the Buddha has us focus on as we concentrate. First, of course, we learn how to dress them up in a new way. In other words, bring the directed thought and evaluation to the breath, to create feelings of comfort. You use your perceptions to maintain that sense of comfort. So these elements—the fabrication and intention that we … 
  10. Circumspection
     … When you’re focusing on the breath, how strong is your focus? When you’re holding a concept of the breath in mind, what is the concept? The best way to ferret these things out is to experiment. You look at the various ways Ajaan Lee has of explaining the breath energy in the body. Those all come from his experimentation, and part of … 
  11. Exercising the Mind
    Focus on your breath. Breathe in deep. Let the breath go out on its own. Now keep watch over the mind to stay with the breath. The breath is happening all the time. What’s going to make a difference is the consistency with which you watch it. Try to stay steadily right here. I remember the first time I read a book talking … 
  12. The Desire to Be Free from Desire
     … You have to want to focus on the breath and to put aside any thoughts that would pull you away. The Buddha recommends three qualities to help with this. One is mindfulness, the ability to keep something in mind. Then there’s alertness, the ability to know what you’re doing while you’re doing it. And then ardency: Ardency is basically right effort … 
  13. Determination
     … What’s good about the Buddha’s teachings is that they give you something to live for, something to focus on even though there are social forces beyond your control. You develop the perfections of the mind in an imperfect world because it’s the qualities of the mind that really count. In another one of the Buddha’s teachings, he calls those your … 
  14. Friends Inside
     … Without his teaching us the path, would you have ever thought to sit down and close your eyes and focus on your breath that it would accomplish anything? Very few people in the world realize that true happiness doesn’t come from getting things or having nice friends. It comes from training the mind. Nice things and good friends are good, but your real … 
  15. Pride
     … When we’re proud, we tend to focus on our strong points, but as for our weak points, we tend to hide them—from others and from ourselves. There was a student of Ajaan Fuang’s who was a little mentally unbalanced. He was very intelligent and very proud of his intelligence, but there were other aspects in his character that were extreme weaknesses … 
  16. Ven. Ananda’s Awakening
     … In other words, you focus your desires on the causes—what will take you there. So here we are: Sitting in meditation, but not thinking about awakening. We’re thinking about our breath, because thinking about the breath gets the mind to settle down with a sense of ease in the present moment, which is where the work is to be done. Wanting to … 
  17. The Form of the Body
     … That’s what we’re trying to focus attention on, and that requires looking at the body in such way that its importance can begin to fade. It looms less and less large in our concern. But that requires a lot of work. We have to chant that chant every day. We have to contemplate this issue every day, every day. “This body of … 
  18. Mindworms
     … tell yourself: That’s not-self now. You’re not responsible for that any more. What you are responsible for is your present karma, the decisions you’re making right now. Focus on to those decisions, abd in particular hold on to the decision to stay back, to stay out. That’s something you want to hold to really strongly. Then you remined yourself … 
  19. Forging a Path
     … This is why we focus on the breath. Of all the various elements in the world, it’s the closest to our awareness, and it’s one of the functions in the body over which we actually have some control. You can try long breathing, short breathing, heavy, light, shallow, deep. Experiment to see what kind of breathing feels best right now. This does … 
  20. Meaning & Happiness
     … And give your life a focus that really does give it meaning. You can think of the Buddha. He worked all those many, many lifetimes to become Buddha, not only for his own purpose but also so that he could teach. But there was a fascinating incident right after his awakening. He began to have second thoughts about that teaching career. This got a … 
  21. Sit with It
     … There’s got to be some place where you get the mind to settle in so that you can practice this strength of mind, so that someday when you actually are dying and there is no place in the body where you can focus, the mind doesn’t lose its bearings and doesn’t forget the lessons it learned from the meditation. So as … 
  22. Load next page...