Search results for: "Focusing"

  1. Page 96
  2. Lessons from Jhana
     … And just being with the perception, just the one word—instead of speaking in sentences and questions, you’re just saying that one word over and over, breath, breath, breath and focusing on one sensation—can seem a little threatening, a little difficult. But if you can convince yourself that this is what the mind can do and it will have a good effect … 
  3. Friends with The Breath
     … Then you can choose any part of the body on which you’d like to stay focused. Allow your attention to settle there. It’s interesting that in Pali they talk about the object of the mind not being a focal point but being a support. So allow the breath in any spot in the body to be a support for your mind, a … 
  4. Wake Up from Addiction
     … All too often, when you get focused on something like this—be it anger, lust or whatever—your awareness narrows down and seems to be surrounded on all sides. But if you can open up your awareness, give it a foundation here in the body, and then take all these different things apart, then you see that—as they’re taken on one by … 
  5. Training in Commitment & Reflection
     … Over time, you begin to gain a sense of when the breath is too heavy, when the breath is too light, when the mind’s focus is in the wrong place, when it’s focusing too hard, or its focus is so one-pointed that it’s actually disturbing the flow of energy in the body. You begin to notice these things and then … 
  6. Acceptance
     … This is why the Buddha focuses so much attention on the issue of happiness, because all of our activities, all our selves, are aimed at happiness in one form or another. They have different understandings of what it might be, different strategies for how to get there, but they’re all aimed at the same place. A large part of the practice is learning … 
  7. In Training
     … gladdening it to make it happy to be here, getting it more concentrated, steady, still, focused, centered, so that it doesn’t wander off. If other thoughts do come into the range of your awareness, you get so that you’re just not interested in them. You train yourself to release yourself from them. Those are the basic steps. There’s more, but these … 
  8. The Uses of Right Concentration
     … He mentioned the eight factors of the path but then focused just on the first factor, right view about suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. That was enough for Ven. Añña Kondañña to experience the Dhamma eye, the first level of awakening.  We can assume that Añña Kondañña followed through from right view to develop the other factors of … 
  9. Audacious & Undaunted
     … This is why, when we meditate, we’re focusing on the present moment, what we’re doing right here right now—not because the present moment is a wonderful place to hang out, but because the present moment has power. If you’re alert, mindful, and ardent in what you’re doing in the present moment, you can have an impact right now on … 
  10. Feeding on Right Resolve
     … Instead of getting upset about what he or she cannot do, the good doctor focuses on what he or she can do to make sure the patient has, say, as little pain as possible and doesn’t develop any additional diseases. So this equanimity isn’t the equanimity that gives up on things—it’s the equanimity that puts aside things that are impossible … 
  11. The Inner Monitor
     … Here the intention is to keep the breath in mind and to keep it comfortable, to keep the mind at ease and keep it focused. Now, to maintain this intention requires three other mental qualities. The first is mindfulness, the ability keep something in mind. Then there’s alertness which watches over what you’re doing. And then there’s ardency, which is the … 
  12. Rebirth is Relevant
     … It was something you did, so he focused on how we do it. Most of us do it very unskillfully, and as a result, we suffer, again and again. But he showed that if you focus not on what gets reborn—something for which you’re not responsible—but on how it happens—something for which you are responsible—you can learn to handle … 
  13. Restraint
     … In this case the Buddha says the stake is mindfulness immersed in the body—as when you’re focused on the breath. You breathe in and out in a way that gives rise to rapture, gives rise to pleasure, that gladdens the mind, concentrates the mind. You can breathe with a sense of the whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out. This … 
  14. Why We Meditate
     … It’s how the mind talks to itself, how it focuses on things, how it observes things, what it learns, the skills it has in dealing with itself and with events around it. That’s where the secret to happiness lies. This is why we meditate, and it’s good to keep this in mind at all times, because there will be a tendency … 
  15. But Not Sick in Mind
     … Then there’s the question of whether your mind can stay focused, or is it pulling off in other directions? If so, why is it pulling there? Look into it. When they talk about acceptance as a part of the practice, what it means is that you accept the situation as it is in the present moment so that you can figure out what … 
  16. Mindful of the Buddha’s Shoulds
     … This is the path we’re on right now—focusing on the body, just the body in and of itself, as it breathes in, as it breathes out, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. We keep this frame of reference in mind so that we don’t get entangled in the greed and distress that come with … 
  17. Do Jhana
     … This is why his meditation instructions are not just about how to get focused, say, on the breath, but also how to think about your distractions so that you don’t get entangled with them. There’s a sutta where Rahula, the Buddha’s son, comes to ask him how to do breath meditation. The Buddha doesn’t start right in with his instructions … 
  18. Stay Principled
    When we practice concentration or mindfulness, we tend spend a lot of time focusing on the technique: where to focus the mind, how to stay with the point of your focus or the theme of the meditation; how to work with it so that the mind can begin to settle down and stay settled down. There are even skills techniques how to leave meditation … 
  19. Acceptance Without Suffering
     … You’re focusing on how bad it was, how outrageous it was, how they shouldn’t have done that. Maybe you want to see them suffer. That’s when your anger turns into ill-will. When you see this happening, you can tell yourself, “Okay, this kind of thinking is not helping. There are other ways I can look at the situation.” You can … 
  20. Kindfulness
    Kindfulness May 1, 2010 As you train the mind, focusing on the breath, allowing the breath to be comfortable, trying to become friends with the breath, it’s a very direct way of showing goodwill to yourself and to the people around you. Goodwill for yourself in the sense that you learn how to develop a source of happiness that comes from within. Your … 
  21. Toward Release
     … So we start developing those powers and functions of the mind in the right direction by focusing them on something direct and immediate: the process of breathing. When the Buddha talks about the factors for awakening, there are two processes or two exercises that he says are really helpful: one is to develop appropriate attention, the ability to ask the right questions; and the … 
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