Search results for: "Focusing"

  1. Page 97
  2. How to Use the Teaching on Kamma
     … This is why we’re focusing on the breath in the present moment. We want to catch the mind in the present moment because that’s the source of all our karma. People in the time of the Buddha had lots of different teachings about karma. One of the prevalent ones was that the most important karma was what your body was doing, and … 
  3. Faith in the Practice
     … As the mind begins to settle down, you really do find a sense of pleasure that comes from simply sitting here still, focused on a very comfortable sensation in the body and learning how to maintain it without squeezing it and cutting it off, or just blissing out: as Ajaan Fuang used to say, “just letting your hands and feet go limp” and just … 
  4. Maintaining Goodwill
     … But to get the best use out of the meditation, you have to be good at focusing the mind, and then maintaining that concentration. Because in the maintaining comes the steadiness that you’re going to need in order to see things. When something moves in the mind, you don’t have to move along with it. When you can learn that skill, you … 
  5. Intelligent about Change
     … The focus strengthens the breath, and then as the breath gets more consistently comfortable, you find that it gets easier to stay focused. The two qualities help each other along—strength of focus and strength of body—but the preliminary strength comes from your concentration. So remember that strength of mind is what matters most, much more than the strength of the body. Because … 
  6. Selves with Skills
     … To begin with, you’ve got the breath that you’re focusing on. Where in the body are you feeling it right now? Focus your attention there. Try to keep it there. That’s going to require that you talk to yourself about it. In other words, if you notice that the mind is wandering off, you remind yourself to come right back. Then … 
  7. Read the Breath
     … So we’re sitting here focusing on the breath not simply because the breath can become a comfortable place to stay—although it is a good place to hang out, with a sense of ease in the present moment. The Buddha said that is one of the rewards of concentration, but you can’t just sit there and eat up the rewards. Ajaan Lee … 
  8. Looking at Your Life
     … It gives the mind the strength it needs to be true to itself, not to be a traitor to its deepest motivation, and the strength to be able to give up things that are going be difficult to give up, knowing that you can develop a sense of well-being just sitting here with your eyes closed, focused on the breath. That gives you … 
  9. Sensitivity & Strength
     … If you liked focusing on the breath, that was fine as well. If you liked to think of any of the 32 parts of the body, if you found that conducive to a state of calm and detachment, that would be fine, too, because the whole point of concentration is to give the mind an object it feels comfortable with. In some cases, it … 
  10. The Reality of Your Thoughts
     … And focusing here on the breath puts you in a position where you can think from that perspective. So even though there are some constraints on what we could possibly think and possibly do at any one time, those constraints don’t prevent us from doing what’s skillful. So always try to look for that: What’s the skillful way of dealing with … 
  11. Breath Meditation: The Fourth Tetrad
     … In this way, focusing on the inconstancy of the pain—and the inconstancy of the images that get in the way, that make the pain worse than it has to be, more of an obstruction than it has to be—will allow you to develop some dispassion for your old ways of seeing things. Then, with dispassion, the obstruction those images create can cease … 
  12. Change Your Perceptions
    When you’re focused on the breath, you need a perception to hold you there. The perception can be an image you hold in mind—a visual image, a word, a little sign to remind you that this is where you want to stay. If it’s a visual perception, this is where Ajaan Lee’s instructions become handy, because remember, when we talk … 
  13. Imagine
     … All of this comes from creating that spot in the body where it feels good to stay focused. Then learning how to maintain it. Then inspecting it to see where you can expand it, where you can make it more stable. And then adjusting it in various ways: using your imagination to think at least of the possibility that the breath could be more … 
  14. Fabricating Around Pain
     … You’re talking to yourself about the breath, focusing your attention on the breath, and commenting on it, asking questions about it. Is long breathing good, or is shorter breathing? Deep? Shallow? Once you’ve found a breath that’s good, how do you maintain it? And then when you maintain it, what do you do with it? These are questions you ask yourself … 
  15. Skills for Awakening
     … Concentration keeps you focused on what you’re doing. Equanimity is needed to observe things carefully so that you can make clear and accurate judgments. Here, as we meditate, we’re observing the mind as we’re trying to get it calm and still, because when it gets still, you see things more clearly. But we don’t simply stop with the calm and … 
  16. People Suffer from Their Thinking
     … You’ve got to convince yourself this is a worthwhile activity, sitting here focusing on your breath. Then you have to think about letting the breath be comfortable, trying not to force the breath too much, just noticing what kind of rhythm of breathing feels good right now. This requires some thought, but it’s constructive thought. It’s okay to think and pose … 
  17. Full-Body Breath
     … You come out of delusion concentration and say, “Where was I? What was I focused on?” Not anything in the body, not anything you could really put your finger on. It’s pleasant. It’s nice. But it’s delusion concentration. To stay firmly planted in the present moment, it’s good to establish full-body awareness. It’s as if you nail your … 
  18. An Auspicious Night
     … If you keep focused on doing your duty ardently here in the present moment and stopping every now and then to gauge how well you’re doing, you’re following the Buddha’s example. That’s how the Buddha gained his awakening. Nobody taught him the path to awakening. He found it by doing the best things he could imagine doing and then looking … 
  19. Thinking Seriously about Happiness
     … We’re using the body, focused on the breath, as our object of meditation, trying to feel the body, the entire body, from the top of the head down to the tips of the toes, as we’re grounding the mind. So even though the body does have its limitations, it does have its uses as well. It’s just that you have a … 
  20. Perceiving the Breath
     … Your best way of dealing with them is to give the mind something really interesting to focus on, something to explore here in the present moment, whatever feels good and gives you an immediate sense of reward for focusing in a particular way and just staying right here. Having this good place to come back to is one of the prime ways of training … 
  21. Beyond Inter-eating
     … And it focuses your attention on the right place: that regardless of the conditions of your life, if you focus on acting skillfully, things are going to improve. But conviction also strengthens you in the sense that it alerts you to the fact that there’s a danger here as well. If you look at your intentions in your untrained mind, then you realize … 
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