Search results for: "Focusing"

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  2. Observe Yourself in Action
     … You’re focused on the breath and talking to yourself about the breath. You have images that you hold in mind about how the breath flows through the body. And of course, there are the feeling tones. In fact, the feeling tones are how the states of jhāna are defined. That’s just one of the links, one of the more important links, in … 
  3. Training the Committee
     … As we’re sitting here focusing on the breath, sometimes there comes a sense of frustration. The mind is not willing to settle down. Or sometimes it’s just not simply in the mood to meditate. This is where it’s convenient to think about the mind as not being just one entity. There are lots of minds in there. It’s like a … 
  4. The Need for Right View
     … got to work on the factors of the path, to develop them. So this is where right view helps you. It gives you a sense of what needs to be done: focusing on what your intentions are right now, what choices you have to make. Right view helps direct those choices in a fruitful direction. Now, as the path develops, you get a greater … 
  5. The Power to Transcend Suffering
     … ss put down in the heart, so we can pull them all out. And one of the tools the Buddha gives us is breath meditation, what we’re doing right now: focusing on the breath as it comes in, as it goes out. Sometimes you wonder, “What does this have to do with understanding suffering?” It has lots to do. One, it gets us … 
  6. The Walls of Ignorance
     … This is why he focuses the Four Noble Truths on the suffering that comes from craving and ignorance. There’s a natural stress in the fact that things change, but our real problem is that we create extra suffering through our craving and ignorance. As long as we have the habit of putting up walls in the mind, we’re in a position where … 
  7. Contemplation of the Body
     … That’s why people have so many excuses for not focusing right here. If you don’t focus right here, what’s going to happen? You’re going to maintain your deep attachment to the body. It’s not going to go away on its own. Some people think they can short circuit the process of attachment by going straight to their sense of … 
  8. A Strong Sense of Self
     … But when the breath starts feeling good in the spot you’ve been focusing on, it’s very easy to drop the breath and focus on the sense of comfort. In that case, you lose the basis of your concentration. So the Buddha’s next recommendation is to breathe in and out aware of the whole body. And it’s good to build up … 
  9. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … You’re focusing primarily on your behavior and not letting the standards of the world take over. There are lots of unskillful things that the world will let you do and turn a blind eye or, sometimes, actually encourage you to do. They really are against the Dhamma, really against the principle of finding true happiness inside. So you want to take the standards … 
  10. Arising & Passing Away
     … So he goes to see the Buddha: “Why did these monks all have such different answers?” And the Buddha replies, “It’s because at the moment when they gained insight, that was the topic they were focused on.” You can focus on any of these topics, but you don’t know beforehand which is the one that’s going to work for you. So … 
  11. Wisdom for Dummies
     … Third, train your mind to develop better and better answers to the question that focuses on what you’re really responsible for: what you can do that will lead to your long-term welfare and happiness. Then take advantage of the tools the Buddha offers so that it’s easier to give up the things that you like doing that are harmful, and to … 
  12. Selfing & Not-selfing
     … You’re not focused so much on the self, but on the skills that you can develop, and your sense of who you are and of what’s possible in this world will grow until you get to something that doesn’t require “world” and doesn’t require “self” at all. That’s when you can put everything down. Although, when you put it … 
  13. Slowing Down to Look
     … staying focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with the world. That’s one of the four frames of reference. You develop that in such a way that you also develop concentration, unification of the mind, stability, steadiness. That state of the mind is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Or to follow … 
  14. The Sublime Attitudes
     … Ajaan Suwat once gave a Dhamma talk on this reflection, focusing on the difference between the anatta teaching and this one statement. Form, feeling, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness: These are not self. But we are the owners of our actions. “Think about that,” he said. In other words, don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that … 
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