Quotes About Focus

This dew-like life will fade away; avoid involvement in superfluous things.

jijuy?-zammai, or zazen

shikan-taza (just doing zazen)

Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water. Be Absorbed by Your Subject

Today is our most precious possession. It is our only sure possession.

Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass...if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass...slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own...structure.

Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.

one of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate.

Keep busy. The worried person must lose himself in action, lest he wither in despair.

Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. . . . Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. . . . The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. . . . The future is today. . . . There is no tomorrow.

Let's do as General Eisenhower does: let's never waste a minute thinking about people we don't like.

All things are ready if the mind be so.

Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important. Nothing else is so flattering as that.

In almost any subject, your passion for the subject will save you. If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be good, you will be good. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. Only then you must really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness and not wish one hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.

Those two priceless abilities: first, the ability to think. Second, the ability to do things in the order of their importance.

Good Working Habit No. 1: Clear Your Desk of All Papers Except Those Relating to the Immediate Problem at Hand.

We cannot be pepped up and enthusiastic about doing something exciting and feel dragged down by worry at the very same time. One kind of emotion drives out the other.

You will recall that the White Queen said: "The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam today." Most of us are like that—stewing about yesterday's jam and worrying about tomorrow's jam—instead of spreading today's jam thick on our bread right now.

Good Working Habit No. 2: Do Things in the Order of Their Importance.

One grain of sand at a time. One task at a time.

I realized that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking.

it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than one thing at any given time.

Nh?ng công vi?c ? ngay trÆ°á»›c m?t ta ph?i coi là quan tr?ng nh?t, và ??ng b?n tâm tá»›i nh?ng công vi?c còn m? m? t? xa

When we start in the morning, there are hundreds of tasks which we feel that we must accomplish that day, but if we do not take them one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains of sand passing through the narrow neck of the hourglass, then we are bound to break our own physical or mental structure.