Maintaining Concentration

The question sometimes arises: After you’ve done the body scan, you finally settle down at one spot and you spread your awareness to fill the entire body, and then, what’s next? “What’s next” is just maintaining what you’ve got. Try to make sure that no other thought comes in to disturb the stillness of your awareness. Now, if your focus begins to get a little bit vague, a little bit blurry, go back to the body scan. Or you can focus special attention on any one spot where you find that there’s an energy problem. As that strengthens your concentration, then you can go back to the whole body.

Watch out for the thought that says, “This is boring.” Just tell yourself that that thought is a disturbance. You don’t have to believe it. Or, if a thought comes in and says, “This is stupid; the mind isn’t thinking any intelligent thoughts at all,” tell yourself that you don’t have to be intelligent all the time. You’re learning how to step back from your thoughts. This is an important skill, an exercise in a different kind of intelligence, so you protect what you’ve got.

Now, you begin to notice that even before a thought forms, there will be a little knot of tension appearing someplace in your awareness. The mind will have a tendency to focus there to decide whether it’s a physical tension or a mental tension. If it decides it’s a mental tension, then it will take that mental tension and turn it into a thought. It’ll slap a perception on it, saying, “This is a thought about x, and so, let’s go with it.” That’s how thoughts and disturbances take over the mind.

So, try to catch the thought at the moment when it’s just a little knot of tension. Zap it with a good breath and it’ll dissolve away. Then watch out for the next little knot of tension. It’s like being a spider on a web. The spider is at one spot on the web. All of a sudden, a fly comes and hits another spot. The spider will immediately go and take care of the fly and then return to its original spot. So, try to make this your sport: shooting down these thoughts before they turn into something big.

In this way, as you watch over your concentration, it will become deeper and deeper. Then part of the mind says, “I’ve rested enough.” Again, remind yourself you’re not here just to rest. You’re here to learn about the mind. And one of the best ways to learn about the mind is to see the different stages by which thoughts form. In this way, you take charge of your thoughts, instead of letting your thoughts be in charge of you, and the process of protecting your concentration becomes the process by which you gain insights into the mind’s fabrications.

Questions

Q: The quality and depth of my concentration has been decreasing since I started applying directed thought and evaluation to my mind . Instead of applying directed thought and evaluation, should I just let the meditation flow more freely?

A: When you apply directed thought and evaluation, it should primarily be directed toward the breath with very simple questions: “Is the breath comfortable? Could it be more comfortable? If it is comfortable, how can I maintain that? And then, when I’m maintaining the comfort, can I let it spread?” Try not to evaluate anything much more than that. However, if even that much is disturbing, just pose the question in the mind each time you breathe in: “What kind of breathing would feel good now?” See how the body responds.

Q: If we’re able to concentrate on the more subtle breath energy in the body, should we focus on that and let the in-and-out breath go into the background?

A: Yes.

Q: Second question: If the breath stops while in concentration, we wouldn’t die, right?

A: Most of the time, you won’t die. But if it does happen that you die, it’s good to be in concentration. Now, it is possible for the body to survive without breathing as long as the mind is really, really quiet. How that happens, I can’t explain in terms of modern physiology, but it does happen.

Q: Regarding the steps of breath meditation listed in the Canon, my first question is: What does it mean to discern, “I am breathing in long” or “I’m breathing in short”? What does that mean and how does that apply to the practice?

A: It simply means being sensitive to the quality of the breath. And you don’t stop with just noticing whether it’s long or short. You can also notice the effect that long and short breathing have on the body, because in further steps you’ll be trying to breathe in and out calming bodily fabrication, and then breathing in and out sensitive to pleasure and rapture. So, it’s good to notice what kind of breathing is calming, what kind is conducive to pleasure and rapture.

Q: Second question: Do the sixteen steps have to be mastered in order?

A: The sixteen steps come in sets of four, called tetrads in English. The first tetrad has to do with the body; the second one with feelings; the third with the mind. When you’re getting the mind to settle down with the breath, you’re dealing with all these three things at once: body, feelings, and mind. Whichever aspect is the problem, that’s the tetrad you’ll focus on. For instance, if the breath is uncomfortable, you focus your primary attention on the body and the breath. If the mind is disobedient, you focus primary attention on the step of steadying it. Now, within each tetrad, there’s a pattern. You become sensitive to how you’re fabricating that particular aspect of your experience, you fabricate it in a way that gives rise to a sense of energy, well-being, or rapture, and then you fabricate it in such a way as to calm things down. So, within each tetrad, the steps are mastered in order, but there’s no particular order from tetrad to tetrad.

Q: And then the last question is: How are your instructions on meditation specifically related to these sixteen steps?

A: The instructions I’m giving are primarily related to the first four steps in the first tetrad, which is to be sensitive to the breathing, to be aware of the whole body as you breathe in and out, and then to calm the breath as you’re breathing in, breathing out. However, we’re also dealing with the second and third tetrads indirectly. In the second tetrad, we’re following the steps of being sensitive to pleasure, rapture, and the effect that pleasure, rapture, and your perceptions have on the mind, and then calming that effect down. Within the third tetrad, we’re focusing on the steps of being sensitive to the mind, trying to breathe in a way that gives energy to the mind if the mind is lacking energy, to steady the mind if it has too much energy. So, the meditation we’re doing deals with many of the steps listed in the Canon.

Q: Do you consider that the experience of steps 5 and 6 in the sutta on breath meditation correspond to the first and second jhānas? Do you see other connections between these steps of breath meditation and jhānas?

A: As I just said, there are four tetrads in the 16 steps of breath meditation. The first tetrad corresponds to the body, the second to feelings, the third to the mind, and the fourth to dhammas or mental qualities. It’s not the case that you work on the body and then you work on feelings and then you work on the mind. Right from the beginning, you’re going to be working on the first three together: body, feelings, and mind.

In the first tetrad, the one dealing with the body, step number 4 is calming bodily fabrication. Bodily fabrication is the in-and-out breath. That step corresponds to all four jhānas as the breath gets more and more calm to the point where it finally stops.

As for the steps dealing with the third tetrad, dealing with the mind, these, too, would also be equivalent to the jhānas, but the numbers of the steps don’t correspond to the different stages of jhāna.

In the second tetrad, on feelings, you go into the first and second jhānas in the first two steps (5 and 6), dealing with rapture and pleasure. Then you get to 7 and 8, where you become sensitive to mental fabrications—feelings and perceptions—and then calm them down. The calmest feeling is equanimity, which is present in the third and fourth jhāna. The calmest perceptions are those that aid in that process, taking you to the fourth jhāna and potentially beyond it, into the formless states, as you focus on perceptions of infinite space, infinite consciousness, and nothingness.

Q: When I begin to find myself getting established in the second jhāna, my breath completely goes out of whack. The need for oxygen seems to be much less, things are suddenly quiet, and yet both the mind and the body still need to breathe at a normal rate. I find myself almost suffocating without knowing what to do. Can you give me some advice?

A: The first piece of advice is not to try to enter the second jhāna. Don’t force yourself to stop breathing. And you don’t have to move from the concentration where you already are in order for your concentration to develop. Allow it to develop at its own rhythm and pace. When it does deepen, it’ll deepen with a sense of doing it naturally without any pressure. It’s like a piece of fruit on a tree. To ripen, it doesn’t have to go anywhere, and you don’t have to squeeze it to make it soft. It just stays right there and, as it’s nourished, it ripens on its own.

Q: Bhante, I have developed an attachment to very refined mental states. I am mostly now stuck in the third jhāna. How do I reenter these states with the proper skillful attitude?

A: The third jhāna is a pretty good place to be stuck, because there are many worse places you can be stuck. The only times when these states become a problem is when you refuse to leave concentration in order to take care of your daily duties. Otherwise, if the mind wants to stay there and rest, let it rest for a while. Then, the next question to ask yourself is, “Is there still some disturbance in this state?” There may be a very subtle level of stress that goes up and down. When you notice the ups and downs, ask yourself, “What am I doing when the stress goes up? What am I doing when the stress goes down?” In that way, you actually use the state of concentration to gain insight into the mind.

Q: Could you give us a guided meditation on the dissolution of the body and pure awareness, which would be the fourth and the fifth jhānas? Or could you give some indications?

A: I would love to get all of you into those jhānas, but it’s impossible to give a guided meditation to get you there. Still, I can give you some indications. As you get settled in with the breath and gain a sense that your awareness and the breath are one, and that all of the breath channels in the body are connected, just stay with that sensation of everything being connected. After a while, you find that your need to breathe gets weaker and weaker, and then you get to the point where you don’t feel like you’re breathing at all. Your first reaction will usually be fear that you’re going to die. But you can remind yourself: “As long as I’m aware in the body, I’m not going to die.” If the body needs to breathe, it will. If you can simply stay balanced at that sensation of total stillness in the body, after a while you’ll feel that you’re solidly there. You’re comfortable there.

Then you begin to notice that the sense of the outline or the surface of the body begins to disappear, and the body feels like a cloud of sensation dots. You can stay with that sensation of a cloud for a while. Then you begin to notice that if you focus on the space between the sensations, that sense of space permeates your entire body and spreads out from the body in all directions, without your sensing any boundary or limit. That’s the infinitude of space, and you should stay with that perception of space until the perception is steady and solid. Then you can ask yourself, “What is aware of the space?” and there will be a perception of pure awareness, and you can just stay with that perception. That, too, has no boundaries. Once you can do that, then let me know, and I’ll tell you what to do next.

Q: Is meditation only for the purpose of attaining the jhānas? Is that beneficial as a practice? Or should the daily practice also include right view, right resolve, right action, right speech, right livelihood in order to give benefits?

A: The practice of concentration on its own can give benefits, but if you’re doing it with wrong view, it can also lead to harm. The other factors of the path are needed to protect your concentration and turn it into right concentration. For example, if you practice concentration with wrong view, there are some states that you get into when you feel that you’ve touched the ground of being, especially if you develop a sense of consciousness in and of itself, and you notice that no matter what you do, that consciousness remains unaffected. That might give rise to the idea that you can do anything and that that consciousness won’t be harmed. This is how some meditators think that they’re beyond good and evil, and they start doing some very unskillful things. So, it’s safest if you practice all factors of the path.

Q: When I was first learning meditation, I was told it was not a matter of emptying the mind and then not having any thoughts, but of observing the thoughts as they come and then regarding them as on a movie screen, simply not following them as they go. This is in contradiction with what you’ve been teaching us, teaching us how not to think. Are these two different types of meditation? Can you say more about this? And is the first technique bad?

A: It’s more a question of knowing the right time and place for how to relate to the thoughts of your mind. There are times when you do have to watch your thoughts, but there are also times when it’s really good to be able to rest and have as little thinking as possible. In the very beginning, you have to think about the breath in order to get the breath and the mind to fit snugly together. This is why directed thought and evaluation are part of the first jhāna. Then, when they’ve done their work, you can put them aside.

As the mind gets quieter, then when you come out of concentration you can see the processes of thinking a lot more clearly. At the same time, as I was saying earlier, if you can get the mind really quiet, then as soon as you sense a little stirring in the body or mind that would be the beginning of a thought, you learn how to zap it. This is what gives you more understanding into the processes of how the mind will create a thought and how it will latch on to a thought—and how you can stop those processes. You can’t gain these insights if you simply watch the thoughts come and go.

However, there are times when you cannot figure out how to put a stop to your thinking. Those are good times to simply watch the thoughts come and go—as long as you stay separate from them—in hopes that you might catch sight of something that you would have missed otherwise.

Q: The very beginner thinks that meditation is simple: It’s only to sit and to breathe. After a while, we think it’s complex and we search for a lot of support points, like temporary supports of a building. I expect that for the experienced meditator, the meditation—like a finished building where the temporary supports have been removed—becomes simple again. After all: It’s just to sit and to breathe. Am I correct?

A: The practice of concentration does get simpler as you get better at it. And the development of discernment tries to boil things down to one major question: What is the ignorance that causes us to create unnecessary suffering for ourselves? The work of discernment, however, grows more and more subtle as it gets closer and closer to the real cause. So, it’s not necessarily simpler as you go along. The concentration gets simpler, but the work of discernment gets more demanding as it become more subtle.

Q: Is success in meditation analogous to recovering a lost friendship?

A: In many ways, yes, especially in the practice of concentration. However, as you develop insight, you may find the mind going to places it’s never been before.