Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Two Types of Dukkha
     … One of the two ways he recommends is that you develop concentration. Have a sense of ease with the breath, rapture with the breath, refreshment with the breath, whatever your topic is. Then, from that, you can settle into equanimity with a sense of well-being. The other way is to gain insight, to see how you’ve been fooled by the mind’s … 
  3. Your Desire to Practice
     … The practice of concentration is designed to give you this sort of all-around perspective. You’re seeing the breath not only at the nose, but you’re also beginning to learn how to sense the breath in the whole body. When there’s a feeling of pleasure, you learn how to feel it not only in one or two spots but let it … 
  4. Something New
     … That could be new, too, even though it’s the same skillful intention—as when you’re doing concentration practice. The fact that you’re continuing it is something good that you can keep bringing into the world, and then you learn how to reflect on yourself so that you can make your concentration deeper. You’ll learn how to reflect on all your … 
  5. Worlds to Watch Out For
     … when you develop good qualities of mind—like goodwill, compassion, concentration, mindfulness, discernment—you get good results. When you abandon unskillful ones, you get good results, too. It’s because you actually get results that the Buddha finally found it worth teaching. Everything in his teaching revolves around the issue of choice. And, of course, choice comes together with his teachings on kamma. Now … 
  6. Things that Arise & Pass Away
     … Is there still some change in that stillness of mind? The stillness of concentration is fabricated, but if you don’t do it, you’re not going to see the subtle things arising and passing away. It’s right here that insight can come, and it’s focused on just that issue: Can you detect something changing in here? If you can, then the … 
  7. Skillful Fear
     … If you’ve been wandering off into fear, you can come back, not simply by pulling yourself back, but by reminding yourself: “Okay, if you’re going to be afraid of anything, be afraid of not being able to meditate properly, not gaining good concentration that will support your right view and support your virtue.” This way, you use your discernment to take the … 
  8. Grounded in the Breath
     … If your awareness is too narrowly focused, it may be good for concentration sometimes. Sometimes it is necessary to start out with a smaller focus. But if you want to gain some insight into the mind, you have to expand the range of your awareness. It’s like a theater. If there’s a spotlight on the stage, it brightens up that one spot … 
  9. The Noble Path to Happiness
     … This is the beginning both of discernment and of concentration. In the beginning your main focus is on concentration, getting the mind to settle down. But the same process applies to developing discernment. After all, what is discernment? Seeing things in terms of four noble truths. Sometimes we’re told that it’s seeing things in terms of the three characteristics, but, one, the … 
  10. From Dependence to Independence
     … We develop mindfulness and alertness and concentration as we meditate here on the breath, to put us in a better and better position to make that choice. And to make it well. It’s in this way that the Buddha’s teachings are empowering. But with power comes responsibility. So realize, each time you breathe in breathe out, that you have the choice. Are … 
  11. Shoot Your Pains with Wisdom
     … Learn how to fabricate good states in the mind—the pleasure, the rapture of right concentration—for those are good fabrications. The directed thought and evaluation that bring those feelings about: Those are good fabrications because they bring you to a point where ultimately you see that there is something unfabricated, that doesn’t arise, doesn’t pass away; it’s just there. As … 
  12. Not Swept Away
     … At the very least, with some concentration you can have a sense of the observer that just watches events of the world and doesn’t feel obliged to get involved. We develop that observer by being mindful. You focus on the breath as the breath comes in, the breath goes out. Whatever the breath is going to do, you be aware of it. Keep … 
  13. Tough Goodwill for a Tough World
     … You can construct states of concentration, you can construct attitudes of goodwill, and they do provide you with a strong independent source of happiness inside. Think about the monks and nuns in Tibet who were tortured by the Chinese and were able to survive because they maintained goodwill for their torturers. The fact that they were able to maintain it was a source of … 
  14. Honesty
     … Right mindfulness, right effort, right concentration—these are path factors. So you actually do the causes. When you pay attention to the causes, you’re going to get the results. So when things aren’t going as well as you’d like them to, turn around and look: “What am I doing?” Over time you’ll begin to see the connection between your actions … 
  15. A Mirror for the Mind
     … This is probably one of the major lessons you learn from concentration: what a huge role your perceptions play—“perceptions” here meaning the images, the mental labels you use to tell yourself: This is this, and that is that. It was the mental label of the breath that allowed you to stay with the breath, together with the mental label of stillness, and reminding … 
  16. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … As you’re working on your concentration, it helps you to notice when things are going off course, and you can direct them back. But be careful. Something that’s useful like this, if you don’t make sure that it stays skillful, can also be very harmful. So do your best to sort out this internal chatter, and keep it focused on issues … 
  17. Ripples Go Far
     … That takes the concentration of pain away. There’s a story about King Pasenadi. He was visiting with the Buddha one day, and one of his ministers came up and whispered into his ear, “Your favorite queen has just died.” The king broke down and started crying. After he was finished, the Buddha said, “When have you ever heard of anyone who was born … 
  18. Duties
     … That’s developing concentration. Any thoughts coming up that would interfere with that, you let go. That’s the abandoning of the craving. When the Buddha taught the Dhamma wheel, he laid these things out. In fact, that’s what the wheel is in that sutta. In the old days, when they would give lists of variables, they called it a wheel—like today … 
  19. Training in Right Resolve
     … So instead, you look for your pleasure in the practice of concentration. Right resolve is very closely connected to right concentration. When you’re here with the breath, you’re putting aside thoughts of sensuality. At the same time, you’re putting aside the other two forms of wrong resolve, which are resolve on ill will and resolve on harmfulness. The resolve to avoid … 
  20. Patient & Inquisitive
     … They say that during WWII, when people were in concentration camps, with the men segregated from the women, the men got tired of talking about sex very quickly. Food, however, became an ongoing conversation topic, one they never got tired of. So here the Buddha’s saying that the way we feed is making us suffer. In fact, the need to feed is his … 
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