Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 100
  2. Bare Attention
     … Get the mind in good strong concentration. That’s how he got on the path: by beginning to see the difference between cause and effect, skillful and unskillful, by focusing on the actions of his own mind. This means that to develop appropriate attention in our own practice we’ve got to look in our own minds for what’s skillful and what’s … 
  3. The Uses of the Breath
     … You don’t want your concentration to be contracted or tightened. Try thinking of your awareness as a light that spreads as a radiance in all directions. The breath can spread in all directions, too. It can come in from all directions, go out through all directions. This is a stillness that’s not constricted and it’s not confined. It’s a stillness … 
  4. Of Past & Future
     … As for the factors of the path — concentration, mindfulness, alertness — develop those. If you see any moments where craving disbands, try to be very clear about how that happens — whether it’s simply one craving taking over another one or if there’s actually a moment when craving stops and nothing takes its place. Look into that. Make it clear. As for the right … 
  5. Battling Darkness
     … This is why we practice concentration; this is why we develop mindfulness of the present moment. This is going to be your stronghold because this is where you can see these things in action. So you want to create a place here in the present that’s comfortable, where you feel at ease, where you feel secure, where you feel solid. Start out by … 
  6. Befriending the Breath
     … You make this your home.” This is one of the traditional terms for getting the mind in concentration: vihāra-dhamma, a quality that forms a home for the mind, a place where you feel that you can stay comfortably. It’s like having a true friend who will never let you down. In Thai they talk about your eating friends, the ones that you … 
  7. At Play
     … If we get grim about it, we’re missing an important part of concentration practice, which is that it has to be based on a sense of gladness—a sense of ease, finding enjoyment in being right here. Remember the stages in focusing on the mind: First you’re sensitive to the state of your mind and then you gladden it. You can gladden … 
  8. Transparent Becoming
     … And that’s what we’re doing now as we meditate, as we develop a state of concentration in the mind. You’ve got that one focus on the breath. In the beginning, you need to have craving to do the practice properly. And for the craving to get activated here, you have to make the breath interesting. This is one of the reasons … 
  9. Borrowing the Buddha’s Wisdom
     … He also gives instructions on how to do it—the noble eightfold path, which boils down to virtue, concentration, discernment. This is the raft. He gives instructions in virtue in terms of right speech, right action, right livelihood; concentration in terms of right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration; discernment in terms of right view, and right resolve. He spells it all out. Now, there … 
  10. Pain & Patience
     … This is why we develop right concentration, so that there’s at least some sense of well-being in the mind as you look for the pain. In other words, once you accept the pain and accept that it’s something that you really do want to see through, okay, then muster the willingness to develop all the qualities of mind—the concentration and … 
  11. An Exercise in Freedom
     … The mind is capable of developing mindfulness, alertness, conviction, persistence, concentration, discernment, goodwill—all kinds of good qualities. The more you exercise these qualities, the greater your range of freedom, the greater your range of choice. But the Buddha starts with basics. He starts with a basic problem that’s totally self-evident, that there is suffering and we don’t like it. There … 
  12. Clinging & Feeding
     … We convert our form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness into a state of concentration. We use the fabrication of thoughts to develop wisdom, the perceptions that the Buddha recommends to develop wisdom—the purpose of that wisdom being to develop dispassion and disenchantment. Then we feed the mind with conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, all of which are good food for the mind … 
  13. Samvega for Samsara
     … When he discusses the topics of concentration in this book, the breath is just one out of many. As for the other topics, though, he says that the ones you do before the breath are designed to give rise to a strong sense of saṃvega—for the body, for things of the world — so that the mind will be willing to settle down: not … 
  14. Adult Dhamma
     … Because after all, what is the path that the Buddha points out? There’s virtue, there’s concentration, and there’s discernment. These are all qualities in your own mind. We all have them to some extent. Learning how to develop what’s in your own mind is what’s going to make all the difference. The Buddha’s discernment isn’t going to … 
  15. The Language of the Heart (1)
     … As they say in the texts, the establishings of mindfulness (satipatthana) are the themes of right concentration. In other words, when mindfulness is really established and solid, you’re going to get the mind into jhana. Mindfulness gives you a frame of reference to look at what’s happening in the mind, to recognize certain states of mind as either skillful or unskillful. And … 
  16. The Taste vs. the Reality
     … Even the stories, the narratives we like to make about our own practice, about the progress we expect, about how we’ll attain concentration, and from concentration we’ll quickly move on to insight, and there it will be — liberation: We like those stories because of the taste. We like to read the stories of the ajaans, because the stories are contrived in ways … 
  17. Getting the Most Out of the Present
     … Being mindful, getting the mind concentrated on the breath: That’s all path. And the whole point of the path, as the Buddha said, is that it’s going to bear fruit. So, how do you get the most out of the present moment so that it bears the best fruit? When the Buddha talks about being in the present, many times it’s … 
  18. More than Just Letting Go
     … This is just one of the processes that, when you did it in ignorance, didn’t have much to offer, but when you do it with knowledge you find it is a basis for concentration. And as you get to know the ways the mind deals with perceptions, that becomes the basis for discernment as well. So that’s the big problem—the processes … 
  19. Right & Wrong Decisions
     … One of Ajaan Fuang’s students, a woman who had really strong powers of concentration, didn’t start meditating till she was 70. She was suffering various illnesses. She knew she needed something beyond just the medicine the doctors were giving her. So she threw herself into the meditation and learned an awful lot. She didn’t have much of an education but she … 
  20. Three Levels of Effort
     … You want to develop concentration so that you can stay focused: The mind gets settled in; you develop a sense of ease and well-being here in the present moment and can see things clearly. And particularly, you can see what the mind is intending to do: all the different intentions that come through. If you want to see them, you have to watch … 
  21. The Buddha Aimed High
     … Get the mind in a good state of concentration where there’s rapture and bliss that come from simply sitting here being very still, secluded from sensuality. Sensuality is the first type of craving you’ve got to watch out for, because that’s so pervasive. If you can pull the mind out of its fascination with thinking about sensual desires, sensual objects, and … 
  22. Load next page...