Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. The Flowing Mind
     … This is one of the reasons why you have to create a good, strong state of concentration that’s based on well-being: well-being in the mind, well-being in the body—“well-being” here, meaning a sense of ease. You sit here, focused on the breath, and you can breathe in ways that are comfortable, energizing when you’re feeling tired, soothing … 
  3. Conviction in the End of Suffering
     … And the path of virtue, concentration and discernment seems like a good thing.” But that third truth, that’s the one you’ve got to take on conviction. Yet as the Buddha points out, conviction is a kind of wealth. It’s a strength. Often we don’t think of it in those terms. We’ve been through so many instances where we had … 
  4. In a World of Crooked Wheels
     … It’s based on those two that you can develop right mindfulness, and right mindfulness, of course, is how you get the mind into right concentration. It’s through right concentration that your views, which have been made straight—in other words, you hold to right views—actually become your own discernment. When we start out, we borrow the Buddha’s discernment. But through … 
  5. Right View from Right Effort
     … But you don’t gain insight until you learn how to maintain your concentration. In fact, the task of maintaining your concentration is an important way of developing your insight—because again, it requires you to learn how to read cause and effect in the mind. So you stick with the nice in-and-out rhythm of breathing. After a while you begin to … 
  6. What You Bring to the Meditation
     … Here we’re talking about the power of your concentration and success in your concentration. Desire is the first; persistence is the second. The Pali word for persistence here, viriya, can also mean energy. You really put your effort into it. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to stress and strain all the time. It simply means that you keep at it … 
  7. Not Siding with the Hindrances
     … that it’s getting in the way of your concentration. Or if you were to think with that line of thinking for a long time, what kind of behavior it would lead to, seeing that takes you someplace that you don’t really want to go. Or you can consciously ignore the hindrance, knowing that it’s there but letting it be in some … 
  8. In Training
     … He describes right action, right speech, right livelihood, training in contentment, training in mindfulness and alertness, training in concentration, training in the skills that come from concentration, and finally release: That’s the fruit of the contemplative life, the highest of the fruits. As for the universe out there, the Buddha has almost nothing to say in that sutta. In other suttas where he … 
  9. To Comprehend Craving
     … There’s the equanimity that comes from getting the mind into good concentration and then the equanimity that comes as a result of finding the true happiness of unbinding. You look at the rest of the world, and you’re perfectly fine with the fact that things are not the way you want them to be because you’ve found something deeper and more … 
  10. Look Around as You Follow the Trail
     … Like we’re doing right now, developing concentration: This is how you get to the higher dhammas—by being really diligent in doing what you have to do right here, right now. Whatever the stage you’re at in getting the mind to settle down, work at that. We’re working on a skill that requires you to commit to doing it and then … 
  11. Immersed in the Body
     … taking this stance, maintaining this stance, being concentrated in the body, but concentrated with an expansive sense of ease so that it doesn’t become oppressive. Work at filling the body with your awareness so that if they were going to take a picture of your sense of self, of the mind’s sense of self, it would be like the image in the … 
  12. Good Humor
     … And then tune everything else, all the other faculties — conviction, mindfulness, concentration, discernment — to the level of energy you can manage.” It’s like tuning a guitar. First you tune one string and then you tune the other strings to the first one. In meditating, your first string is the amount of energy at your disposal. You want to put enough pressure on yourself … 
  13. Empathetic Joy
     … There’s a passage where the Buddha actually says that people who are stingy can’t enter strong states of concentration. They mistrust them. A sense of ease comes up, and they don’t feel right about it. There’s another passage where he says that the inability to enjoy pleasure is a sign of something wrong. This may sound strange. After all, the … 
  14. Appropriate Attention Always
     … Once you can exercise your persistence, get rid of those unskillful qualities of the mind, the mind is going to feel rapture, to feel calm, to get concentrated. Within the concentration, as it develops, the feelings get more refined, your perceptions get more refined. Then you can get to a state of really solid equanimity, where you can see things as they’re happening … 
  15. Help Others, Help Yourself
     … It goes into concentration. You train your mind to stay with one thing, like the breath in and of itself. Then you try to maintain a steady focus there, so you stay away from any thoughts about the world. You’re ardent, alert, and mindful. Ardent in trying to do this well. Alert in watching what you’re doing. And mindful in remembering what … 
  16. A Promise to Yourself
     … This then applies to the practice of concentration. You don’t just sit here letting the mind decide whether it’s going to settle down on its own or not. You have to induce it. You have to direct it. Make up your mind that you’re going to stay here and watch over it. “Putting aside greed and distress with reference to the … 
  17. The Happiness & Suffering of Others
     … When he got his mind into concentration, he directed it to remembering past lives, and he found that he could remember many, many, many past lives—in other words, his narratives. You think you’ve got lots of narratives as you sit down to meditate. He had more than many because his memory was so good. But it raised a question: Was he the … 
  18. A Home of Your Own
     … This is why concentration, on its own, is not enough. You have to have some discernment as well: the discernment to see what is really important to think about and what’s not. When something is not worth thinking about, you know how to take it apart so that it doesn’t take over. This means that getting the mind still is not just … 
  19. Appreciating Merit
    There’s that chant we have at the end of every chanting session: “Through the power of all the Buddhas, all the Dhamma, all the Sangha, may you forever be well.” What is that power? Where does it come from? The Buddha gained his power from his generosity, his virtue, and his meditation, developing concentration, developing discernment all the way to nibbana. As did … 
  20. Taking Stock
     … You’ve got the potential for virtue, concentration, discernment. It’s simply a question of learning to develop these potentials. Of course, you’ll find, as you look in your mind, there are a lot of other potentials as well, a lot of less skillful potentials. You’ve probably had some practice in developing those, too. But it’s important that you realize you … 
  21. The Good We Already Have
     … If you tune in to them and learn how to keep the mind tuned, you’ve developed one of the most useful skills in concentration. Once you get a particular state going, you learn how not to do so much that you destroy it, or how not to get too lazy so that it all falls apart. You have to invest a level of … 
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