Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Tools of Perception
     … This is a way of getting people into concentration. You could focus on breath as your perception as well. Think of everything as breath energy of one kind or another, particularly here in the body, but the energy inside also connects with energy throughout the world. You can think about that as well. Because it’s not only energy in the body, there’s … 
  3. Heedfulness is the Path
     … When you’re practicing meditation, once you settle in to a stage of concentration step back a bit and see what you’re doing in this process of concentration that’s still causing a disturbance or placing a burden on the mind. When you catch sight of the perception that’s causing the burden, you drop it. In this way the Buddha teaches us … 
  4. For Goodness’ Sake
     … This is why concentration is not just one aspect of the path. The Buddha placed it at the center of the path to give you strength to carry through with the rest of the path. You try to get your heart well rested, get your mind well rested, with a sense of well-being, ease, and rapture so that the heart and mind will … 
  5. Bare vs. Appropriate Attention
     … For example, as we’re staying here with the breath, we’re trying to develop as much concentration, as much mindfulness as possible. In other words, we’re developing the path. If you’re going to look at stress and pain with any equanimity, with any steadiness, the mind has to have a strong sense of a good solid foundation, a strong sense of … 
  6. Guardian Meditations
     … If your mind is like that, it needs what Ajaan MahaBoowa calls discernment fostering concentration. You have to think your way to stillness, think your way to a place in the mind where the mind is willing to stop its thinking and settle down. There are lots of different lists of topics in the commentaries—40 different meditation topics in all. And there’s … 
  7. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … This is why we practice concentration, to give the mind that place to stay, a more secure foundation. In other words, when pain comes up, either a physical pain or mental pain, you don’t just go jumping right into it. Try to find the part the body and the part of the mind that’s not totally overwhelmed. At the very least, remind … 
  8. Significance
     … What the Buddha taught about concentration is still true. What he taught about mindfulness is still true. All the teachings in the noble path are still true, always true, all down the line. These are the things you want to keep in mind. This is the duty of mindfulness. We were talking today about all the different things you keep in mind, or you … 
  9. Nobility Through Inner Strength
     … The fourth strength is concentration, the ability to keep the mind with one topic, regardless of whatever else comes up inside or outside. You hold to your conviction, you hold to your sense of well-being inside that you develop here, and that strengthens you. You remember that this is your territory here, the energy inside the body. You don’t have to let … 
  10. A Leap of the Heart
     … And the Buddha says, “Even I myself, as I was trying to get the mind into concentration, realizing that to get the mind into concentration I had to give up thoughts of sensuality: My mind just did not leap up at the prospect.” So the Buddha, too, had to struggle with the issue of giving things up, letting go of things, sacrificing things. It … 
  11. Standing Outside Your Thoughts
     … The fourth approach is basically built on your desire to relax as you’re getting the mind into concentration. There is a certain amount of energy that goes into the concentration, but, once the mind settles down, there’s also the ability to relax into the breath, relax into your sense of the body right here, so you want to extend that relaxed state … 
  12. Who Are You Trying to Please?
     … How do you do it well? How do you get the mind really to settle down? Then, how do you see clearly where there’s a disturbance, even in that state of concentration? You notice the areas where it’s empty of the disturbance—that’s what emptiness means—and where there still is a disturbance. You do this by comparing it to where … 
  13. Shaping Your Breath, Shaping Your Life
     … I knew an old woman in Thailand, a retired schoolteacher, who had very quick powers of concentration. She’d sit down and bang! she was in strong concentration. She told me her trick was to think of one spot in the middle of the head and one spot at the base of the spine and of a line connecting the two, like an electric … 
  14. Breathing Skillfully
     … When you get really advanced in fabricating concentration, the mind gets subtler and subtler all the time. It gets to the point where it doesn’t want to fabricate anything anymore. Even these states of concentration—which can feel very refreshing, very calm, very stable—involve some work. You realize you’d like to have a sense of stability without the work. That’s … 
  15. An Auspicious Day
     … They’re the pleasures that come from good concentration practice. Once things have settled down and they’re comfortable like this, how can you maintain them? What are the skills around this? There will be parts of the mind that are happy to be here and other parts that just want to wallow and forget about doing anything more. They just want to sink … 
  16. A Heart Wider than the World
     … You look for pleasure inside, in terms of the concentration you can develop. We hear the word “renunciation,” and it sounds like deprivation, but it’s simply that you’re renouncing a lower level of happiness, sensual pleasure, for the sake of a higher happiness. It’s a trade up. As we’re sitting here meditating, we’re engaging in renunciation. We could be … 
  17. A Meditative Life
     … When you follow these principles, they create a more conducive environment for allowing concentration to develop, to thrive. At the same time, they create a more receptive environment for allowing the results of concentration to permeate out in every direction. This way your practice, instead of being forced into the cracks of a hostile, alien environment, has room to put down roots, to grow … 
  18. Seeing Distinctions
     … It’s the oneness of concentration, the singleness of preoccupation that starts with the first jhāna, and then the total unification of the mind that starts with the second jhāna. Ajaan Lee’s image is of taking a rock that has different kinds of ore. You put the rock into the smelter and then you apply heat. When different temperatures are reached, different ores … 
  19. Stepping Out of Yourself
     … It’s an important part of the concentration to have a sensation that you focus on that feels really good: a place where the mind can settle in and feel really comfortable. You’re going to need to stabilize the mind, and the mind won’t be stable if it’s not feeling a sense of pleasure. When it’s unstable, it tries to … 
  20. Things As They Function
     … All too many people, when they hear that the first level of right concentration has directed thought and evaluation, say “How do you do that?” The answer is: It’s something you’re doing already. It’s your internal conversation, and these conversations have been going on ever since you learned language. What’s special here is simply that, for the sake of concentration … 
  21. Dhamma in Line with the Dhamma
     … And this is just on the level of concentration. As the concentration gets deeper, you find there are deeper and deeper levels of realizing that old ways of doing things, old ways of thinking, old ways of behaving, just don’t hold the same old appeal they used to. You’re growing up. Ajaan Chah has a nice way of expressing the term, “disenchantment … 
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