Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Analyzing Suffering
     … So you start holding on to the states of concentration. You can get very, very attached to them. But there does come a point where you realize that if you’re going to move on in the practice, you have to learn how to let go. But in the course of mastering the concentration, you become a much stronger, much more confident person. You … 
  3. Actualizing Your Potentials
     … An important part of concentration practice is learning how to get out of the mindset that holds on to those issues, to get out of that little world of becoming, and create concentration as a type of becoming instead, in which you’re a different person with different desires, different concerns, so at the very least you have time to put those burdens aside … 
  4. Layers of Selves
     … Can you change those perceptions? Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about trying to see the distinction between body, feeling, and awareness, which are the three components of our concentration. We try to take them apart to see that even though they’re in the same place, they’re different things. You can think of the analogy of the radio waves going through the room here … 
  5. A Sense of Yourself
     … There’s a belief in some places that there’s the path of mindfulness that leads to awakening, and a separate path of concentration that leads to awakening. The path bifurcates, and although either fork takes you to the goal, you have to choose or the other. But the path doesn’t bifurcate—there’s one path. And you’re going to develop your … 
  6. Happiness is a Skill
     … To know the aggregates, the Buddha has us take them and turn them into concentration. This is where a lot of the skill comes in. Look at Ajaan Lee’s teachings on breath meditation. Many of his analogies have to do with people with skills. Many of the Buddha’s analogies for the practice also have to do with people with skills. As you … 
  7. The Uses of Equanimity
     … This is why we practice concentration: to get the mind solid in the face of whatever comes up. But that solidity has to come from learning how to develop strengths: a sense of well-being, a sense of ease inside the body, an ease inside the mind, so as to assist in keeping you solid. The secret to patience or endurance is to focus … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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