Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 110
  2. Willing to Learn
     … Develop the qualities of mind—whatever’s needed in terms of concentration or insight—so that you can really look at suffering long and hard. Look at stress long and hard to see what’s causing it. Look at each instance. Even if you don’t find the one thing that’s going to get rid of all suffering—the big block, the huge … 
  3. Expanding Your Skill Set
     … That’s the basic theme of your concentration. Actually, mindfulness and concentration work together. While you’re with the breath, ardency means trying to be as sensitive as possible to how the breathing feels. Once it feels good in the spot you’ve chosen as your main point of focus, you can explore how it feels in other parts of the body as well … 
  4. The Grass at the Gate
     … Many times when we read the descriptions of Right Concentration it seems far away, but everything we need is right here. When Ajaan Lee talks about comfortable breath sensations and uncomfortable ones, we already have comfortable breath sensations in at least some parts of the body. There’s already the potential for a sense of fullness, a sense of ease in different parts of … 
  5. Getting Yourself
     … When he found the right path, when he was practicing deep concentration getting the mind into the various levels of jhana and gaining the different insights that came from that concentration, whatever pleasure arose in his mind, he didn’t let that overcome his mind, either. He was closely keeping watch on his mind, and only when he’d straightened out his mind did … 
  6. Not Crushed by the World
     … The consistency helps you turn your mindfulness into concentration. And your ability to think strategically is going to help you deal wisely with the strategies of the defilements, because they’re pretty clever. They don’t sit down and argue with you reasonably. They get into your breath. They squeeze your nerves. They whisper. They disappear. They threaten. They’ve got lots of tricks … 
  7. In Alignment
     … right concentration with its requisites of all the factors of the path. This evening I was looking at a little video clip on Buddhism in Thailand, and the narrator was a guy from England who at the very end of the show says, “Obviously, Buddhism in Thailand is facing a crisis point; on the one hand, there is rampant materialism, and on the other … 
  8. The Lightning Bolt
     … If the path requires that you work on concentration, you work on concentration. If it requires that you give up certain things that you like, you say, “Well, I’ll try it. I’ll try giving them up and see what happens.” You don’t let your preferences get in the way. At the same time, learn how to talk yourself into wanting to … 
  9. The Truth of Transcendence
     … She cited a text in the Canon where the Buddha starts out with dependent co-arising up through suffering and then from suffering talks about how suffering gives rise to conviction and conviction gives rise to effort and joy, concentration, discernment, all the way up to release. So her conclusion was that release, too, is caused; therefore, she said, nibbana is also a conditioned … 
  10. The True Cause of Suffering
     … These are five qualities of mind that get in the way, that block the mind’s ability to settle down in concentration and to gain discernment, to gain insight, and to gain release. So you have to know the antidotes for them. The first big block is sensual passion, our desire for sensual pleasures, our fascination with sensual pleasures. It’s a block because … 
  11. Breath Meditation: The Second Tetrad
     … Is it getting in the way of your concentration? Is it helping it? If you have a perception that the breath has to struggle in order to get in, that’s not a helpful perception. If we picture to ourselves that we only have two little holes—i.e., the nostrils—for the breath to come in and out of the body, what happens … 
  12. Two Things to Keep in Mind
     … That’s how right mindfulness builds on right effort and leads to right concentration, and then beyond right concentration to release. I was reading today someone saying that the whole purpose of the path was to arrive at right view. But actually, right view is also a factor of the path. It’s not the end. It’s there simply to give guidance to … 
  13. See Yourself as Active Verbs
     … If you feel that you have to suck the air in from outside, the mind is going to panic, and that’ll destroy the concentration. But if you remind yourself that the breath energy is something that originates from inside, and when the mind is really still the brain uses very little oxygen, so the body will breathe only as much as it needs … 
  14. Investment Strategies
     … It may take work to get the mind to settle down, but the pleasure of concentration, as the Buddha said, one, is harmless and, two, it’s not a form of intoxication. It’s a type of pleasure that’s actually clear-headed clear-sighted and can be used as a basis of discernment. The ability to settle down and be relaxed in your … 
  15. To Begin the Day
     … For those to be maintained, the mind needs a good solid state of concentration. That’s what we’re working on here. So, now that you’ve established yourself here in the center, look into the center. What have you got here in this body that’s right next to the mind? You’ve got the body sitting here breathing. There may be pains … 
  16. Training Your Selves
     … After all, directed thought and evaluation—the way you talk to yourself—is a factor of right concentration. So tend to it: how you talk to yourself, what standards you’re using to judge yourself with. All too often they’re standards you picked up from who knows where. Why don’t you try the Buddha’s standards? After all, his standards are compassionate … 
  17. Habits of Perception
     … This is one of the reasons we put so much emphasis on concentration, for the levels of concentration are perception attainments. Can you hold onto a particular perception so that the mind can really settle there? See what it does to your experience. When you stick with the perception of the breath as filling the body, what does that do to the physical sense … 
  18. The Karma of Ideas
     … right view, right resolve, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. These are all instances of karma. So when you let your mind dwell on something, ask yourself: What is the result of dwelling on this?” In other words, the question is not only, “Is this thought true?” but also, “Is this useful? Is it going to take you some place good? What’s … 
  19. Strong Through Commitment
     … The suttas are what put things together and tell us, “This is how you breathe; this is how you talk to yourself; these are some useful perceptions to hold in mind.” This is how we get the mind into concentration to begin with. You breathe in a way that’s comfortable, that feels soothing inside. You take some time to allow the breath to … 
  20. Not Getting What You Want
     … starting with right view and ending in right concentration. That’s the fourth noble truth. So, the Buddha’s not saying not to want. He’s basically saying to want these things—want to be free from aging, illness, and death—but learn how to act on those wants in a skillful way. Think of the young prince who became the Buddha: That was … 
  21. Stay
     … And you’ve got to learn how to stick with the breath, not only in terms of obvious distractions like thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future, but also in terms of things that come up in the meditation that are sometimes the result of the concentration. States of pleasure, states of rapture, can arise. Visions can arise. You can take these as … 
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