Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Noble Conversation
     … Some of them have to do with meditation—the practice of concentration, discernment, release, and knowledge and vision of release—and people like to talk about their ideas about the advanced stages. But some more basic topics are actually more helpful to get you started and get you on the right foot from the very beginning—and to keep you on track. The list … 
  3. People Suffer from Their Thinking
     … The body may die, but the mind doesn’t have to suffer with the body’s death if you’re mindful enough, if you have enough concentration, if you have enough alertness and discernment. So work on building these qualities now, while you can. These are some of the ways in which thinking can actually help you. It gives you the right attitude. The … 
  4. Death Is All Around
     … You use your perception of the breath to focus your concentration. You use your directed thought and evaluation, which are thought constructs, to keep your mind on the breath and to evaluate the breath. Then you’re aware of all these things. That’s taking these five aggregates and turning them into your path. They may not be yours, they may not be you … 
  5. Don’t Just Do It
     … You have to remember that we’re here to gain insight by concentrating the mind. In other words, we’re doing one thing that will lead to something else closely related—insight—but the insights come only if you’re paying careful attention. This is where the reflection comes in. We’re reflecting on our actions. Think of the Buddha’s teaching to Rāhula … 
  6. Looking after Yourself with Ease
     … Then we work on the concentration to have a sense of wellbeing underlying all of this. Remember the Buddha’s image of the practice as being like a fortress. You’ve got the soldiers of right effort. You’ve got the gatekeeper, which is mindfulness. You’ve got the well-plastered wall, which is your discernment. And you’ve got a storehouse full of … 
  7. Free Not to Suffer
     … These three qualities—mindfulness, alertness, ardency—are the ones that strengthen mindfulness and create a foundation here in the present moment to get the mind into concentration. In Ajaan’s Lee’s explanation of the three qualities, ardency is the quality that embodies wisdom and discernment. In other words, you could remember all kinds of things about what the Buddha taught, and you could … 
  8. An Environment for Practice
     … You find that you create a better environment for your practice of concentration, a better environment for the development of insight. The third principle, speaking little, keeping your conversation to a minimum: When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, that was one of the principle he set out. He told me, “Before you say anything, ask yourself: Is this necessary? And if … 
  9. A Cocoon of Energy
     … But it’s also possible to hold on to this perception of space even before you get to that level of concentration. It may not count as that formless attainment, but it is a perception of formlessness. It’s good to get the mind used to that perception so that you don’t feel cast adrift. The more steadily you can hold on to … 
  10. Hobo Mind
     … This is what’s called delusion concentration—the Pali term is moha-samadhi. It’s pleasant, but it doesn’t accomplish anything in the mind. The real sense of well-being comes when you have this full sense of the body. All your nerves that get frazzled by being tense or being stressed out: When they’re allowed to experience a sense of fullness … 
  11. Make Yourself Small
     … Now, you may have to experiment to see what spot in the body feels best to stay concentrated on. In the course of the day, it might change. Well, learn how to be good at different spots, but always take just one spot at a time and focus your full attention there. This is how little things get to grow. It’s like starting … 
  12. Befriending the Breath
     … One of the chants we have regularly contains the line, “having respect for concentration,” and it means just this: having a sense of the importance of keeping your mind centered, keeping things good inside, so that you’re on good terms with the breath, on good terms with your body. In the beginning, it may not seem like much, just a very ordinary sense … 
  13. Enlarge Your Mind
    One of the terms for a mind in concentration is mahaggatam cittaṁ, the expanded mind or the enlarged mind. You want to expand your mind so that your ordinary pleasures and pains start to seem a lot smaller in comparison. Pleasure and pain are big issues when your mind is a little tiny mind—narrow in its concerns, narrow in its perspective—and it … 
  14. Always Looking Inside
     … Right views, right resolves, right mindfulness, and right concentration: All these things require the mind to do some work, and the process of putting together a path is what we should focus our attention on inside. Our issues are our views, our resolves. To make them right, we have to pay attention to them. And where do they happen? They happen right here where … 
  15. In Line with the Dhamma
     … What would your life be like if you did nothing but right speech, right action, and held to right livelihood? What would your mind be like if you really did engage in right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration? It’s a good path. It would make a good you and create a good world around you. Maybe not the world you see in your … 
  16. Overcoming Fear
     … Let me get my concentration together. Then, at the end of the session, we’ll talk about this.” The Buddha doesn’t have you run away and cover up your fears right away, because that just leads to anxiety: You’re not clear about what you’re afraid of, you’re left with a lingering malaise—a lingering dis-ease. The important point about … 
  17. Why We Meditate
     … goodwill, compassion, concentration, discernment. We all have these qualities to some extent, it’s simply a question of learning how to develop them. If you really develop them, you find that you’ve got all the potentials you need for true happiness right here in the mind. Once you can tap into that inner source of happiness, then you can live in the world … 
  18. Your Inner Teacher
     … He said that any issue that comes up in the course of concentration practice can be related to one of those seven steps. So keep those steps in mind as your basic principles. If a problem comes up, assume that one of the seven is lacking. All you have to do is figure out which one and to work out variations on how to … 
  19. Fear & Conviction
     … You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but you do know that, whatever happens, you’re going to need more mindfulness, you’re going to need more alertness, more discernment, more concentration. You’re going to need to have a safe place inside. This is why we meditate. So if you find your conviction getting lax, it basically comes … 
  20. Acceptance Without Suffering
     … An important principle in concentration practice is that you do it with a sense of well-being. The object fits with the mind; the mind fits with the object. They feel good together. You need this sense of well-being inside not only while you’re sitting here meditating, but also as you go through the day. It’s good while you’re meditating … 
  21. In the Light of Karma
     … that attitude, then, as you focus on the breath, you focus on the breath with a light mind, with a sense of having come to a place that does offer safety. Concentration may be something fabricated but it takes you to a good place. You can start engaging in your verbal fabrications—all the thoughts and conversations of the mind—in a skillful way … 
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