Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 118
  2. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … Everything out there is inconstant, stressful, not-self.” One part of the mind will say, well, concentration is inconstant, stressful, not-self, too. This is where you have to say, “Not yet. For the time being, we’re trying to make it as constant as we can, as easeful as we can, and as much under our control as we can.” It’s only … 
  3. Put the Other Person’s Heart in Yours
     … Virtue, concentration, discernment: These things are all kamma. The path is a kind of kamma. And you have to understand it that way. As for the rationale behind the precepts, as the Buddha said, “Do you want to be killed? Do you want to have people steal your things? Do you want to have people have illicit sex with people who are dear to … 
  4. A Quality of the Character
     … how to analyze things, how to focus on the breath, how to develop concentration. But it always has to be within that context of virtues. And these are best picked up by being around people who are virtuous. Part of those instructions to Rahula was that if you saw you’d made a mistake, you talk it over with someone who’s more advanced … 
  5. Equanimity & More
     … He says that if you sit here meditating and develop only equanimity without trying to get the mind firmly concentrated, without exerting right effort, nothing happens. But if you combine equanimity with discernment, you realize there are a lot of things you can’t control, but there are some things you can. Focus on those. You’ve got those three kinds of fabrication. You … 
  6. Fear of Death
     … In this way, as you’re learning to deal with the obstacles to concentration, you’re also learning how to deal with other obstacles that are going to come as you approach death. This is why many of the Thai ajaans all say that meditation is a way of learning how to prepare to die, so that you can do it without suffering. That … 
  7. Introduction: Meditation as a Skill
     … So it behooves us to try to do this as skillfully as possible, to develop these qualities of mindfulness, alertness, persistence, discernment, and concentration. So we’ve got an hour to work directly on these skills. Try to make the most of it.
  8. Cut Through the Narratives
    When the Canon describes how you remember your past lives through the powers of concentration, it’s all pretty basic. This was your name, this was your appearance, this was the kind of food you ate, this was your experience of pleasure and pain, and this was how you died. That’s it. Then you do it again, and then again. It seems awfully … 
  9. No Arrows, Nothing
     … At first, you have to stitch together the concentration in order to get your awareness to settle down so that you can see the movements of the mind that are weighing you down, that are stabbing or piercing you. Then you can see the way you stitch them together, glue them together to give them meaning and make stories out of them. This is … 
  10. Standards for Thinking
     … In the same way, you’re taking all these types of fabrication and you’re turning them into concentration. You’re turning them into right view, right resolve, all the factors of the path. And you say: Where are you going to get those factors? Well, you take what you’ve got and you trim it, in the same way you would trim a … 
  11. Disenchantment
     … We choose this feeding, the feeding on concentration, because it’s relatively innocent. A lot of other feeding depends on feeding on other people—emotionally, mentally. As long as the mind is in the feeding mode, then even our compassion for other beings is feeding off of them somehow. That same Dhamma teacher who wanted to change the Vinaya was also the one who … 
  12. Looking for Happiness Inside
     … Sariputta, “Do you believe that by developing the five faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment that they lead to the Deathless?” And Sariputta says, “No, I don’t believe that. I know.” Try to get to the point where you can say that, too.
  13. Undividing the Mind
     … It means you have to use all of the strengths you have—the strength of conviction, the strength of persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—to figure out: What is the appropriate right effort right now? How much effort? What kind of effort? That way you won’t feel the regret later on that maybe if you’d developed those strengths a little bit more, they … 
  14. The Power of the Will
     … His teaching has a lot to offer, and it’s open to anybody. Think of Ajaan Mun’s statement that it’s like being in battle. Your weapon is your discernment. Concentration and mindfulness: These are your stores of food. The question is: Who is the soldier? The soldier is the determination not to come back and be the laughingstock of the defilements ever … 
  15. To Be an Adult
     … We have to use our opportunity to meditate, to practice the Dhamma in all ways—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, and discernment—as protection, both from dangers within ourselves and from dangers outside. As the Buddha says, the real dangers outside are not so much what people can do to us, they’re what other people can get us to do. They can … 
  16. Determined to Be Undefeated by Death
     … This is reflected in the Buddha’s instructions on how to be mindful and concentrated. You stay with the breath in and of itself, ardently. That’s the truth of your character. You put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That’s the letting go. Try to calm the mind, calm the breath, calm the perceptions you’re holding in mind … 
  17. What’s Getting in the Way
     … Even when he talks about something as simple as concentration: What would it be like to have the mind settle down so that it gains a sense of rapture, a sense of ease? Don’t keep that possibility far away. Ask yourself, where is the potential for rapture right now? Where is the potential for ease right now? It’s there. It may not … 
  18. Good Eating
     … Even more so when you get the mind into good, solid states of concentration. The Buddha actually compares these states to types of food. The first jhana, he says, is like water. The second and third jhanas are like rice and beans. The fourth jhana is like honey, ghee, butter. When you learn how to nourish the mind in this way, you find that … 
  19. Finding Your Own Balance
     … Again, you’re the one to decide whether you’ve put enough effort or not. Even when you find a technique that’s congenial, there’s still an element of balancing. Concentration does require some thought. It’s not that you try to forbid the mind from thinking. You have to think about the object. You have to evaluate the object, evaluate how the … 
  20. Go in Brightness
     … The heart of the way out is right concentration, because it offers a pleasure that’s not sensual: the pleasure of form. So you aim here. This is one of the meanings of what the Buddha calls having yourself well aimed, having yourself well directed. You aim at a pleasure that’s harmless and blameless: harmless in that it doesn’t intoxicate the mind … 
  21. A Heart Bigger Than the World
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, expanding our awareness to fill the body, because if the mind is small, it gets overwhelmed. All you can think about is what this person did or what that person did, and how you’re squeezed by their actions. If you put yourself in the world, the world’s going to squeeze you. But … 
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