Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 122
  2. Intro to Breath Meditation
     … Mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, all these things: The more you have them, the better.
  3. Your Gyroscope
     … So your protection is both the concentration and the discernment working together. This helps you to maintain your sense of balance, so that things that used to knock you over don’t knock you over anymore. The waves come past, and they just go past. You stay upright as things go up and as things go down. That’s the skill you want to … 
  4. The Arrows of Emotion
     … This is what the concentration is for. This is why we try to develop mindfulness and alertness, and particularly to learn how to get a sense of well-being that goes with getting the mind in stillness, so that we can have the nourishment and strength to deal with the unpleasant things that are bound to come up. That way, even though there are … 
  5. Tenacity
     … You’re working for a just-right concentration, beginning with the beginning steps: choosing your spot, cleaning things out, getting rid of any disturbances all the way through. This state of mind is your food in the meditation, food in the practice. When the mind is well fed like this, then it’s willing to start understanding itself and stop hiding things from itself … 
  6. Realizing Cessation
     … There’s the joy of being virtuous, the joy of concentration, and the joy of insight. When you see that the things you used to be a slave to are not worth it and you can rise above them so that you’re no longer attracted to them, a strong sense of freedom comes with that. And when you attain the goal, there’s … 
  7. What Are You Doing?
     … It requires asking yourself, “How am I relating to this?” This is where alertness comes in the mindfulness practice, and where your evaluation comes in as the mindfulness shades into right concentration: evaluating what you’re doing, the results you’re getting—making that your major focus. Remember that we’re not just passive observers watching things just going on their own. They may … 
  8. A Load of Straw
     … Once you’ve developed these attitudes, then when thoughts that go against these principles come into the mind, you’ll catch them more quickly, see them more easily, and in this way these attitudes become a basis for good concentration, a basis for developing stillness within the mind. Of course there are cases where people are suffering and you can’t do anything to … 
  9. To Gladden the Mind
     … You develop concentration, you develop discernment, and they take you to the point where you can confirm for yourself inside that the Buddha knew what he was talking about—there is a deathless, and it can be attained through human effort. That’s how you overcome your doubts about the Buddha. From that point on, your conviction is confirmed. So the Buddha wasn’t … 
  10. The Core of Experience
     … Now, you will find, though, that in the course of the path, there are certain things you do have to hold onto temporarily, or provisionally—things like virtue, concentration, and discernment. Those are the skills you need to develop to get to release. After all, you can’t use release to get to release. You have to use what you’ve got. And the … 
  11. Universal Truths
     … right mindfulness, right concentration, and all the rest. It’s good to keep in mind, though, that there comes a point where you have to let go of even concepts of things like the five aggregates and the duties of the four truths. There’s just stress arising and passing away, something you just comprehend and develop dispassion for. And because there are these … 
  12. The Skill of Happiness
     … In the beginning, the skill is the skill of concentration: getting the mind to stay with one object—like the breath. You think about the breath and then you notice when it’s coming in, when it’s going out, and you evaluate it: Is it comfortable? What kind of breathing would be comfortable right now? And you also evaluate your focus: Where’s … 
  13. Pulling Out of the Narratives
     … Even in simple things like the way your breath goes, or the way your concentration goes, learn to open your mind to new opportunities, new possibilities. Always keep an eye out for the possibility that you’re shaping your experience more than you might realize. Fiction writers find this happening all the time. They set up a group of characters in their heads, and … 
  14. The Perception of Inconstancy
     … There’s the potential for mindfulness, the potential for concentration, for discernment. With these potentials, you don’t just wait for them to come and go. You actively search out: Which are the skillful potentials? Which are the unskillful ones? Like right now, as you’re meditating, there’s a potential in the breath for there to be a sense of ease, a sense … 
  15. The Web of Pain
     … So this process of playing with your perceptions or manipulating your perceptions is a very important part of the practice, both in helping your concentration and in giving you insights. We usually think of insight simply as the ability to see things arising and passing away, which is supposed to do away with our attachment to them. Well, it’s important to see things … 
  16. The Buddha’s Letter
     … But the things that you do can also be your protection, as long as you keep your virtue solid and your views straight, and you work on establishing mindfulness to the point of concentration. That way, you’ve got your island inside, as the Buddha calls it. You can be your own island. The floods can come and go, but you’re safe. That … 
  17. You Are Not Redundant
     … Then you can shape your mind in ways that gladden it, concentrate it, release it. This is all within your power. So each of us has an inherent power. We’re already shaping our present moment experience. It’s just that for the most part, we’re doing it in ignorance, and as a result we suffer. If you can learn how to look … 
  18. Older than the Cosmos
     … Even when you get focused in concentration and try to fabricate just one thing continually, you have to fight to begin with. But it’s doable and it’s part of the path out, but still, it’s just part of the path. It’s not the goal, because it, too, has to be constantly fabricated. Then you begin to wonder, “Is there anything … 
  19. Sit with It
     … Remind yourself that a session of meditation is not necessarily measured by how good the concentration is. There are other ways of measuring it. One of them is how much patience you have. And see patience as a positive value, because if you’re not willing to sit with the mind and with the body when they’re bad, there’s a lot you … 
  20. How the Breath Helps You to Die Well
     … But they do separate out as you get the mind into concentration and go through the stages of stillness to the point where you’ve got just awareness as your main perception. This is not an awakened awareness, but it’s an awareness that allows you to see: This is where the fabrications go. This is how they get started again. This is where … 
  21. Ajaan Suwat’s Gift
     … virtue, concentration, and discernment, based on a foundation of generosity and goodwill. Right here is where the real work has to be done. And when the work is done here, to the point where you have something solid inside, then you can share. Up to that point, you really have to work on, as Ajaan Suwat would say, “getting” yourself. He would often comment … 
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