Search results for: "Concentration"
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- Goodwill in Action… To what extent are you still fettered by things, to what extent are you passionate about things that would lay you low, weigh you down? How can you analyze those things in order to get past them? How can you use your powers of concentration to pull the mind back from them? As the Buddha said, the quality of tranquility is what can cut …
- Perception… In the same way, you try to sweep your mind clean—developing your mindfulness, your concentration, getting the mind still—so that you can perceive things arising in the mind. If greed comes, you want to be able to perceive it very early on. Lust comes, you want to perceive it very early on. Any unskillful emotion: If the mind is quiet, you can …
- Wherever You Go, There You Aren’t… You lost your alertness, you lost your mindfulness, your concentration, whatever. Well, pick it up right here. After all, this is where everything happens in life, this is where all the important decisions are being made: right here, right now. So you can’t let the pointing fingers that are currently pointing off to the right, off to the left, distract you. Look at …
- Anger… You use these things to create a state of concentration. But then as you go through the day, you begin to notice that you’re using these same three things to create states of becoming in the mind, and a state of anger is a very particular kind of becoming. It gives you a sense of freedom from certain constraints. Things you would never …
- The Acrobat… That’s the concentration element in mindfulness practice: being ardent, alert, and mindful. Mindfulness means that you keep your frame of reference in mind, and you keep in mind the idea that you’re going to do whatever is skillful within that frame. At the same time, you’re alert to see how things are going with the body—if that’s your frame …
- A Clean Break at Death… As the Buddha once said, even though you may realize the drawbacks of sensual attachments, you’re not going to really be able to let go of them until you’ve had at least an experience of the pleasure that comes with strong concentration, or something higher than that. So training the mind to let go of that sensual desires and all the other …
- Limitless is the Buddha… But if you find that indulging in external pleasures is creating unskillful habits—or even just hanging around in the pleasures of concentration when you should be ready to move on, if you see that happening—you’ve got to exert extra effort, which may involve pain. So learn how to delight in that. Don’t make it the kind of extra effort where …
- Karma & the Sublime Attitudes… You’re trying to develop your powers of mindfulness, your powers of alertness, your concentration, because these powers will allow you to develop your discernment. The discernment is what frees the mind—frees it from all the restrictions it places on itself, all the unnecessary burdens and suffering it places on itself. So the results of staying here much longer-lasting, much more solid …
- Occupy Your Space… So goodwill has its power if you’re firm enough in your concentration and firm enough in your ability to protect yourself through your own occupation of the body. And this may all sound strange. After all, we’re supposed to think that the body is not us. We’re supposed to not have any sense of “me” in here. But that’s a …
- Time Well Spent… Everything from right view down to right concentration: These are all things you develop. They’re all aspects of training the mind, and you want your training to be complete. I was reading recently about a meditation store, which is a scary idea—it sells one or two little techniques and that’s it, just those little techniques. As all too often happens when …
- Energy Channels… You develop your concentration; you develop mindfulness. As you focus on doing these things more skillfully, it just so happens that you find something valuable. It may not have been precisely where you thought it would be, it may not have been precisely what you thought it would be, but you find it. That’s the important thing, in the course of being very …
- Stay… That becomes the next skill to develop in your concentration: learning how to put the directed thought and evaluation aside, and just try to be with the breathing. This creates a different relationship with the breath. Before, the breath was one thing and you were watching it from outside. Now you come to have the sense that your awareness of the breath and the …
- Fabricating against Defilement… But once you get the hang of it, it’s pleasant work as you’re developing mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment. These are good qualities to have in the mind. They do depend on desire but it’s good desire. The Buddha didn’t say that all desire was bad. After all, the ability to generate the desire to engage in skillful effort is an …
- Solidly Here… Otherwise, you drift in, drift out, and get into what Ajaan Lee calls delusion concentration, where everything is shapeless and formless and you’re not really sure where you are. It feels nice but it’s not a basis for any kind of real mindfulness or alertness. When things are comfortable, give yourself work to do here in the body. In addition to working …
- Here to Learn… So, if the level of your concentration isn’t up to really looking into the pain, then you can allow the pain to be in the legs but you’re going to be in another part of the body. You can focus on the breath energy in any part of the body: at the tip of the nose, in the chest, the top of …
- The True Dhamma Has Disappeared… The teachings on mindfulness, the teachings on concentration and discernment: They’re all there to make you a more reliable observer of what’s going on in yourself, so that you can see cause and effect, so that you can see those truths of inconstancy, stress, and not-self and use them as tools. When you get the mind really still and you think …
- Investigative Work… We cut them off for the time being as we get the mind into concentration. That’s because we’re looking for the facts. It’s a tedious job sometimes, but it’s made easier by the fact that we learn how to stay with the breath in a way that’s comfortable. But still, there will be a part of the mind that …
- The Four Precepts… At the same time, when you’re working in a purely internal way on the mind, trying to develop mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment, you’re not the only one who benefits. When you show more restraint in your actions, other people are freed from a lot of harm that could otherwise come from you. When you don’t act on greed, anger, and …
- Empathetic Joy… We hear again and again stories of people who gain a sense of ease and well-being, pleasure in the concentration and they don’t feel they deserve it. They shrink away from it. That’s because they have trouble being happy with other people’s happiness. So developing empathetic joy is a good practice. It expands the mind. As the Buddha said, if …
- No Preferences… The mind settles down quickly and is very still, and the mind says, “Okay, what’s next? Let’s move on to insight.” Well, maybe you have to get your concentration solidified before you’re really ready to develop insight. There are many, many examples of people who’ve gotten a little bit of stillness and wanted to jump straight for insight, and end …
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