Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 129
  2. The Mind When Trained Brings Happiness
     … Even though the pleasure of concentration is not the ultimate, it’s a step in the right direction. That way, we have a refuge for the mind when life changes, when youth ends and health ends and when life itself ends. We’ll have a happiness that’s secure.
  3. Taking a Stance
     … developing concentration, getting some sense of where the suffering is inside and what you’re doing to cause it, and then learning how to let go of the cause. This is a good place to take a stance, to develop the qualities you need— and to set your sights in the right direction.
  4. Skills Needed at Death
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, to give the mind direction. That’s the most important thing you’re going to need at that point: a direction. And you’ll need to be able to stay in that direction. So learn how to fight the mind’s tendency to be switching direction so quickly, so easily. That’s probably the … 
  5. The Third and a Half Noble Truth
     … They taught him skills for concentration, he mastered them, and he realized that they didn’t lead to the end of suffering, so he moved on, moved on. He tried six years of self-torment. That didn’t work. He moved on. He kept looking for what would actually bring about good results. So he had very high expectations and he stuck with them … 
  6. You Should Heed These Shoulds
     … Your practice of concentration will involve them. Even discernment—the perceptions and thought constructs you use for discernment—will involve the aggregates, especially perceptions. And you have to hold on. And if it involves a sense of self as you do this, well, the Buddha recommends that you develop a good, healthy sense of self: a sense that, one, you can do this; and … 
  7. Faith
     … It’s going to take time and it’s going to require effort, which is why the quality of concentration and conviction go together. You’ve got to get the mind together and you’ve got to be convinced that this is really worth doing. In spite of how slow it may seem, or in spite of the setbacks you may run into, remember … 
  8. Dhamma Intelligence
     … This is why we work on concentration, giving the mind a good solid basis right here, and then seeing when it wants to leave that solid basis—and you don’t go with it. All too often, our thoughts flash out, and we try to follow them. It’s like going out with a flashlight on a foggy night, and seeing the beam going … 
  9. Fear of Death
     … the pleasure and rapture that come as you get the mind into right concentration. You begin to realize that sensual pleasures and your fascination with sensual thoughts really aren’t that satisfying. It’s like eating a lot of potato chips. The more you eat, the hungrier you get, and you never really get satisfied. This is one of the reasons why we work … 
  10. A World Apart
     … What you need most at times like that are powers of alertness, mindfulness, discernment, and concentration. These are precisely the skills you’re developing as you stay with the breath and work with the breath so that it becomes a good place to stay. So how does the breath feel right now? Does it feel like something you can stay with comfortably, or are … 
  11. Part III : Daily Life
     … So as you feed yourself with a sense of well-being inside that comes both from the inner sense of physical well-being that you can maintain with the breath, and the mental well-being that comes as your mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment get stronger, your food-source gets more secure. You find yourself taking less and less from the world, and having … 
  12. Tranquility & Insight with the Breath
     … Then, once the mind is rested, you can ask yourself, “Can I spread this out?” Ideally, the kind of concentration we’re working for is not just one spot. It’s a full-body awareness. It’s anchored in one spot, but its range fills the whole body. It’s like looking at a picture: You may be focusing on one spot in the … 
  13. A Good Mood to Meditate
     … Remind yourself also that you’re following a good path, the path of the Buddha’s teachings—virtue, concentration, discernment—which harms no one. It helps foster good qualities in the mind. It’s a path that was found by people without defilements and taught by people without defilements who, when they taught it, had no ulterior motives are all. They had found what … 
  14. Be Prepared
     … As the Buddha said, heedfulness is the basis for all skillful qualities, not just concentration. Your compassion, your wisdom, your ability to be generous, all the good qualities we’re trying to develop in the path: All these things come from heedfulness, realizing that there are dangers, but there are ways of avoiding those dangers. We’re not going to be totally free of … 
  15. Solving Real Problems
     … calming fabrication, getting sensitive to fabrication, using the processes of fabrication to gladden the mind, concentrate the mind, and then finally release the mind. Even though you’re going to be gaining release from fabrication, you have to use them as part of the path. You have to use perceptions—those three characteristics they call them: They’re actually three perceptions. You learn how … 
  16. Right Questions in the Right Order
     … The path to the total end is the noble eightfold path, starting with the right view and ending with the right concentration. So, what do you do with these things? That’s the next question. Once you’ve got these terms down and can identify them within you, what’s the next step? It starts with identifying them within you, and then realizing that … 
  17. An Equanimity You Can Feed On
     … The equanimity you can feed on comes either through doing the brahmavihara practice or through practicing strong concentration. In both of those cases, you have to take the mind first through some pleasant, nourishing states. Feed it with pleasure, and then you move on to the equanimity that comes with being full. There’s a very subtle pleasure that goes with the equanimity, and … 
  18. Issues of Control
     … His descriptions of right concentration, where he does mention the word jhāna, don’t tell you how to do it. They simply say, “This is what this state is like, and that’s what that state is like.” Instructions for how to do it come in the definition of right mindfulness: You keep track of something in and of itself, in this case the … 
  19. The Mind's Immune System
     … To do this you start with the practice of jhana, the practice of good solid concentration, so you can cut through those obsessions, so that you gain alternative ways of relating to pleasure and pain. As the Buddha said in his sutta on the two arrows, if there’s pain in the body it’s like being shot with one arrow. When these obsessions … 
  20. Death Is Normal
     … There’s the pleasure and the happiness, the well-being that come from generosity, the well-being that comes from virtue, and the steadiness of mind that comes from developing the mind in concentration and goodwill. We try to develop these qualities so that when we think of Dang, the current that goes her direction is a good current. It’s a nourishing current … 
  21. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … The Buddha talks about trying to develop a sense of ease, a sense of fullness or refreshment in the concentration. Sometimes it’s there but we don’t appreciate it, and when we don’t appreciate it, it just sloughs off and it doesn’t have that much of an effect. But if you allow yourself to appreciate your skillful actions, then it begins … 
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