Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. The Pleasure of Concentration
  3. Directing & Not Directing the Mind
     … Well, that’s not how the Buddha taught either concentration or mindfulness. Concentration, remember, is full-body awareness. It’s actually quite broad. Concentration on goodwill extends not only through the body, but out in all directions to all beings. And it’s both concentration and a kind of mindfulness. As for mindfulness practice, the Buddha calls it a kind of concentration, which you … 
  4. Concentration Work
     … It gets more subtle, and the sense of well-being that comes with the concentration gets more solid over time. Sometimes there’s the temptation just to say, “Well, this is good enough.” But if you’re seriously concerned about any possibility for the mind to lie to itself and to deceive itself, or any possibility that the concentration might start falling apart, you … 
  5. Three Levels of Concentration, The
  6. What You Learn from Concentration
  7. Trust in Concentration for Now
  8. Right Speech in Right Concentration
  9. Ardent with Respect for Concentration
  10. Complexities of the Mind
     … And the development of discernment and the development of concentration have to go hand-in-hand, just as a soldier can’t fight without food, but simply eating the food is not going to win the battle. In the same way, you can’t really practice without concentration, yet the concentration, on its own, is not going to win the battle. You need both … 
  11. A Well-Thatched Roof
     … There may be a slight attachment to the pleasure of concentration, even a strong attachment, but it’s a healthy attachment. You sometimes hear warnings about the dangers of concentration, but the danger of concentration lies in wrong concentration: concentration devoid of mindfulness, concentration devoid of alertness, concentration based on ulterior motives—to exert power over others, to win their respect—or wrong view … 
  12. The Triple Training
     … A lot of people, when they’re concentrated, are concentrated through lust, or through anger, or through greed or fear. They get obsessed with these defilements, and their minds can hold on to them for a long time. But that’s not the kind of concentration we want. The Buddha said that right concentration starts when you let go of unskillful qualities: everything from … 
  13. Don't Fear the Pleasure of Concentration
  14. Mindfulness & Perception
     … It develops in the direction of getting stronger and more refined concentration, until the insight comes, not simply in learning how to get the mind to meditate, or learning how to get the mind to settle down into the meditation, but also learning how to gain insight while you’re in concentration. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, there comes a point when you … 
  15. Think of the Consequences
     … As the Buddha said, have some respect for concentration, respect for the fact that this may take time, but it’s worthwhile. And even if you find it easy to get the mind into concentration, you still have to stick with it for long periods of time so that the mind will develop the sense of stability, the sense of well-being inside where … 
  16. Do, Maintain, Use
     … You can stop and immediately return to the concentration. You’re connecting things. Sometimes when concentration comes, it just seems to go on its own. Realize that you made a choice, and that if you chose to do something, then you can choose to undo that choice. All too often, you see the concentration coming and then beginning to fall away, and you think … 
  17. A Magic Set of Tools
     … We often hear that mindfulness practice and concentration practice are two different things, but the Buddha never taught them that way. He said that right mindfulness leads naturally to right concentration. In all of the descriptions of the path — such as the noble eightfold path, the five faculties, the seven factors for awakening — right mindfulness always precedes right concentration. So don’t think of … 
  18. Learning by Doing
     … Then there comes a point where you abandon this state of concentration, too—but don’t let it go until it’s done its work. In the meantime, try to get to know this process of getting the mind into concentration, keeping it in concentration—because that’s how you come to understand the mind. Some people think that you get the mind quiet … 
  19. Thinking Your Way to Stillness
     … That gives rise to a sense of confidence, a sense of well-being, and then through that you can get the mind to settle down and be still, get concentrated. You read sometimes about people who are afraid of concentration. The mind actually gets concentrated and they feel somehow that they don’t deserve it, or that it couldn’t really be the kind … 
  20. The Ennobling Path
     … It requires both the qualities of serenity and concentration on the one hand, and the qualities of insight and discernment on the other. They go hand-in-hand. This is a different kind of discernment from ehs we use in normal everyday activities. It’s one that penetrates the concentration, one that goes along with the concentration, and is devoted to making the concentration … 
  21. In Search of What is Skillful
     … This is a good image to keep in mind, because what we’re looking for in terms of getting the mind to settle down in concentration and taking that concentration even further belongs to that third category. So if we’re not finding concentration, we should ask ourselves: “What am I looking for, and how am I looking?” Think of the Buddha on his … 
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