Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. A Thread Out of the Maze
     … All has to depend on is your powers of observation, your mindfulness, your alertness, your powers of concentration, and the subtlety of your discernment. Why is this important? The choices we make in life depend on how we feel in the present moment. You could think of this as a selfish indulgence, sitting here breathing in a comfortable way, while the rest of the … 
  3. The Value of Effort
     … As you sit here meditating, you could be just allowing whatever comes to come and pass away, pass away, that’s it; or you could be actively trying to work on concentration. Nobody’s forcing you. The only thing forcing you is that there is suffering; there is stress. If you hold in mind your conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, you’ve got … 
  4. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
     … Some of the subtle ones take a lot of concentration for you to sense their presence. Focus on the ones you can notice right now and try to keep them as comfortable as possible. Think again of the breathing as a whole-body process. You focus your awareness on one point, but that one point is connected to every other part of the body … 
  5. A Much Better Place
     … This way, the energy of the mind gets more and more concentrated. And this inner sense of your spot, your space that you’ve been identifying with, gets stronger and stronger all the time—at the same time getting more precise, so that you can begin to see what this is made up of as well. But don’t be in too great a … 
  6. A Home & a Mobile Home
    One of the standard terms for concentration is *vihara-dhamma, *which can be translated as “a home for the mind.” As you focus on the breath, you want to get the mind so that it feels at home here, in a home that’s solidly built and a good place to stay. Otherwise, the mind goes roaming out looking for scraps outside to give … 
  7. Factors for Stream Entry
     … So you use your understanding of right view and you apply it to the mind, trying to develop concentration, mindfulness, and all the other factors you need so that you can really see into the mind clearly. You use your right view to look at all other views that would pull you away, and you learn how to take them apart. Anything that would … 
  8. Seven Facets of Discernment
     … We develop our powers of concentration, our powers of mindfulness, our powers of discernment so that we can pick up the lessons that are here for us to learn. There’s a lot to observe right here in the present moment. There’s a lot to observe as you deal with issues coming in from the past, planning for the future. As the forest … 
  9. Perceptions of Earth & Space
     … But one drawback to space is that for the mind to gain real strength from the concentration, it has to go back to the form of the body. You can hang out in space for a while, but then in Ajaan Lee’s image it’s like someone who’s worked and then gotten a big payment, one lump sum as a pension. They … 
  10. Reflecting on Karma
     … This is why we work on concentration. We set up a good intention and we try to maintain it. Sometimes it’s discouraging, seeing the things that come and eat it away. But if you keep on setting up that intention, again and again and again, it’s going to get more and more firm. It’s like building a fence: The closer together … 
  11. Impossible Things
     … that you’re going to master the concentration, you’re going to taste the Deathless. Of course these things, strictly speaking, are not impossible, but a lot of voices in our minds seem to insist that they are. So it’s good to think about impossibilities every now and again to change the tone of the conversation. Remind yourself that your life isn’t … 
  12. Dethinking Thinking
     … That’s why we practice concentration, so that you can dethink your thoughts not out of desperation or from neurotic dislike for them, but from a place of balanced well-being. You put the mind in a good place and then, from there, you can gaze back at the ideas you’ve been carrying around and you can ask yourself with some objectivity: “Are … 
  13. When Things Aren’t Going Well
     … Fabrication can become the comfortable breathing and directed thought and evaluation of right concentration. So it’s all right here. When you get bored or discouraged with the practice, remind yourself that it’s because you’re not paying careful attention. You’re letting your expectations get in the way, or your moods get in the way: Something is getting in the way so … 
  14. Staying on Track
     … And your concentration won’t really be fruitful if it’s not based in virtue. So try to keep everything in context, both the analytical context of how the mind fabricates things, and the heart context of someone who’s got a lot of goodwill. When you keep the whole context in mind, you realize what the Buddha said at one point is true … 
  15. Finding Extra Energy
     … And the Buddha said, “In the same way, you tune your effort to what you’re capable of, and then you tune the rest of the faculties – conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment – to the amount of effort that’s just right for you.” So that’s one way of figuring out how much effort is the right amount: what you’re capable of. The … 
  16. Nibbana Is Better than You Think
     … We talked about it a bit and then we talked about the fourth truth, and finally we got to the right concentration in the fourth truth: pleasure and rapture throughout the body. A number of people said, “The path sounds better than the goal.” That’s because we’re on this side of the path. In other words, we haven’t completed it yet … 
  17. The Joy of Growing
     … that you stretch yourself, that you grow, that you develop strengths you didn’t have before—strengths of endurance, stronger mindfulness, stronger concentration. It’s all about developing and growing—and finding joy in developing and growing You’ve got to figure things out. The Buddha gives you the outline, and you’ve got to figure out how the outline applies to the particulars … 
  18. The Wisdom of Wising Up
     … Are all the members of the committee on board with the desire to stay with the breath? Which ones aren’t? When they’re not on board, where do they want to wander? What are they looking for? Why? The Buddha said to try to get the mind to settle down in right concentration, you have to seclude it from unskillful qualities. You have … 
  19. Actor & Experiencer
     … This comes down to the principle that Ajaan Lee repeated many times according to Ajaan Fuang, which is that a person of discernment can learn how to use almost anything as a means for furthering mindfulness, furthering concentration, furthering your powers of discernment. So learn the proper uses for what you’ve got. How do you learn? Through patience and endurance, using your powers … 
  20. Change Your Habits
     … Strength comes from your conviction, your persistence, your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment. Figuring things out is the ultimate strength. Of the five strengths the Buddha talked about, discernment is the big one. Ajaan Lee has a nice quote. He says for a person with discernment, all you need is a machete and you can set yourself up in life. Even if you have … 
  21. For the Survival of True Happiness
     … We use it in our training in concentration as we focus on the breath, or as we focus on the movement of the body as it goes through the day, using the body as our place to be grounded. The final use is for the sake of discernment, because it teaches us, if we listen to it, that time takes things away. When we … 
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