Search results for: "Concentration"
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- Looking Inward… One of the reasons why we develop concentration is to create a sense of well-being in the mind so that it’ll start admitting the places where it’s been lying to itself. The analogy is with someone who’s hungry: If you try to talk to a hungry or tired person about what’s wrong with them, they don’t want to …
- Appreciating Your Practice… That’s a lot of what concentration practice is about. As for the insights, an insight is useful if it actually has an impact on helping you develop some dispassion for things that used to get you worked up. That’s how you know if an insight is worthwhile. You can read in the books about the insights you’re supposed to have and …
- The Buddha’s Metaphysics… They’re obstacles to our concentration, but they also maintain the ignorance that keeps us suffering. Things you’re doing right now. Things you don’t have to be doing right now. As the Buddha also noted, what we’re experiencing right now is a combination of the results of past actions, our present actions, and the results of our present actions. Of those …
- Resourceful… Ajaan Lee has his way of teaching concentration, Ajaan Maha Boowa has his, Ajaan Chah has his. And as for developing insight, they all have their own approaches. What they have in common is more an attitude. And the attitude developed by monks living alone in the forest was self-reliance. One of the main ingredients in that attitude was learning to be resourceful …
- Nourishing & Interesting… When you’re sitting here meditating, sometimes you want to be told what level of concentration you’re on, but that’s imposing outside words on you. You should actually want to become more sensitive: What does it feel like to have the mind settle down? How many different ways does it settle down, and how do they feel to you? The whole purpose …
- Bigger than the World… This is why, when we practice concentration, we try to fill the body with our awareness, fill the body with breath. Try to be sensitive to any peculiar habits you may have around what you do when you breathe in or what you do when you breathe out. One of the big mistakes we make as we work with the breath is that we …
- Cause & Effect… But when the power of concentration gets developed, when it gets stronger and stronger, you find that you do have the energy: This is the right thing to do, it makes perfect sense to do it—so why not do it? The Buddha says to abandon sensual craving, to abandon craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming or for annihilation. When you directly …
- Off to a Good Start… So we focus on the breath as a way of training mindfulness, training alertness to give rise to concentration, discernment—and a lot of other good qualities as well. But it’s the mindfulness and the alertness that really get trained as our foundation. So you keep the breath in mind: all the way in, all the way out. You can focus on any …
- Study & Practice… Some people get upset when they’re doing concentration or practicing restraint of the senses and notice that their defilements seem to be getting worse for a while. That’s simply because they’re penned in. It’s like taking a tiger that’s used to roaming around, and then penning it in. Of course it’s going to rebel. But that doesn’t …
- Basic Wisdom… That’s a principle that can take you through concentration practice all the way to the end. The one spot where it gets a little bit different is something of a logical extension: If really refined fabrication, really refined action is preferable to grosser action, how about no action at all? And it turns out there is a way you can get the mind …
- The Radiant Mind… In fact, we use these types of fabrication to create a state of concentration. You focus on the breath. You talk to yourself about the breath and you use perceptions to help you stay with the breath. Ask yourself what kinds of perceptions help the mind to settle down with a feeling of ease in the breath. Think of the breath as a whole …
- The Graduated Discourse… To do that, you need to develop the path, both the right view that points out why this is important, and the practice of right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration to give the mind the strength it needs to be able to sit with pain and not get blown away by it. So what we’re doing right now, as we sit and …
- Stick with It… Take concentration: When it gets really pleasant—when there’s a sense of pleasure, a sense of fullness, a sense of well-being that comes from the practice—it becomes a lot easier to stick with it. The important thing, though, is that you have to stick with it when the pleasure doesn’t come or before the pleasure has come. Which is why …
- In Charge of Your Moods… Once you’ve got these three things clear in your mind, then you begin to notice how you use them to create not only a state of concentration, like you’re trying to do right here, but also as you go through the day—how you create different emotions. When you realize that these are the building blocks, then if you find you’re …
- Strengthening Conviction… conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. The fact that conviction comes first shows that it’s important. As one of my teachers in Thailand once said, you notice that the list leading up to discernment doesn’t start with concepts or ideas. It starts with conviction. Discernment comes from conviction—provided, of course, that it’s conviction in the right things. Traditionally, this means …
- Refuge… Develop your concentration. Develop your discernment. Try to do good in the world, but realize that the real goodness is what comes from the mind. Ajaan Lee’s analogy is that when you do good in the world, it’s like squeezing juice out of fruit. You take the juice and you leave the remains behind. Even though the remains of the fruit are …
- Metta… We’re developing good qualities like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, as an expression of goodwill for ourselves, hoping that we will be able to look after ourselves with ease. So metta surrounds the practice, gives us our motivation. And it also gives us our protection. That’s another way in which it surrounds the practice. When you feel tempted by ill will to do …
- Painful Thinking… That’s why we practice concentration focused on the breath. In fact, that’s why we focus on making the breath really comfortable, so that we have a good foundation. So focus your attention right here, right here at the breath. And notice how it feels. Notice how you can play with it. If you don’t play around, you can’t really understand …
- Papañca… It’s just the question of which actions are good, which actions are not, which actions are helpful with getting the mind to settle down and stay settled down, or to get it to point to deeper states of concentration: Think in **those terms. You find yourself getting very intimate with the breath without having to have a sense of “you” being there. There …
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