Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 134
  2. Compunction
     … You remember what the Buddha said, “Stingy people can’t get their minds to concentrate. Stingy people have no way of gaining awakening.” You have to look for that part of the mind that’s willing to share, happy to share. At first it may not be all that willing, but as you do it again and again, there does come a sense of … 
  3. Good Work
     … So we’re resting the mind in concentration not because that’s where we’re going to end up, but because we need rest in order to do the work. It’s like people coming to stay here at the monastery. I often find that they arrive with a huge sleep debt, and they need a couple of days to work it off. It … 
  4. How to Change
     … last Dhamma talk: The soldier in your mind is the desire not to come back and be the laughingstock of the defilements ever again. Your discernment is the soldier’s weapon. Concentration, mindfulness: These are the food and other supporting factors for the soldier. Learn to think of yourself in those terms. If you’ve been victimized in the past, you don’t have … 
  5. Many I’s, Many Eyes
     … As these qualities work together, they turn into a factor of right concentration: evaluation. You have standards against which you want to measure things, and your standards get better and better with practice. This in turn develops into a quality of wisdom called analysis of qualities, seeing what you’re doing, seeing the results of what you’re doing, and getting clearer and clearer … 
  6. A Meritorious Heart
     … As you go beyond the practice of goodwill into focusing on the breath, developing mindfulness, developing concentration, it’s all best done with this attitude of a meritorious heart, a heart that wishes happiness for all, wishes true happiness for all. This is why we meditate. This is why we practice to begin with. We want a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody. We … 
  7. Helping Others Is a Battle
     … This is why we put so much emphasis on getting the mind into concentration: Focus on your breath. Breathe in a way that feels good, nourishing for the body. Soothing when you’re feeling frazzled. Energizing when you’re feeling tired. Relaxing when you’re feeling tense. Use the breath as medicine. Realize that you do have good potentials inside. This will be an … 
  8. The Source of Goodness
     … As you develop the qualities we’re working on—mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, tranquility and insight—you find you become a steadier person. Your mind has a good grounding and a good home. You’re not so open to influences from outside, especially negative influences. In that way, you develop a greater solidity. And the solidity is in and of itself a gift to … 
  9. Chronic Pain
     … Your approach may work today, but then tomorrow you’ve got another perception, so you have to keep probing around, keep asking questions, because the ability to separate the mind out from the pain, even though it’s based on concentration, is an activity of discernment. You have to figure out: “What is it that I’m doing that’s making the pain pain … 
  10. Part II : Common Problems
     … This is one of the reasons why we get the mind into concentration, so that we can put it in a position where we can watch the pain and not feel threatened by it. As you watch it, you learn about it. You come to comprehend it. So, focus on the breath. Get it really comfortable. Give the mind the energy it needs in … 
  11. The Story-telling Mind
     … You weave new stories in the mind, stories in which you have a change of heart, new stories that come together right here, enabling you to stay right here with a sense of wellbeing, clarity, concentration, mindfulness, and discernment. Without anything tugging you back into the past, pulling you into the future, you’re able to just be right here, right now, aware right … 
  12. Artillery All Around
     … So it’s important that you realize that concentration and all the other factors of the path, all the other right factors, are things that we put together. We fabricate them, we develop them, as they say in the suttas. Because we have different kinds of defilements, we’re going to have to fabricate the path in lots of different ways. You look at … 
  13. A Dhamma Bucket List
     … As you develop your discernment through mindfulness and concentration, you begin to realize that, yes, you can develop those good qualities, too. They’re open to you. So there you are: conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment. There’s another list that the Buddha associates with the qualities that lead you to be a deva, which adds one more quality to the list of four. Sometimes … 
  14. An Issue of Control
     … How far can you push those three characteristics, and what can you find that is relatively constant, relatively easeful, relatively under your control? The best you can do with the amount of control you do have is to get the mind in a state of concentration. So explore that. Get to know how well you can exert an influence on the present moment. This … 
  15. Victory
     … The soldier has his weapon, which is discernment, and his supply corps, which consists of all the other factors of the path, such as mindfulness and concentration. The soldier himself is the determination not to come back and be the laughingstock of the defilements ever again. So this is the battle we want to win. Greed comes up, you recognize it; you can work … 
  16. Love for the Dhamma
     … Even if you can’t yet find the ultimate island of the transcendent, you build a temporary island with mindfulness and concentration, so that you’re not pushed around all the time. That means taking a stance where you are. Sometimes, taking a stance where you are requires making some sacrifices. But that’s where you make your choice: whether you want to make … 
  17. Protect Your Inner Center
     … That’s an integral part of the concentration. Sometimes we hear that the mind should be totally without any thoughts at all when you meditate. But if you make it totally empty, it’s like opening the door to your house and leaving it open. Anything can come in. You’ve got to keep the mind occupied. So as long as it has this … 
  18. Feeding on Open Wounds
     … The good food he gives us is concentration. The two main topics he recommends as a bases for sensory restraint are mindfulness of the body and the immeasurable states of mind that go with the brahmaviharas. With mindfulness of the body, you learn to develop a sense of well-being inside. You sit here just breathing, totally immersed in the body, your sense of … 
  19. Merit: Actively Happy
     … It’s the realization that certain things are within your control, and you can turn those things to a really good and noble kind of happiness, a happiness that prepares you for your concentration practice and for discernment practice. It’s nothing to be looked down on, the practice of merit. It’s a type of happiness that forms the foundation for everything else … 
  20. The Kamma of Self & Not-Self
     … The Buddha doesn’t have a term for it, but he does recommend that you develop concentration as a source of well-being in the mind that’s totally harmless. It doesn’t require that you do anything unskillful to develop it and it doesn’t have a bad impact on the mind. As he said, if you have this pleasure, the pleasure of … 
  21. Goodwill as Restraint
     … Goodwill is a form of concentration, and that requires restraint. You don’t let your mind wander off into other areas. If you do find some ill will creeping in, or the desire to do harm or to see somebody being harmed, or resentment or aversion, you’ve got to look into it for the purpose of training yourself out of it. You don … 
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