Search results for: "Concentration"
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- Dhamma Medicine for Free… As we chanted just now, you have to have respect for concentration, learning the skills that go along with the breath, so that it can give you the strength you need to help with the strength of discernment. Ultimately, you get the mind to the point where it doesn’t need to feed on anything anymore. It’s totally free from all its misapprehensions …
- Endurance & Restraint… And where are you going to get the strength to do this? The final line in the talk was about the heightened mind, adhicitta, which is another term for the practice of concentration. You practice restraint not only in your dealings with others, but also in your own consumption of food. You have restraint in terms of the Pātimokkha rules: for the monks, the …
- A Larger Perspective… There’s being mindful; being concentrated on something. These are things, again, that we do all the time, but we don’t necessarily do them in the right way. It’s not as if the Buddha’s making up new types of unheard-of activities. He’s just that he’s showing us which of these activities that we’re doing all the time …
- The Meaning of the Body… So the body is good grounding for concentration practice. It’s also a good object for insight practice, developing insight into the whole issue of which actions are skillful, which ones are not; which mental qualities lead to suffering, which mental qualities lead to the end of suffering; which assumptions pile on suffering, which assumptions are part of the path. The word “sañña” has …
- Inner Negotiating Skills… True happiness is found through training yourself in virtue, concentration, and discernment. It’s something you can do. This is probably one of the most important parts of the Buddha’s teachings—his emphasis on what human beings can do for themselves. You look at the other teachings of his time. So many of them said, “Well, there’s only so much you can …
- Effective Self-Discipline… At the same time, as you really pay attention to the breath, you begin to notice that certain ways of breathing are helpful for concentration and others are not. This makes it easier to stick with the breath as you see that there’s more than just sticking with it—coming in, going out, coming in, and going out. You see that there are …
- Spread Goodness Around… But if you work on them and gain a sense of being balanced here in the concentration, a lot of the burdens in the mind get lifted. And then you have more time for other people. So the meditation is a gift to yourself and to others. And when you want to dedicate the merit of your meditation, you’ve got something good to …
- A Private Matter… Why do we suffer from pain? How can we use the pleasure of a concentrated mind to lead us to even greater ease and wellbeing? Often it’s best not to analyze the issue too much in advance. You can read the books on jhana or vipassana, and then try to impose the words on your experience. And of course your understanding of the …
- Self-Reliance… As you develop in concentration or jhana practice, it becomes evaluation. You evaluate what you’re doing, how the breath is going, where it feels right, where it doesn’t feel right, and you make adjustments. So appropriate attention doesn’t just sit there and look at things. It also moves you in the right direction. When you see that something’s skillful, then …
- Good at Thinking… After all, once the mind is still, and you come out of that stillness, you could focus in on anything at all with your improved powers of concentration. Or if it so happens that an interesting idea or insight comes popping into your mind when the mind is still, it’s very easy to latch to it, saying, “Oh, this must really be true …
- Strong Through Admirable Friendship… As for whatever mindfulness you may have, any concentration you may have, you try to make sure that it develops and takes hold. You don’t just watch it come and watch it go. But there’s more to right effort than just making an effort. You have to motivate yourself. As the Buddha says, you have to generate desire. You have to want …
- Rebirth & Not-Self… We also have the choice, he says, to turn these aggregates into a state of concentration. So what choice will you make? There’s a you here, for the time being, making that choice. As the Buddha said, as long as there’s craving for the aggregates, attachment to the aggregates, there will be a being. So instead of using that being to create …
- Overwhelmed by Freedom… Your first line of defense as you’re practicing concentration should always be: Any other issues that come up are not what you’re here for right now. But if they come up persistently, you have to look into them to see why they have such power over the mind, what their drawbacks are, and why you really shouldn’t have to listen to …
- Fears… To do this you have to take apart the basic building blocks of experience, as you encounter them in concentration: form, feeling, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. You look to see where these things are inconstant. Where they’re inconstant, you realize they’re stressful. There’s stress right there in the inconstancy. Then when you look at stress, look at suffering — although at …
- Love is Conditional, Goodwill Is Not… You have to be careful here, because if you get too indulgent with the pleasure and forget the breath, then you’re going to get into what Ajaan Lee calls delusion concentration. You want to appreciate the pleasure and stay with the breath at the same time. This sense of appreciation will then allow you to develop your skill even further. Otherwise, you can …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… No matter how worked up I am, it’s not going to change her cooking, and it’s eating into my time to practice.” So when I put away that dialogue in my mind, I suddenly found a lot* *more time for concentration, a lot more time to do what I was really supposed to be doing. As new monks, the Buddha said there …
- The Skill of Letting Go… So even just getting into concentration requires that you see drawbacks, and you ask yourself, of course, the opposite question: “Where’s the allure?” In this way, you get practice in letting go through discernment, through understanding, realizing the amount of effort that you put into manufacturing your experience, and getting a sense that a lot of things you manufacture are simply not worth …
- Motivation… right effort. The formula for right effort always starts out with the phrase, “generating desire.” Desire is the also the first of the bases for success or the bases for power: concentration based on desire. And the desire has to be coupled with wisdom, one, so that it’s neither too excessive—in the sense of getting you all frazzled—nor too weak. And …
- Time & Place… As you’re working on the path, you hold on to your precepts, you hold on to your topic of concentration, the frame of reference that you use for mindfulness, and the discernment that develops: You hold on to these things as you use them. The image they give in the Forest Tradition is that you’re using tools to make a piece of …
- Don’t Stop with Acceptance… You’re getting the mind still in concentration and you can detect them and deal with them at the beginning level, before they have to make you suffer. Think about that—you’re in a position where you can catch things before they make you suffer. If they’ve made you suffer, you’re too late, but you can be ready for the next …
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