Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … It’s good to keep this in mind as you’re practicing concentration. In the old days, every time you’d hear about concentration, especially in books that came out of the vipassana schools, they’d say, “Watch out for concentration. It’s very pleasurable, very seductive. You’re going to get stuck. You’re going to get attached. You’re going to get … 
  3. Breathing to Awakening
     … But for the insights to get solid, you have to first give rise to a state of concentration. You can say that the seven factors for awakening describe how you go from right mindfulness to right concentration via discernment. Because the next step is, basically, right effort. Once you see what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, you focus on what you can … 
  4. How to Use the Three Perceptions
     … As for the fourth noble truth, especially when you’re doing concentration right here, you do not want to be telling yourself that “The breath is inconstant, the mind’s concentration is inconstant, I’ve gained an insight, what’s next?” That short circuits everything right there. If you’re going to apply the three perceptions to anything, apply them to your distractions. Greed … 
  5. What Are You Doing in the Present?
     … So you don’t try to develop dispassion for concentration until you sense there’s going to be something better. As long as you’re dealing with other things that are not better than the concentration, the concentration has to be your passion. That’s what you’re doing in the present moment: developing that concentration so that you get deeper and deeper insights … 
  6. The Wall of Discernment
     … You begin to realize that even in concentration there is still some disturbance. And you want to figure out what’s causing it so that you can get the mind even more still. This is how you can train the mind to go into deeper and deeper levels of concentration, until you get to the point where even the breath seems to stop. There … 
  7. Subduing Greed & Distress
     … So when we talk about mindfulness and concentration, we’re talking about the same things here. Right mindfulness is simply how you get the mind into right concentration. When the Buddha describes the four jhanas in right concentration, he’s talking about the stages the mind will go through. But in the description of right concentration, he doesn’t tell you how to get … 
  8. Don’t Just Fatten Your Mind
    Don’t Just Fatten Your Mind October 9, 2018 We practice concentration as our food on the path. We try to settle the mind with one object, like the breath, and bring the mind to the object in a way that it feels at ease and has a sense of fullness, refreshment. So we work with the breath to see what kind of breathing … 
  9. Analysis of Qualities
     … They start with mindfulness, followed by discernment—the analysis of qualities factor—and then they end up in concentration. They basically show how, starting with mindfulness, you use your discernment to get the mind to settle down. They explain how right view gets you from right mindfulness to right concentration, or how discernment fosters concentration. Now, the Buddha has other lists of teachings where … 
  10. Concentration & Insight
     … Which is why the Buddha said, insight comes from concentration, by which he meant that you need some insight into the workings of the mind to get into concentration. That insight is basically a value judgment. You can decide whether the kind of pleasure that can come from concentration would be better than the pleasure that you gain from your sensual desires. And as … 
  11. Staying Still
    Respect for concentration: It’s interesting that in that verse we chanted just now, there’s a phrase, “respect for the training,” and the training, of course, covers virtue, concentration, and discernment. Then it comes back and emphasizes “respect for concentration.” The Buddha wants you to realize that this stillness of mind, this ability for the mind to just settle down and be still … 
  12. Booster Stages
     … One is getting the mind into the concentration. The next is maintaining it. These two are related skills but they’re separate. Then, finally, you put it to use—in other words, using the concentration for gaining further insights. So you need to have a sense of where you are on the path, of what kind of inner policemen you need to look over … 
  13. What We’re Here to See
     … At the same time, you can get to know the stages by which you can get back in concentration, so that if you’ve been distracted, you can get right back in. You don’t have to go back to square one. In fact, this is one of the signs of progress in concentration practice: your ability to get back into concentration, to know … 
  14. Learning from Desire
     … You need to employ these things in order to get the mind into concentration. And as you employ them, you get to know them well. I’ve known people who say, “Well, if you try to get the mind into concentration, or you want to get the mind into concentration, then it’s desire and clinging and craving; and there’s going to be … 
  15. Respect for Concentration
     … When the Buddha talks about concentration, it’s always a matter getting the mind to settle down and allowing it to indulge in whatever sense of ease is there without forgetting the topic of concentration. Just learn how to maintain it, stick with it. You can think of it as medicine, a cream you put on your skin. The cream has to stay there … 
  16. Right View & Right Resolve
     … Use those as your means for staying in concentration, and then let the feelings of refreshment and pleasure spread throughout the body. All the thinking and evaluation that goes into that: That’s part of right resolve. The purpose of right resolve as you’ve been doing concentration is to get to the point where you don’t have to keep thinking in those … 
  17. Rightly Directed
     … As one of the Thai ajaans says, when you’re exercising the body you move around a lot, but when you exercise the mind you try to make it still—both for the sake of concentration and for the sake of discernment. Because once the mind is concentrated and you can maintain that concentration for a while, you begin to notice there are still … 
  18. The Power of Truth
     … The correct way is to follow the path, and part of the path is developing concentration. It’s not simply watching concentration come and go, and saying, “Okay, concentration arises, concentration passes away, that’s an insight.” That’s not an insight. The content of insight is not the three characteristics, it’s the four noble truths. The three characteristics are helpful within that … 
  19. Measuring Progress
     … Part of the problem was that when she was in concentration it was very intense, and she couldn’t even think. She didn’t have the ability that Ajaan Fuang was trying to teach her, which was to pull out just a little bit, not enough to destroy the concentration, but just enough to observe what was going on. She was either in it … 
  20. Hindrances
     … So it’s important that you see the value of concentration. Remember that verse we repeat: One with respect for the Buddha, respect for the Dhamma and the Sangha, respect for the training, i.e., the triple training, respect for concentration. It’s interesting: The verse talks about the triple training, which includes concentration, and then emphasizes concentration again. That’s because it’s … 
  21. Sensitive to Stress
     … And that sensitivity comes by learning how to be familiar with your mind in concentration. All too often, when you get into a state of peace in the concentration, it seems like there’s nothing there. It’s like going into a very bright room. The light is blinding, so you don’t see anything in the room at all. You think it’s … 
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