Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Sensitivity & Skill
     … They’re all right here in concentration. But concentration is only as good as fabrication can be, and fabrication still has its drawbacks. It comes and it goes. It requires that you maintain it. That involves a lot of the stress or disturbance right there. It requires constant looking after. As Ajaan Lee once said, nibbana is what’s easy; it’s the pleasures … 
  3. False Friends
     … That’s because the quality the concentration we’re working on here is not a lockdown or clampdown concentration. The Buddha described right concentration as developing a sense of ease in some spot in the body and then, as you would knead a ball of dough to make bread, you knead that sense of ease throughout the body. That’s not a lockdown, clampdown … 
  4. Mental Movements
     … A good part of that time was spent on concentration practice. It wasn’t until toward the end that Ajaan Mun sort of gave him a kick and said, “Okay, now it’s time to work on developing discernment.” Now, you do develop discernment to some extent as you’re practicing concentration. You can’t develop concentration without it. There’s a certain level … 
  5. The Path is Fabricated
     … With right mindfulness and right concentration, we’re developing what’s called the concentration aggregate of the path as we abandon the hindrances. All of these activities are a kind of fabrication. The Buddha once made a distinction, saying that the highest Dhamma in terms of fabricated or unfabricated, taking both sides into consideration, is dispassion. The mind finally has a sense of disenchantment … 
  6. An Ennobling Pleasure
     … If you’re going to wean yourself away from other more irresponsible pleasures, you’ve got to have the sense of well-being that comes from right concentration. And when the texts describe the mind as it’s entering into right concentration, they say that you settle down and you indulge in your stillness. In other words, you learn to enjoy it. You look … 
  7. Mindfulness, the Gatekeeper
     … The more skillfully you relate to the breath, the easier it is to get the mind into concentration. The more skillfully you relate to these feelings of pleasure and ease that can arise in the body through the breath, the easier it is to get into concentration. In that same passage where the Buddha compares mindfulness to a gatekeeper, he compares right concentration to … 
  8. Developed in Body & Mind
     … As you do that, the mind will get concentrated naturally without you having to think about concentration. There’s a passage where the Buddha mentions that when he was a young boy he spontaneously got into the first jhana, sitting under a tree. And he probably wasn’t thinking, “jhana,” and wasn’t even intending to get the mind into concentration. He just got … 
  9. The Challenge
     … You take it in stages, using whatever concentration you can develop. It’s not that we don’t have any concentration before we start. There is such a thing as momentary concentration, the kind of concentration that allows you to listen to this talk and make sense of it, allows you to read a book, follow a thread of argument, follow the thread of … 
  10. Ready to Evacuate
     … As you sit and meditate, getting into concentration, you have to put a lot of things aside, even though it’s just for the time being. But it’s good practice, because you learn an important principle: that the mind is not made wealthy by holding on to lots of things. It actually puts itself in better shape by letting go. There’s a … 
  11. To Know the Unconditioned
     … This is why we do concentration and then look at our other attachments. We see that they’re nowhere near as peaceful or satisfying as a state of concentration. Then we see that even the different states of concentration have their drawbacks. So we pursue stillness even more, to the point where there’s nothing the mind will hold on to. That’s when … 
  12. Take Nothing for Granted
    The Pali word samādhi that we translate as “concentration” in English, is translated into Thai by the phrase, tang jai man, which means to set your mind firmly on something. In this case, set your mind on what you’re doing, what the mind is doing. Set your mind on one thing. Give it a purpose. That’s one of the reasons why we … 
  13. Imagine
     … To master concentration, it has to capture your imagination, just as with any other skill. When you practice concentration, what are you doing? You’re creating a state in the mind. That requires imagination. The noble eightfold path as a whole is something fabricated, something put together. It brings you into the present, but when you get into the present you discover how much … 
  14. Wealth Worth Holding Onto
     … So in sticking with the precepts, you’re getting the mind ready to settle into concentration complete with mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Those are the kind of precepts that are pleasing to the noble ones, that incline the mind to want to settle down. As the Buddha said, the two things that are important for mindfulness and concentration are views made straight—i.e … 
  15. Respect for Suffering
     … Show some respect for your concentration. After all, concentration is a noble truth. It’s the heart of the path. Once your concentration is solid, then you’re ready to delve into the issue of why there is suffering in the mind. In other words, you come at it with respect. You realize that this is a very complicated issue. It’s going to … 
  16. Focus on the Doing
     … Right release is interpreted as real concentration, when the mind finally hits a state of concentration that’s totally unfabricated, can’t be destroyed, can’t be affected by anything at all. It builds on the concentration you’re doing. It’s not that you do concentration and you drop the concentration to move on to insight. The insight lies in learning how to … 
  17. Location, Location
     … So don’t be afraid to desire concentration. Don’t be afraid to desire to do it well, because it’s in doing the concentration and desiring it that you learn what desire does. When you see the subtle stress even in a state of concentration, and the mind inclines to something better than that, you’ve raised your sights. It’s when the … 
  18. The Uncertain Present
     … You can create the dwelling of concentration. We talk about the present moment as being a construction site. Well, the dwelling place of concentration is one of the best things to construct because you see clearly what you’re doing as you’re doing it. But you also see that even in this good state of concentration, as long as you cling to those … 
  19. Rivers of Craving
     … It wasn’t until he got his mind concentrated that he actually could see what was going on. This is why we should have respect for concentration. When the Buddha talks about the different things that we should respect in order to keep the true Dhamma alive, he talks about the triple training, and then he says again, “concentration.” Now, concentration is part of … 
  20. Strength of Concentration
     … So even though when concentration is defined as a strength, it’s said to be that you bring the mind to singleness of mind with the purpose of letting go, the question is: How do you first bring the mind to singleness? The Buddha’s definition is warning us that the purpose of concentration is not to build up powers. They do happen to … 
  21. Training Wheels
     … Because the real pleasure that comes from concentration is not so much pleasure from the body, or from the physical feelings. It’s the pleasure of having the mind settle down and be still and have some peace inside. The pleasure also comes from having some control over what the mind is going to do, because these topics of concentration, the component factors of … 
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