Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 25
  2. The Dhamma Wheel
     … Then all the other factors of the path are aimed at getting the mind into right concentration. You try to let go of thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harmfulness. Bring the attitudes of the mind in line with the precepts. In other words, you’re going to be honest with yourself, truthful with yourself. And then, to get the mind into concentration, you … 
  3. Pushing the Three Characteristics
     … But then here we are, sitting and meditating, trying to get state of constant concentration, a sense of ease, pleasure, bliss even in the concentration, and to get the mind under our control, to get the results of our concentration under our control. So in a way, we’re pushing against the three themes of what are often called the three characteristics. It’s … 
  4. The Graduated Discourse
     … This, of course, would be the pleasure of right concentration. That right there gives you some idea of how the singleness of mind that you have focused on the talk gets converted into right concentration. After being focused, you’re now focused on something that’s not sensual, and you’re beginning to develop right view. We talk about the graduated discourse leading from … 
  5. Goodwill for the Breath
     … This is how concentration work goes together with insight work. Or how tranquility and insight work together to develop concentration and deepen it, at the same time bringing more insight about. So the two qualities go together, insight and tranquility. The concentration deepens them and is deepened by them. Many of the forest ajaans make the point that when the path comes together in … 
  6. Training Heart & Mind
     … Some people think that concentration practice is different from insight practice, but as the Buddha pointed out, you need both stillness and insight to get the mind concentrated, and if you want to get insight, the mind has to be solidly concentrated. So all these qualities go together. It’s a unified practice; we’re developing many qualities at once. The first question of … 
  7. Mindfulness the Gatekeeper
    The Buddha’s instructions for getting the mind into concentration are in his descriptions of right mindfulness. For example, the body: You keep focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. The “body in itself” here means the body simply as its sitting here right now. You don’t think … 
  8. Toxic Environments
     … We’re trying to develop a state of concentration that’s strong—full-body awareness, full-body breathing—so that energetically nobody can invade your space. You see some people defining samādhi, the Pali term for concentration, as calm. And calm is part of it, but calm is a separate factor for awakening from concentration. Calm in Pali is passaddhi. Concentration is stronger. It … 
  9. Dethinking Thinking
     … Why is it that in some of the lists you have discernment coming first, then virtue, then concentration, and in others you start out with virtue, then concentration, then discernment—or mindfulness, discernment, then leading to concentration? What’s going on there? And what patterns are consistent? You’ll find that one pattern is always consistent: that mindfulness comes before concentration. In some cases … 
  10. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … That’s one of the big lessons in concentration practice, one of the most important lessons: that you can change things. Think of how Ajaan Lee discovered this method: He’d gone into the forest, walked with another monk for three days to a very out-of-the-way place. They were going to spend the Rains retreat there, depending on a hill tribe … 
  11. The Skill of Stillness
     … You have little moments of concentration and you try to stitch them together, because deeper concentration comes from momentary concentration. When I first started out meditating with Ajaan Fuang, I’d hear other people talking about the visions they had in their meditation, or else intense feelings of rapture. I wasn’t getting any of those, so I was assuming that I wasn’t … 
  12. The Pleasure of the Middle Way
     … Right concentration is what provides that alternative: this pleasure of form. This is how it’s a middle pleasure in the sense that it doesn’t get caught in those two extremes. But it’s not out on the midpoint between pleasure and pain. Actually, the pleasure of concentration can be very intense. It can saturate the body, permeate the body, permeate your awareness … 
  13. Noble Ardency
     … These qualities are listed under right mindfulness, but they apply to concentration as well. In fact, there’s no real clear line between mindfulness practice and concentration practice. If you’re very mindful and alert and ardent, the mind’s going to settle down. Right mindfulness is how you get the mind to settle down, and that’s how you get it to stay … 
  14. Dhamma Books & the Actuality
    “One who is ardent with respect for concentration” – one of the passages we chanted just now. Those are the two qualities you want to bring to your concentration practice: ardency and respect. The respect is in the motivation, realizing that there’s a lot to be learned right here, and the only way you’re going to learn from it is to respect it … 
  15. Defilements with Their Bambi Eyes
     … Some of the lists have discernment coming before concentration, such as the noble eightfold path and the seven factors for awakening. And even in the lists where discernment comes after concentration, conviction comes first: conviction that your actions do matter. And where do your actions come from? They come from the mind. This means that you’ve got to get the mind under some … 
  16. Dealing with the Hindrances
     … It’s not right concentration, but it is a type of concentration, though. It’s a concentration with blinders. It focuses so much on the object and particular details of the object that you’re blinding yourself to a lot of other its other aspects. So here the function of appropriate attention is to take off the blinders, to look around at what you … 
  17. A Unified Committee
     … So you have to be convinced in the worth of concentration: *samadhi-garu atapi—*one who is ardent with respect for concentration. Respect, faith, trust: They all go together. You have to trust concentration. It may not seem obvious how it’s going give rise to insight or when it’s going give rise to insight, but you have to trust that it’s … 
  18. Concentration as Wilderness
    The Buddha compares coming into meditation, coming into concentration, to leaving your home and going into the wilderness. Of course, there are lots of different ways that people go into the wilderness. Once I was on a hike in Zion, going up to Angel’s Landing. There weren’t that many people on the trail that day, but there was one point where you … 
  19. Reflect on Your Actions
     … So reflect on your actions while you’re concentrating and as you’re coming out of concentration. Reflect on your meditation; reflect on what you’re picking up as you leave concentration. This will help you reflect on all the other issues going on in your life, such as he way you approach a project and the way you learn how to handle it … 
  20. Contentment vs. Initiative
     … You use your concentration to get the mind still enough to see what’s going on so that you can start asking questions. But here, as with your use of your wealth outside, you have to have a sense of proportion. How much concentration do you have? How much can you apply to a particular problem? How do you notice that you’re analyzing … 
  21. A Happiness Based Inside
     … This gets easier as your concentration gets stronger. The more stillness in the, the more easily it can catch these other little movements of the mind as it goes out. But at the same time, you have to reflect. It’s not simply the power of concentration that’s going to enable you to give up your attachments to wanting to feed off this … 
  22. Load next page...