Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. The Power of Your Actions
     … This is why he says that you want to bring the mind into concentration. That’s where we get the third of the strengths, which is mindfulness. What the Buddha calls the establishings of mindfulness are not exercises in simply being aware of what’s happening or being non-judgmental or accepting about what’s happening. You’re keeping something in mind, a frame … 
  3. The Path Requires Effort
     … Sometimes you hear people say, “I’ve done a little concentration. I know what it’s like and I want to go beyond it. I don’t want to be attached to it.” You’ve got to be attached. You’ve got to have a desire for the concentration. You’ve got to respect for concentration if you really want to get results out … 
  4. Adjusting the Flame
    There are three factors in the path that deal with the topic of right concentration—right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration itself—and all three are necessary to get the mind to settle down. Right effort is generating the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities and to develop skillful ones, and that gets parsed out: If unskillful qualities have not yet arisen … 
  5. Learning Right Speech
    There’s a tendency to think of practicing the Dhamma as meaning what you do when you sit here with your eyes closed, trying to get the mind into concentration, trying to develop discernment. But we have to remember that the path to awakening is not a one-fold path or a two-fold path. It’s a noble eightfold path. And each of … 
  6. A Positive-Sum Game
     … When you’ve gained the concentration, the mindfulness, and the discernment to see through these things, those will be really good habits no matter where you go. No matter what your situation in life, they’re going to be useful. So that’s what we’re working on here, right now: the mindfulness to keep reminding yourself, “Stay with the breath”; the concentration that … 
  7. Energy & Efficiency
     … And the Buddha then said, “In the same way, you should tune your energy to the point where it’s just right and then tune the rest of the strings of your practice.” In other words, conviction, mindfulness, concentration, discernment: Tune those to the level of your energy. In that way the practice will come out right. So keep this in mind as you … 
  8. What Is One
     … And concentration is the prime food we use. Otherwise, if we don’t have this food, we’re going to go off nibbling on all kinds of other things. All the different members in the committee of your mind have their ideas about what would be good dinner tonight, what the food should be, how it should be fixed. And a lot of the … 
  9. Appreciating Dispassion
     … Someone once asked the Buddha, “What is virtue for?” “Virtue,” he says, “is for the sake of concentration.” “What’s concentration for?” “Concentration is for the sake of discernment.” “What’s discernment for?” “For the sake of release.” “What’s release for?” “For the sake of nibbāna.” “What is nibbāna for?” That’s when the Buddha said, “You can’t keep going with these … 
  10. Lessons of Distraction
    One of the more frustrating parts of concentration practice is when you find that your mind won’t stay where you tell it to. You could leave that as a lesson in not-self and just let it keep happening, but that wouldn’t really accomplish much. The important thing is not to get frustrated, and to realize that you’re going to be … 
  11. In Harmlessness Is Strength
     … It’s in this way that the Buddha said when he was practicing austerities, he didn’t let the pain of the austerities overcome his mind, but when he found the pleasure of concentration, he didn’t let the pleasure overcome his mind, either. That didn’t mean he stopped doing the concentration—he continued doing it and got deeper and deeper into it … 
  12. Lessons from Stilling the Mind
     … That sense of gladness, the Buddha said, is good for getting the mind into concentration. When you get the mind into concentration, he changes the word from gladness to sukha. Pamojja is gladness; sukha is the pleasure of concentration. He talks about spreading that sukha—that sense of ease, well-being, pleasure— throughout the body. This means that we’re going to transform a … 
  13. Audacious & Undaunted
     … It leads to persistence, it leads to mindfulness, concentration, discernment. This is relevant to us, because the Buddha’s message was that he found it and we can find it too. On the night of his awakening, he learned some important insights. After getting the mind into solid concentration, he turned the power of that concentration to the question, “Is death the end, or … 
  14. A Path of Aggregates
     … This, of course, is the happiness of getting the mind concentrated, the happiness of bringing the mind to stillness. But here, too, you have the aggregates—they’re part of the path. When the Buddha describes the four noble truths, the fourth noble truth ends in right concentration. And of the different factors of the path, this is the one the Buddha most often … 
  15. The Power of Action
     … Are you becoming concentrated? Okay, good. Are you becoming clearer? That’s good. If you’re not, are you working at becoming concentrated and clearer? If yes, that’s good, too. That way, if the Buddha were to come and ask you, you’d be able to give him an answer you’d be proud to give. That kind of pride is not a … 
  16. Joyous Discernment
     … That way, your concentration really does become an effective way of seeing what’s going on in the mind, rather than something that simply blankets over what’s going on there. If it’s a blanketing kind of concentration, all it does is keep things still and under control for a while, but it never uproots anything. In fact, it’s like the kind … 
  17. The Buddha’s Safe Space
     … One, in the practice of mindfulness and concentration. Those two practices are connected. They’re not separate. The description of mindfulness that we chanted just now—staying focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world—describes what you’re doing as you’re trying to get the mind into concentration … 
  18. Step Outside the World
     … These are the topics of concentration. As I said this morning, the Buddha didn’t draw a clear line between mindfulness practice and concentration practice. They shade into each other. The four establishings of mindfulness are the themes of concentration. And as I said, the qualities that establish mindfulness include not only mindfulness itself but also alertness—knowing what you’re doing, knowing the … 
  19. Choices in the Present
     … That’s why you have to develop mindfulness, alertness, and concentration, because as concentration comes, it gives a sense of well-being. We sit here with the breath. The breath feels good coming in, feels good going out. You can make it feel better and better and better coming in, better going out, and you take that sense of well-being and allow it … 
  20. Calm
     … It moves more and more into concentration. Calm is basically a quality of ease and well-being. Concentration is being really focused. Things are very solidly centered right here, and they’re going to be centered well because you’ve created a good place to stay—through the way you breathe, through the feelings you focus on, and the feelings you create, and the … 
  21. Meditation as a Skill
     … You are bringing the mind to states of becoming in the concentration and you want to think about the elements that go into that. The first, of course, is desire. All states of becoming are based on desire. Your concentration is going to be based on desire, too. But as the Buddha said, you have to fine-tune your desire. You have to balance … 
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