Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Twigs & Branches
     … These are good pleasures and they help lead to the deeper pleasure that comes from being in concentration. So you have to learn how to use these value judgments wisely. As you’re working on concentration, you don’t focus on the concentration as being inconstant, stressful, and not-self. Instead, you focus on anything else that would pull you away from the concentration … 
  3. Right View
     … Sometimes you hear about the dangers of being stuck on concentration. But if you look through the texts, the Buddha talks about them only in very rare cases. He mentions the dangers of delighting in the state of equanimity or of not wanting to go beyond a particular state of concentration, but these are pretty harmless, pretty minor compared to the dangers of staying … 
  4. It’s What You Give
     … The same with mindfulness, concentration, discernment: It’s what you put into it that makes all the difference. With the discernment, you have to ask questions. Your mind gets into concentration, things are very still and very pleasant, and you could just sit there. But as Ajaan Mahā Boowa says, it’s like getting all the raw materials for a house gathered together and … 
  5. The Little Things
     … As for concentration experiences you’re had in the past, or those you anticipate in the near future, thoughts of these things can get in the way of actually getting into concentration. Little moments of concentration arise in the mind, and then they go, and then they arise again, and then they go, and we say, “These are really ordinary. This is not worth … 
  6. Playing Your Lute
     … And the “everything else” here applies to your conviction, your mindfulness, your concentration, and your discernment. In other words, when there are limitations on your capabilities, don’t sit down with a thought, “I’m going to sit here and won’t get up until I attain supreme awakening. If I don’t attain supreme awakening, I’m going to let my blood and … 
  7. Occupy Your Body
     … It’s “concentration work.” We come to concentration to rest, but for the mind really to rest, to have a sense of belonging here in the present moment, fully inhabiting the present moment, often takes some work. The factors that do the work are directed thought and evaluation: keeping your mind directed to the breath, and then evaluating how things are going as you … 
  8. Looking for Essence in the Wilderness
     … That’s what the concentration is. Concentration, here, covers both insight and tranquility, because the practice of getting the mind to settle down requires that you understand the mind. You don’t just force it to be still. You try to understand the conditions in the mind so that you can create something that’s relatively lasting. But even this is not an ultimate … 
  9. A Haven for Inner Wealth
     … You start with one spot, but you don’t stay there, because you’re trying to develop a concentration that’s solid. And the most solid kind of concentration is based on a large framework that doesn’t get knocked over by things. If your concentration is just one tiny point, then when you change the point or the point gets knocked over, the … 
  10. Strong & Heedful
     … These three strengths—persistence, mindfulness, and concentration—all go together. They reinforce one another. The concentration gives you a place where you can step back and watch things come and go and figure out what kind of effort they call for. This is why it’s especially important to focus your attention on the breath, because that gets you out of your head, where … 
  11. On Not Twisting the Cow’s Horn
    The description of right concentration includes, in the first jhana, directed thought and evaluation. A lot of people approach those two processes as something they have to add to what they’re already doing. But that’s not the case. Your mind is engaged in directed thought and evaluation all the time. It’s how we talk to ourselves: You think of a topic … 
  12. Calm
     … These are some of the ways you use those three different kinds of fabrication to get past the barriers to getting the mind into calm and concentration. You begin to settle down and gain a sense of stillness. The problem is that once the mind gets into concentration, it can still stir itself up. Rapture comes. Sometimes it really is rapturous and very strong … 
  13. Shaping the Present
     … Then, as the mind gets deeper and deeper into concentration, you find that there’s less you have to do in order to urge the concentration on or to strengthen the concentration. So your touch here can be more equanimous as well. Just be at peace with what’s coming up. But that doesn’t mean that if unskillful things come up, you’re … 
  14. Dhamma Survivalism
     … It’s composed both of concentration and discernment. The concentration is what gives you that sense of well-being, simply being here right now, breathing in, breathing out, focused in the body, gaining a sense of the different energies flowing around, and seeing what you can do with them—learning to take an interest in this dimension of your awareness, because it has a … 
  15. Heedful, Attentive, Mindful
     … You’re trying to get the mind into a good, centered state of concentration, and concentration is most stable when it encompasses the whole body. This way, if anything unskillful comes into the mind, it doesn’t necessarily have to shake your foundation. If you’re only at one point, the fact that you’ve left the point of your concentration and focused on … 
  16. True Values
     … As the Buddha says, we hold to them in a way that’s untorn, but at the same time is conducive to concentration. The fact that they’re untorn means we hold to them all the time. The fact that they’re conducive to concentration means that we hold to them in a way that puts the mind at ease. That, the Buddha says … 
  17. Resisting the Germs of Defilement
     … As the Buddha said, these are the three qualities that circle around every path factor, starting with right view itself all the way through right concentration. So these are three qualities you want to keep in balance, working together, hovering around whatever you’re doing. So the meditation is not just concentration. In the factors for awakening, concentration follows on persistence and covers four … 
  18. What You Don’t Like About Yourself
     … And the two most important elements in the path are, on the one hand, right view, the first factor and then right concentration, the last. Right view shows us that the reason we’re suffering is because of things we’re doing. On a blatant outside level, it’s the things we do and say. On the inside level, it’s the things we … 
  19. Tranquility & Insight in Tandem
     … So in the beginning, insight into inconstancy is for reminding yourself of the drawbacks of the things that are going to pull you away from the object of concentration, that they’re really not worth it. As you get more solid in your concentration, then the theme of inconstancy begins to focus on the quality of your concentration itself. How does it go up … 
  20. Brahmaviharas on the Path
     … At the same time, some people find that taking the brahmaviharas as meditation objects can provide a basis for right concentration, can get the mind into states of strong concentration. You can practice concentrating on thoughts of goodwill and spread them out in all directions. The image the Buddha gives is of a man blowing a trumpet whose sound goes out in all directions … 
  21. Putting Out the Fires
     … Ajaan Fuang used to say that there are three steps in concentration practice. One is learning how to do it, how to get the mind settle down. The second is learning how to maintain it. These are two separate skills. They’re connected but they’re different, in the sense that once you’re there, you’ve done what needs to be done to … 
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