Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Mindfulness Defined
     … For instance, there’s the old issue of the relationship between mindfulness and concentration practice. The Buddha never made a clear division between the two. In his teachings, mindfulness shades into concentration, and concentration forms the basis for even better mindfulness. The fourth jhana is where mindfulness becomes pure. The four frames of reference, the focal points of mindfulness, are also the themes of … 
  3. Rhythms of the Mind
     … That’s how you get the most progress in the concentration. And that’s how you get the most opportunities for discernment to come out of the concentration, as you’re focusing directly on your experience of your body and your mind, sensitive in what you’re noticing and efficient in what you’re doing. That’s what this is all about.
  4. Path & Goal
     … This is what you find with all the levels of concentration: that as you go from one level to another, there’s a disturbance in the first level that you’re going to be letting go of when you get to the next. But you have to let go at the right time, because those disturbances in the earlier levels of concentration actually perform … 
  5. Thinking & Evaluating
    We’re here trying to practice right concentration. And one of the factors of right concentration on the beginning level is thinking. The Pali word vitakka is the general word for thinking. It doesn’t have any special esoteric meaning. The Buddha didn’t come up with a special esoteric word to describe what you’re doing when you practice concentration. He used the … 
  6. Patience & Consistency
     … So you’re trying to get a really good solid concentration here. And for the concentration to be solid, the causes for going into concentration have to be solid. If you’re going to stay with the breath, stay with each breath, each breath, each breath—but don’t let this get mechanical—all the way in, all the way out. It helps to … 
  7. Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes
     … Wisdom Develops Concentration or Wisdom Fosters Concentration. He was saying that an important part of the practice is when you learn how not to trust the mind. I, however, had just gone through a period when I was too distrustful of what was going on in my mind, and as a result wasn’t able to get the mind into concentration. I’d get … 
  8. Lust
     … This is why we have to develop the factors of the path, primarily right mindfulness and right concentration. So learn to look at the pleasures of mindfulness and concentration as your friends. They don’t cause you to do anything unskillful. You sometimes hear about the dangers of concentration, but the dangers of concentration are nothing compared to the dangers of sensuality. People don … 
  9. Staying in Position
     … As for the part of the mind that asks, “What’s next?” Tell it, “This is what’s next.” In other words, you don’t gain insight by developing concentration and then dropping it. You gain insight by learning how to maintain your concentration in the midst of different circumstances, in the midst of different temptations to go off thinking about something else. That … 
  10. Safety in Awareness
     … Often it’s our lack of trust in this awareness that makes it difficult for us to settle down and stay in concentration. You stay there a little bit, and then you start wondering: “Is this really concentration? Is this really the jhanas, or is there something better?” or, “What should I be doing to gain more insight?”—or whatever. You have to put … 
  11. Let Pleasure & Pain Fall Off the Plow
     … Part of the middle way is right concentration. It involves a strong sense of pleasure, but it’s a different kind of pleasure. It’s called the pleasure of form. Sensual pleasures come from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. The pleasure of form is more the pleasure that comes when the body, as felt from within, feels good regardless of what it … 
  12. Two Hands Washing
     … If it’s finding it easy to settle down, the only question is, “How much stillness do you need? How much stillness is Right Concentration? When do you reach the point where you’ve gone beyond Right Concentration, lose your mindfulness, and everything blanks out?” In this case, there’s a minimal amount of thinking involved there, just enough to make sure you’re … 
  13. Your Highest Aspiration
     … Even as you get into the deep layers of concentration, the deep layers of meditation, that’s always the underlying intention. Given that you’ve had a particular experience with a particular state of concentration, you’ve gained particular insights, how do you use that concentration, how do you use that insight for the sake of true happiness, a blameless happiness? This is why … 
  14. There’s Work to Be Done
     … Ajaan Lee calls it “concentration work.” Think of the different images that the Buddha gives for the different levels of right concentration. The one for the first jhana actually involves someone who’s working: a bathman mixing water with bath powder to make a bath dough. In those days, they didn’t have bars of soap. They had a soap powder that they mixed … 
  15. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … Or if you look down on concentration in general, saying, “This isn’t good food, I want insight, I want something higher than this,” the mind’s going to stay really hungry, and when the mind is hungry it goes back to its old feeding ways. One of the strangest things you hear in meditation circles is that concentration is dangerous and you don … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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