Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. A Post-goodness World?
     … So as you’re trying to get the mind into concentration and other thoughts come in, you can ask yourself which is going to lead to longer-term happiness: those distracting thoughts, or the state of concentration you can develop if you really stuck with the breath? This is one of the reasons why the Buddha recommends you develop the perception of inconstancy before … 
  3. You’re Doing Something Wrong
     … He was missing an important part of what Ajaan Lee called “concentration work.” We often come to concentration thinking we just get to rest, and there is an element of rest. But there’s also work to be done: first, to get the mind into a proper, balanced state of rest. Sometimes you get so quiet that you fall asleep, which is not what … 
  4. Inner Critics
     … This is why concentration is an important part of the path. But it’s not the whole path. Sometimes you hear the mistaken notion that when you reach a certain level of concentration you automatically attain a certain level of awakening. Well, you don’t. People can go through all the jhanas and all the formless states and still not see anything. They see … 
  5. Freedom, Conditioned & Not
     … So it’s even more skillful to get the mind into concentration. When you’re in the various levels of concentration, getting the mind deeper and deeper into absorption, the level of skill becomes more refined. You begin to notice that certain perceptions weigh on the mind; even the perceptions that keep you in concentration can be a weight. You learn to let those … 
  6. Calm & Insight
     … So those are the questions for insight: “How do I regard fabrications? How do I learn how to view them with insight?” The Buddha says you develop both of these qualities—calm and insight—by trying to get the mind into concentration. And you get the mind into concentration by working with these qualities. The two sides help each other along. In other words … 
  7. Stick to Your Duties
     … We’re focusing on developing right concentration through right mindfulness and right effort—all of the concentration factors of the path. Make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath and put aside any other thoughts that have to do with the world. Whatever the world is doing out there right now, that’s not your business. Your business is the … 
  8. Dhammacentric
     … When he was able to do that, he was able to get the mind into patterns of skillful thinking, and then from there into concentration, and from concentration into awakening. It was because he was able to put his stories to the side, and to put the center simply in looking at things in terms of cause and effect right there in the present … 
  9. Be Observant
     … There’s a passage where he talks about noble right concentration and its seven supports, or its seven requisites, putting concentration right there at the center of the path. The concentration is what allows you to watch things, to observe things from a steady place. This is why we have to spend so much time working on this. It’s like building an observation … 
  10. The Bright Tunnel
     … If you try to understand it without any concentration, it’s hard to maintain your focus. At the same time, it’s hard to maintain a sense of not being threatened by the suffering. This is why we work at developing our concentration, because concentration involves not only a focus but also a sense of wellbeing with your focus. You stay with the breath … 
  11. One Thing Clear Through
     … But when you have the sense of ease and well-being, even the sense of rapture and fullness that can come from the concentration, then it’s a lot easier to be radiating goodness out, because you’re producing nourishment that’s immediately apparent inside. You develop the five strengths: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. These are a food for the mind that’s … 
  12. Strength of Mindfulness
     … In the list of the strengths, mindfulness comes between effort or persistence on the one hand, and concentration on the other. And the three are closely related. I’ve seen it explained sometimes that the Buddha taught two different paths: the path of effort and concentration on the one hand, and the path of mindfulness on the other. And the two, as they’re … 
  13. Determined Goodwill
     … So, even though we think about goodwill as one of the topics of concentration, it actually comes very early in the path, part of right resolve. Once you understand what leads to suffering and what leads away from suffering, then you want to resolve on the attitudes that will lead away from suffering and lead you toward right concentration. If you act in any … 
  14. When Your Head Is on Fire
     … These are the qualities that create the foundations for all the remaining factors for awakening, which are the ones related to concentration: rapture, calm, concentration, and equanimity. So have a strong sense that you’re here to be active. The duty of mindfulness is to remember what you’ve learned about right view in general, along with specific techniques that have and haven’t … 
  15. Taking Responsibility
     … Because for most of us, this pleasure of concentration becomes one more dish on the smorgasbord. We like to have concentration and we like to enjoy our old pleasures as well. But when you get the mind in a good solid state of concentration, you’re in a much better position to look back and say, “This pleasure I get from the concentration: How … 
  16. Right View Tells You What to Do
     … For instance, as we’re sitting here meditating, trying to get the mind into concentration, we start with right mindfulness: trying to focus on the breath in and of itself, putting aside any thoughts that have to do with the world outside. Those are the two activities: focusing on the breath, and clearing out other things that get in the way. And then we … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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.
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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