Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. Protecting the Mind from Itself
     … If you really want to see the mind well, if you really want your precepts to be good, then you also have to practice concentration and develop discernment. Sometimes we hear that you have to first perfect your virtues and then you can work on your concentration. And when your concentration is perfect, then you work on discernment. But the Buddha himself never taught … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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