Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. Bodywork for the Mind
     … Give yourself a concentration topic you like. It could be the breath, it could be ‘buddho,’ it could be contemplating the parts of the body. There are lots of subjects that different people will find allow their minds to settle down. There’s no one meditation topic for everyone. The Buddha taught a whole range of concentration topics. And you’ll notice in the … 
  11. Is ‘I Am’ the Problem?
     … Especially with the concentration, as you begin to gain a sense of mastery over how you breathe, how you perceive the breath, how you can play with the breath energies in the body, how you can figure out how to get the mind to get more and more still as you peel away the various layers of concentration: There’s a real joy that … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. Firmly Intent
    The Pali word that we translate as concentration, samadhi, the Thais translate as “being firmly intent.” You start with an intention, and you keep it there. The Thai phrase for being firmly intent literally means to set up the mind firmly. You don’t want it to fall down. So set your mind on the breath. Set your mind on getting the mind to … 
  15. Pleasure on the Path
     … An important part of the path is right concentration, and right concentration has some very intense pleasure and rapture. It was the Buddha’s realization that sensual pleasure and pain were not the only alternatives—or as he put it, that sensual pleasure was not the only escape from pain. There’s an alternative: the pleasure that comes from what he calls form, your … 
  16. Can Do
    There’s a passage in the Canon that says, “Concentration nurtured by virtue leads to discernment. Discernment nurtured by concentration leads to release.” When we hear that, we should keep it in mind, because when we come to the practice, we’re coming out of ignorance. We’re going to be doing things that, in many cases, we’ve never done before. And yet … 
  17. The Right to Repair Your Mind
     … And nobody can stand there in your mind and say, “Look! Right here, right here, right here!” This is one of the reasons that when you get the mind concentrated, the kind of concentration you want is all-around.* *You’re fully aware of the body, fully aware all-around. A lot of the clingings and cravings of the mind hide behind the scenes … 
  18. Me, Me, Me
     … One of the reasons we practice concentration is to give the mind a good solid foundation where it can do this patient and precise kind of work. We give it a place where it can stand so that it can be separate from its other clingings. This is a habit and practice that you’re going to be developing: the practice of concentration, the … 
  19. Streams of Anger
     … Ajaan Fuang had a student once whose powers of concentration were very strong, but she complained it wasn’t making any difference in her life. In fact, it seemed that the stronger her concentration got, the stronger her anger was when it came out. As Ajaan Fuang pointed out to her, you can’t just depend on your concentration to calm things down like … 
  20. Feeding While You Work
     … So if you find you’re having trouble—you’re slipping off and just enjoying the quality of concentration and then finding that you’ve lost the concentration—try to remember any manual skill you’ve mastered. It could be music or a sport or anything where you had to develop a continuous awareness of what you were doing and the results of what … 
  21. Strengthening Your Goodness
     … So as you’re going to be feeding on the pleasure of your concentration, you have to have some manners in your feeding. If you forget the breath, the cause of the comfort will dissipate, and either the comfort will go away or else you’ll go into state of what’s called delusion concentration, where there is a sense of ease but you … 
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