Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Coming into the Present
     … The practice of concentration he calls a perception attainment. In other words, you gain concentration by holding onto a particular concept, perception, or label in the mind. Even though that label may not be a totally adequate description of what’s going on, you’re using it because it’ll have a good impact on the mind. For instance, with the breath: You focus … 
  3. The Path of Questions
     … There’s an element of investigation already even in the simple practice of concentration. It’s not that you make the mind really, really still and then, all of a sudden, discernment’s going to go off like a flash bulb. There has to be some discernment involved in the process of getting the mind to settle down. As the Buddha said, there’s … 
  4. Marshalling the Emotions
     … Only when you’ve been able to use the concentration as a basis for overcoming passion, especially sensual passion, do you have to transcend the concentration itself. That’s when your sense of nibbida, or disenchantment, can turn to the concentration, because you’ve discovered something in the mind that doesn’t need to feed on anything anymore, even on the pleasure and the … 
  5. The Brightness of Life
     … When you continue working with the mind in this way, the mind does settle down into concentration. This is where the factors of rapture, serenity, concentration and equanimity come in. In other words, you try to figure out, “What’s the problem in the mind right now? What can we do to foster skillful qualities; abandon the unskillful ones?” We just keep working in … 
  6. Persistence
     … The ease may continue for a while, but as it gets very fuzzy you get into a state called delusion concentration, where you’re sitting here very still but not really alert. Sometimes, when you come out of it, you’re not even sure whether you were asleep or awake. It’s hard to tell. That’s not the kind of concentration that leads … 
  7. The Five Hindrances
     … You want something better, something new, which can be found only through the concentration. You may have hit a plateau. Your concentration doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Sometimes a necessary part of the practice is to learn how to consolidate a particular state of mind, a particular level of concentration, before you can move on. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of … 
  8. Ignorance & Deception
     … Let it rest in concentration, so that on the one hand, it’s in a position to see clearly through the mind’s tricks, and part of the concentration is just learning that: seeing through that particular trick of how the mind slips off. On the other hand, it’s also in a position where it’s in a good enough mood to admit … 
  9. Deconstructing Suffering
     … One is learning how to appreciate each level of concentration for the fact that it’s empty, void of the disturbances that were present in the level of concentration just below it. The image is one of settling down. In other words, when you move to space, it’s free of the disturbances of form. You learn to appreciate that, and you learn to … 
  10. To Delight in the Path
     … It also helps develop your powers of concentration. That’s the next step. As the Buddha said, when you’ve worked on gladdening the mind, the next step is to concentrate the mind. And the mind is a lot easier to concentrate when it’s been gladdened by good things. When it’s concentrated, it can begin to release itself from the things that … 
  11. Old Kamma & New
    Ajaan Lee divides concentration practice into three factors: the right object, the right intention, and the right quality. The right object here is the breath, or whatever topic you’ve decided to focus on. You might be repeating the word buddho. Or you might be analyzing the body into elements. You might be analyzing it into its different parts. Whatever the topic you’ve … 
  12. Abandoning Effluents (3)
     … From calm comes concentration, and from concentration, you get equanimity. These two sets—the destroying and the developing—go together. There is that pattern throughout the path: As you’re developing good qualities in the mind, you’re basically creating a state of becoming, but then other becomings will come up in the mind, and you can’t let them destroy the good state … 
  13. Where the Mind & Body Meet
     … It becomes a craving for the formless when you get into states of concentration that are more formless with a sense of space, a sense of simply being conscious of consciousness. Those, too, are types of becoming, and they’re fabricated. As long as the concentration feels really good, the fact that it’s fabricated doesn’t bother you. But as you get more … 
  14. Fix Your Views
     … You don’t tell yourself, “Concentration is inconstant, concentration is stressful, concentration is not-self, therefore I’ll let go of it.” That’s true on one level, but it’s not right when you still need to develop concentration. That’s not the time to use it. So this is one area where you want to make sure that your views are not … 
  15. Rhythms of the Mind
     … It’s good to have both kinds of concentration and learn how to use them in balance. There is a tendency that when you find that issues that used to be carried around unresolved can finally come to some sort of resolution, you want to plow through as many issues as you can, get them all out of your system, but it can wear … 
  16. Training Your Cynical Voices
     … As for right concentration, if thinking about jhana is causing problems one way or another, put it aside. Nobody gets into jhana by thinking about jhana. You get into right concentration by focusing on your breath, focusing on the body. You don’t have to think about directed thought and evaluation. You just do them. Evaluate your breath. If it’s not good, change … 
  17. Questions of Skill
     … Where are you going to find those aggregates? You find them as you’re doing concentration. You’ve got the body here: That’s form. You’ve got the feeling of pleasure that you’re trying to create. You’ve got the perceptions, the images you hold in mind of what the breath does as it comes in, where it goes in, where it … 
  18. Holding On to the Path
     … At the same time, even in very subtle states of concentration, there’s still an element of stress. That’s when you begin to let go, even of the concentration. You let go of the craving for the concentration at that point, the attachment. That’s what they describe as total relinquishment. That’s the very last step. That’s when you let everything … 
  19. Working Hypotheses
     … But you’ll find as your concentration develops that there are stages in the concentration. Your sensitivity grows as the mind grows more and more still. You can pick up on levels of disturbance that you might not have noticed at the beginning. It’s like walking into a very bright room. At first your eyes have trouble adjusting so you can’t see … 
  20. At Ease with the Breath
     … After all, this is concentration practice. And concentration is a matter of being steady and at ease with your topic. The more you’re on good terms with your topic, the easier it’ll be to stay there. If you think of the process as just a lot of work, you’re not going to be able to stick with it very long. Again … 
  21. Chewed Up by Your Food
     … As it turns out, perception is related not just to mindfulness, but also to concentration. You hold one perception in mind. Here again, it’s the perception of breath. At the same time, you’re conscious of all these things. You’re taking the aggregates and putting them together in a way that makes them healthy. They turn into health food—the kind of … 
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