Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
     … Right mindfulness is when you take any of four frames of reference and keep them in mind as a basis for right concentration. Now, when the Buddha teaches concentration, he does start out with non-reactivity or equanimity as a prerequisite. Before he teaches Rahula breath meditation, he tells him first to make his mind like earth. When disgusting things are thrown on the … 
  3. How to Straighten Out the World
     … This requires as much concentration and as much mindfulness as you can muster. Ideally, a state of concentration fills the body with a calm awareness. But to get there, first you have to have at least a spot in the body where you’re focused and try to maintain that focus through time. Try to develop a oneness through time. This is the function … 
  4. Alone at Death, but Not Lonely
     … One is in the context of concentration practice and the other’s in the context of mindfulness. And, of course, he doesn’t draw a clear line between the two practices: Mindfulness and concentration go together. In terms of concentration, the discernment factor is evaluation. In terms of mindfulness, it’s ardency. Ardency means putting of your whole heart into what you’re doing … 
  5. The Six Properties
     … This kind of refllection helps induce concentration because it inspires a sense of samvega, dispassion. The Buddha then goes further to tell Rāhula, “Make your mind like earth. Make your mind like wind, water, fire.” People throw disgusting things on the earth, but the earth doesn’t react. Wind blows trash around, but it’s not disgusted by the trash. Fire burns trash, water … 
  6. Mindfulness
     … Once you know what’s right view, what’s wrong view, right resolve, wrong resolve, all the way down to right concentration and wrong concentration, you keep in mind your intention to develop the right side and to abandon the wrong. The Buddha compares mindfulness to a gatekeeper for a frontier fortress. In a frontier fortress you have to be very wary because there … 
  7. In Search of What’s Skillful
     … That’s where it gets especially interesting, when he finally gets his mind into right concentration after realizing that jhana is the path. This is the first factor or the first fold of the noble eightfold path that he came across. He had the intuition that right concentration was part of the path, and then he got his mind into right concentration. That’s … 
  8. The Skills of Truth & Calm
     … At first you get attached to them because these are the raw materials from which you create a state of concentration. But then you’re working here not only with the idea of creating a state of concentration. There are also what the Buddha calls the four determinations. You’re determined on discernment; you’re determined on truth, relinquishment, and stilling or peace. In … 
  9. Non-Reactive Judgment
     … It requires either the well-being that comes from concentration or the well-being that comes when you see with genuine insight that letting go of something really does lift a burden off the mind. But you’ve got to work on the concentration first to get the equanimity based on a sense of well-being that can look at things and see right … 
  10. Death Without Drama
     … When they’re still just a potential for a becoming with narratives, we turn them into a becoming with concentration, which doesn’t have narratives. If you were to be asked, “What was the narrative of your concentration today?” the answer would be, “Well, I watched this breath, then I watched that breath, and then I watched that breath.” A pretty dull narrative. But … 
  11. Lessons from Jhana
     … So it’s good, when you’re getting the mind into concentration, that you realize that there is right concentration that can help you understand the mind. And there are other kinds of concentration that don’t teach those lessons. So remember: We’re here to learn about fabrication, the way we put things together. And it’s possible to feel threatened by the … 
  12. Exploring What You’ve Got
     … In other words, don’t give up on concentration and say, “Well I’ve learned concentration, it’s inconstant. Yep, my concentration is pretty poor, it’s pretty inconstant.” That’s not learning the lesson the Buddha wants you to learn. Actually he wants you to question that. Exactly how constant can you make your concentration? He often talks of being constant in your … 
  13. Curious About the Process
     … And the practice of getting the mind to settle down, trying to keep it settled down, and seeing what comes up to pull it out of its concentration: That’s how you see the process in action. You begin to realize that a lot of the processes are things you’re doing as you get the mind in concentration itself. The Buddha lists one … 
  14. Mindfulness as a Goad
    To get the mind into concentration, we have to develop our mindfulness. Sometimes you hear mindfulness being defined as simply being aware of whatever is happening, but that’s not the Buddha’s definition. His definition was that it’s a faculty of the memory, your ability to call things to mind and keep them in mind. For instance, when you’re working with … 
  15. Categorical Truths
     … Now, when you’re practicing virtue, practicing concentration, even when you’re practicing discernment, different people will encounter different problems. As with concentration, some people will find that the breath is not a conducive topic for them—they want to try something else. There are other topics you can choose, but the breath is the topic that’s most universally accessible, so we’ll … 
  16. Today Is Better than Yesterday
     … This is why mindfulness and concentration have to go together. Mindfulness is what keeps reminding you to keep coming back, coming back. Concentration is the quality of solidity that comes when your mindfulness is good. In that way, you can start piercing through all the curtains of denial that the mind puts up, to see how it’s been causing itself suffering, and how … 
  17. Fabrication
     … What do you do with them on this level? Well, you can create levels of concentration in the mind. Concentration is a kind of creation, but it’s a creation that instead of obscuring the process of what’s going on in the mind actually makes it clearer. You create, but without leaving these basic levels of your frame of reference. In other words … 
  18. Conviction in Charge
     … There’s a sense of well-being that comes when you get the mind in a strong state of concentration, and even various psychic powers that can come from the concentration. The concentration itself is like the big footprints. The psychic powers are like the scratch marks. They seem promising but they’re not proof. The real proof comes when you’ve had your … 
  19. Awe
     … That can form a basis for concentration, and concentration of that sort can put the mind in the right state to reflect on things in their proper perspective: to look at where you cling to things, and what might be in your best interest to let go. If you’re looking for your happiness in something that the elements could destroy, don’t think … 
  20. Feelings Not of the Flesh
     … Another thing you hear all too often is that you shouldn’t let yourself get attached to concentration practice or attached to the pleasure of concentration. But actually that pleasure is something you should get attached to, again as motivation to develop it further. Eventually you can wean yourself away from that attachment, but in the beginning you need that kind of attachment to … 
  21. A Soiled, Oily Rag
     … And having the mind in a good solid state of concentration helps you see that because you’ve got a more solid state of well-being, a more lasting sense of pleasure, a well-being that can permeate the whole body, so that compared to the pleasure and ease of concentration, these other pleasures are really not worth it. Whereas the effort that goes … 
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