Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. The Buddha’s Shoulds
    The Buddha’s Shoulds January 6, 2008 Right concentration forms the heart of the path. The other factors of the path serve two functions. One is to get you into concentration; the other is to make sure you don’t get stuck there. In other words, concentration on its own is a state of becoming that’s useful on the path. Even though you … 
  3. Factors for Awakening
     … That’s a way of showing how mindfulness and discernment working together can bring the mind to concentration. The Buddha actually has lots of different ways of describing the order in which these things happen. Mindfulness always precedes concentration, but sometimes discernment comes first, then mindfulness, then concentration; sometimes mindfulness, then concentration, then discernment, depending on whether he’s talking in terms of the … 
  4. Catch It in the Act
    One of the basic tenets in the Buddha’s teaching is the principle that discernment nurtured by concentration has great rewards, great benefits. When we hear that, we think we have to get a lot of concentration and only then can we work on discernment or wisdom. But that’s not the case. All the basic elements of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment … 
  5. The Path Converges Right Here
    When the Buddha discovered the path, the first factor he discovered was right concentration. And as he worked at right concentration, he found that other factors had to come in to support it. These are called the requisites or supports of right concentration. They start with right view all the way through right mindfulness. But they all converge here, at right concentration, and it … 
  6. Respect for Concentration
    An important principle in the practice is having respect for concentration. This means your own concentration and the concentration of the people around you—because concentration is the heart of the path. It was the first factor of the path that the Buddha discovered. You probably know the story. Practicing austerities for six years, seeing that that didn’t lead to the deathless happiness … 
  7. Step Back & Watch
     … If you’re having trouble getting the mind concentrated, you’re going to be interested in the hindrances. Once it’s concentrated, you’re going to be interested in navigating the different levels of concentration. You’re going to be interested in learning how to navigate the subtle defilements that build up around concentration. But in every case, it’s a matter of learning … 
  8. Right Action & Right Livelihood
    When the Buddha got on the right path, he went straight from right resolve to right effort and then to right concentration. But when he explained the path, he put some other steps in between: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. The question is, why? It may have been because he saw that if you’re going to practice right resolve, you first … 
  9. Right Resolve, Right Concentration
     … As the Buddha said, goodwill is a good object for concentration. At the very least, it can get you into the first jhana. When you take that level of concentration and work with it, developing the factors of awakening around it, it forms the basis for something even better: at the very least, a mind that’s still and harmless. You can also take … 
  10. Three Perceptions
     … You try to see that no matter how attractive or alluring or interesting other topics might be, they don’t measure up to concentration as a source for happiness. They’re less constant, more stressful, less under your control. So you drop them in favor of the bliss of concentration. You keep this up, gaining these insights, until you’ve fully mastered concentration — which … 
  11. Against the Grain
     … His earlier teachers had told him that states of concentration were the goal and it was only a matter of finding the most refined state of concentration and staying there. But it was the Buddha’s great insight to realize that concentration is part of the path: You have to convert it to a higher end. So even though there is some danger in … 
  12. Bases of Power
    One of the Buddha’s many lists is of the qualities that help give power to your concentration. He presents them as four alternatives: concentration based on desire, concentration based on persistence, concentration based on intent, and concentration based on discrimination—in other words, using your intelligence. Actually, of course, all four are involved in getting the mind into concentration, but for different people … 
  13. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … If you do it too quickly, you lose the foundation in concentration you need in order help pry away your attachments to other things. In fact, while you’re developing the concentration, you want to hold on to it. At that point, the clinging is not a problem, because you use the concentration to pry away your attachments to sensuality in general, i.e … 
  14. Practice Without Gaps
     … So we don’t wait until our precepts are perfect before we practice concentration or develop discernment. The more consistent we can make our precepts, the easier it will be to get the mind into a good, consistent concentration—the kind of concentration that will make a difference in the mind. And the more discerning we are in observing the precepts, the more we … 
  15. The Dhamma Wheel in the Heart
     … All too often our worries come with a thought, “I should be worried.” You have to erase that should and apply a should to the concentration: “I should be concentrated. I should be working at least on my concentration.” And then get right back. Try to do this as quickly as you can. So you’re developing the concentration and you’re abandoning all … 
  16. Honest & Observant
     … It’s normal that you start out with gaps in your concentration. You’re with the object for a while, then you slip off, then you come back, slip off again. Don’t throw away those little moments of concentration, though. Realize that it’s through connecting those moments of concentration that you’re going to get deeper concentration, more solid concentration. So whenever … 
  17. Useful Vocabulary
     … Sometimes the concentration has to be developed so that you get more solid and see things that are more precise. Sometimes you have to drop the analysis because the mind is getting worn out and that’s when you go for the concentration that’s there for the purpose of just giving you a pleasant abiding here and now. Remember concentration has four uses … 
  18. Training Your Minds
     … Then, of course, there are the ones that say, “Well, your concentration is miserable. Why even try?” But you have to remember: Where does good concentration come from? It comes from mediocre concentration, even from miserable concentration. The fact that you have some concentration is the seed. Learn how to nurture that. Even though the seed doesn’t seem ready to sprout quite yet … 
  19. The Fourth Noble Truth
     … You’re also keeping in mind the need to protect your concentration on the breath. It’s in this way that everything converges into right concentration, so that right concentration gathers up all the other factors of the path and makes them whole. It’s good to think of the factors coming together this way, for otherwise, if you think of them as separate … 
  20. Constructing & Deconstructing
     … Right now, you want to encourage the arising of whatever will give rise to a good state of concentration and maintain your concentration, and you want to discourage whatever is going to destroy it. All this is the work of insight. On the one hand, you’re constructing a state of concentration out of the processes of fabrication. As for things that would come … 
  21. Pleasing to the Noble Ones
    The practice of concentration starts with the practice of right mindfulness. You focus on an aspect of the body in and of itself, and you put aside greed and distress with a reference to the world. That’s what the formula says. You’re doing two things. One is trying to keep focused on the sensation of an aspect of the body, like the … 
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