Search results for: "Concentration"
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- Inconstancy… Even though your focus is on the breath, you can’t help but notice that there are times when the mind is concentrated on the breath and times when it’s not. You’ve got to learn how to figure out both sides of the question: which things are helping to foster concentration, and which things are getting in the way of concentration. And …
- Worry… And either the concentration disintegrates or you move into what’s called delusion concentration, where you’re still, quiet, but you don’t really know where you are. There’s no alertness. No ardency. In that case, you’ve been overcome by the pleasure. The right course is that when there’s pleasure, you learn how to use it as a source of inner …
- The Form of the Body… That’s why we chant that chant, “This body of mine.” The texts say that you don’t achieve full mastery of concentration until you’ve also overcome your attachment to sensual desire. It’s good to think about why. One very important reason is: What is the object of meditation? It’s form, the form of the body, the way you experience the …
- Start the Year Right Here… This is how mindfulness and alertness develop into concentration, and concentration develops into discernment. All of these are qualities that give power to the mind. In this way, you find that the mind becomes something you really can depend on, because you’ve strengthened it. We like to talk about being self-reliant, depending on ourselves. There are passages in the Canon that talk …
- Getting Connected Inside… You’ll eventually get to a point in the concentration where you don’t have to do that much evaluation. You’ve sorted things out, you’ve checked things out, done the best you can, and then you just settle in. And as your concentration gets stronger, your ability to focus and stay focused gets quicker. The need to go through the body gets …
- Damming & Diverting… We do this not only for concentration but also for insight, because once the mind has boundaries and the boundaries are clear, you get to see, when the mind goes flowing out, where does it go? Where is it coming from? This is necessary for understanding the mind, because otherwise we just go along with the flows. This river flows into that river, and …
- Hold on to Your Frame of Reference… Remind yourself that you don’t really know what’s going to happen in the future, how much longer you’re going to live, what you’re going to face, but you do know that the more mindfulness you have, the more alertness you have, the more concentration and discernment, the better the position you’ll be in handling whatever comes up. So meditating …
- When You Practice on Your Own… As you practice right mindfulness, the mindfulness gets good and develops into the factors for awakening as mindfulness settles in, gets established, and turns into concentration practice. As you get really good at concentration practice, you start getting insights into what you’re doing. Take breath meditation for example: You start out focusing on the breath, and as you’re focusing on the breath …
- Strength for Stillness… The mind can then move in with the breath, get a sense of unification with it, getting into strong states of concentration. That really strengthens your practice and strengthens your sense of well-being right now. Then there’s the strength of discernment. As you watch what you’re doing and you notice what’s skillful and unskillful, that use of evaluation and concentration …
- Full-Body Breath… This is where he recommended resting in concentration. You seclude the mind from sensuality, you pull it away from your desire for sensual pleasures, you seclude it from unskillful mental qualities, and you focus it on one of the four establishings of mindfulness. Those, the Canon says, are the proper topics of concentration, right concentration. You can focus on the body in and of …
- Open Are the Doors to the Deathless… One was getting the mind single—in other words, getting it concentrated—and two, applying appropriate attention, which means listening to the Dhamma and asking yourself, “How does this apply to the problem of the suffering in my own heart? How does this apply to what I’m doing right now that’s creating the suffering, and how I can stop?” That’s precisely …
- Fire… But if you’re alert and mindful, if you’re concentrated and discerning, then you’re much more likely to be able to handle whatever problem comes up. So the best way to deal with the potential for danger is to strengthen the mind. And here you are, meditating. You’re doing precisely the thing that’s going to help you, whatever the danger …
- Conviction & Persistence… It’s not the case that when concentration arises you say, “Okay, there’s concentration. I’ve seen it, that’s that. What’s next?” You stick with it. Once it’s there, you try to develop it, nurture it, see how far you can take it. Again, it requires that quality of consistency: the ability to stick with it over time, regardless of …
- Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge… And when the Buddha’s talking about food in terms of the practice, concentration is the main food. Learning how to be steadily with the body with a sense of well-being gives you the strength to perform all the other tasks of the path. So always remember that. The Buddha thought strategically. In the ancient world, they made a distinction between “scribe knowledge …
- The Best News in the World… When the Buddha finally found the path to awakening, he started with right concentration. So let’s start with right concentration. Focus on your breath. Keep your thoughts connected to the breath. Then evaluate the breath. How does it feel? You might try some long breathing for a while to see if long breathing feels good and energizing. If it does feel good, keep …
- Fear of the Truth… the fact that you are capable of doing these things; you are capable of being more mindful, more concentrated, gaining more discernment, developing more patience, more equanimity, more compassion for others. Sometimes this confidence is hard to gain. It takes a while. But as you keep chipping away, chipping away, you find that your confidence becomes confirmed, verified. And yes, this does work. You …
- Take Responsibility for Yourself… Then when the Buddha teaches some of his most advanced lessons on how to contemplate concentration or how to analyze your concentration in terms of its emptiness of disturbance, it’s the same principle. You realize the disturbance is coming from your actions—what you’re doing right now—and you learn how to drop whatever action is causing the disturbance. That way, you …
- Mindful & Grateful for Lessons in Freedom… We’re trying to develop a state of concentration. And from the concentration, we want to be able to see the mind clearly—to see particularly where it’s causing itself unnecessary suffering. Those are all good things to remember. And when we think about good things to remember, it’s an interesting linguistic feature of Pali that another word that refers to remembering …
- The Lessons of Equanimity… We’re trying to develop a state of concentration here, where you stick with something and feel at home with it. The concentration is not just a matter of the focus but it’s also a matter of the well-being that can come with the focus, and that requires some adjustment. This is why the Buddha says that the factors of the first …
- Right Effort & Right Mindfulness… Then there’s a seven-fold path, which was the first five factors plus right effort and right concentration. These were two totally separate paths as far as one author was concerned. Mindfulness for him was all about simply accepting what arises and passes away. Whereas with right effort and with right concentration, you’re actually trying to develop concentration in the mind. Actually …
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