Search results for: "Concentration"
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- Dhamma Medicine… So the purpose of the concentration is to strengthen you. Find a way of breathing that feels really good, that’s relaxing to the body if you’re feeling tense, that’s energizing if you’re feeling weak or tired. Allow the mind to settle in one hundred percent. When they talk about effort that’s just right, they warn you against effort that …
- The Dhamma Wheel… This is why the Buddha identified right concentration as *the *important factor of the path, and all the other factors as its supports and requisites. Because it’s when the mind is in right concentration that it can actually perform these duties. Now these aren’t duties that the Buddha imposes on anyone, but he says if you want to put an end to …
- Explore & Experiment… This is one of the ways of developing concentration: You develop it through interest. The Pali term, citta, literally means mind, but it can also mean really being interested in what you’re doing, being intent on what you’re doing. If you see that this is an interesting process—how the energy flows through the body, something you haven’t explored much before …
- Something Good to Cling to… That’s how delusion concentration happens. Delusion concentration is when you’re still, but you’re not really quite sure where you are or what you’re focused on. You come out of it and you’re not really sure whether you were asleep or awake. It wasn’t quite asleep, but it wasn’t quite awake either. The mind was in a blur …
- The Wheel of Dhamma… developing virtue, developing concentration, developing discernment. You have to want to do these things. You have to use all your ingenuity in doing these things, because they’re going to take you to where you want to go. So learn to develop a desire for them. And keep in mind that third noble truth, too: There is a possibility for the end of suffering …
- Teachings to Rahula… When you’re doing mindfulness practice, it’s going to shade into concentration. Figuring out what’s working is what the evaluation is. The Buddha talks about directed thought and evaluation when developing concentration. The directed thought is when you make up your mind you’re going to stay with one object. That’s mindfulness applied to concentration. Then you try to stick with …
- Dissolving Your Thoughts… You want to learn how to develop your skill here, so that the deeper your concentration, the more sensitive you’ll be to the impact of thoughts when you leave concentration. And you see more and more clearly which kinds of thoughts you really don’t want to chase after, the ones you just want to breathe through and be done with them. This …
- Strong-hearted… Your mind is going to be running off every which way if you haven’t learned how to control your focus, control your concentration. So while you’re strong, healthy, and well, try to develop these powers. This, too, is a strength of the heart. Based on this concentration where you really get the mind stilled, you can see what’s going on inside …
- The Door of the Cage (2)… In this way, you hold on to your sense of self that wants to do concentration. You hold on to the sense of the world in which it makes sense to be doing concentration and developing discernment, and to let go of anything that gets in the way of those practices, to dis-identify with any obstacles to the practice. Ultimately, you get to …
- Focal Points… There was an old retired schoolteacher I knew in Thailand who stayed at Wat Asokaram and had a reputation among the other lay meditators for being really quick in getting into concentration. Another old retired woman who was quite psychic—she could actually check out other people’s minds—told me that by the time her own mind had settled down to the point …
- Objectivity… You learn how to settle the mind down, get it established, have it gain confidence in a state of concentration, and you use that desire to want to understand how this state of concentration is put together, and what might be a subtler happiness than that. You do that by looking for where there’s stress still in there. It’s usually in the …
- Eight Principles… All too often you hear people focusing first on trying hard not to get stuck on the pleasure of concentration. Actually, we want you to get stuck on concentration first so that you can let go of your other attachments. As the Buddha once said, if you don’t have the pleasure that comes from jhana or something better, you’re not going to …
- The Roles of Equanimity… You’re working on your concentration, and there are days when it just doesn’t go well. So instead of getting upset about it, you calm the mind down and watch, because obviously there’s something you don’t understand—maybe in the breath, maybe in the mind—and you’re not going to see these things or understand them unless you just sit …
- Harmless & Clearheaded… All he needed to do was to start eating again and he’d have the strength of body he needed to get the mind back into that state of concentration. Then he followed that concentration, and it provided the basis for the knowledge that led to awakening, to total release: a happiness that wasn’t dependent on any conditions at all, inside or out …
- Choices… You could be sitting here thinking about the world outside, the world of your life, your daily life, or you could be focused on the present moment to develop powers of concentration and mindfulness. And because there’s a choice, and because there are parts of the mind that would go with either choice, there’s going to be a battle inside. This is …
- The Best Work Around… Do they really take us where we want to go or just pile on more stress and suffering? So work hard at this business of concentration, this work of concentration. The work comes down to two factors: mindfulness and alertness. As they get more developed, they turn into directed thought and evaluation. Mindfulness means keeping the breath in mind. Alertness means watching what’s …
- Understanding Pain… This is why we work with concentration: It gives us the strength we need. There are two steps to dealing with pain, and both involve concentration, trying to get the mind to be still. First, if the pain hasn’t arisen yet, and you know where pains tend to arise as you meditate, work on that area. Let the breath flow through that area …
- Wake Up from Addiction… As I’ve said before, when you’re getting the mind into concentration and developing jhana, the object isn’t jhana. The object is the breath. It’s only when you’ve settled down with the breath for quite a while that you begin to be in a position where you can step back a little bit to really question and understand what you …
- Action & Result… He teaches you where to focus your attention, say, on the body in itself, the breath in itself, and how to develop powers of mindfulness and concentration around that. When the mind gets well-fed with the concentration, clear with the concentration, then you start asking the right questions. And again, these are questions of action and result—the kinds of questions the Buddha …
- Mindfulness 2.0… This is how you get the mind into concentration. “Alert” means that you watch what you’re doing and the results that come from what you’re doing. “Mindful” means that you keep in mind what you’ve got to do. And ardency is the desire to do it well. Ajaan Lee, when he explains mindfulness practice, points to the wisdom in ardency. You …
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