Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Skillful Attachments
     … And when you look at that fact from the point of view of a well-concentrated mind, instead of being depressing or disturbing, it’s liberating. You really have the choice of what you want to latch on to, if you really want to latch on. Otherwise, you can latch on to your state of concentration for the time being, but you can do … 
  3. A Mind Like Earth
     … That means you can’t wait for everything to be quiet and everything to be neat and everybody to do everything you want them to do, and then you’re going to develop concentration. You have to develop concentration in the midst of a life where there’s noise outside, where people are not perfect. And don’t equate perfection with what you want … 
  4. The Noble Truth about Craving
     … When we’re clear about that, we can develop concentration. When the mind is in concentration and desire comes up, you’re not so hungry for it. All too often, we’re like people standing at a bus stop. It’s raining, stormy, it’s miserable outside. Any bus that comes along, we’re going to jump on. But if you’re standing at … 
  5. Responsible for Your Goodness
     … The Buddha gives an example of someone who’s practicing concentration and starts thinking about how his concentration is better than other people’s concentration. And that right there spoils it. This tendency doesn’t apply only to concentration. It can apply to anything else you do in life. You do it well but then you build up a lot of pride around it … 
  6. An Inner Revolution
     … You have to think again. “Where is there still some stress here even in this concentration?” Or: “When the mind leaves concentration, when it picks up an object, where is the stress there?” These are the questions that are informed by the four noble truths. Where’s the stress? What’s causing it? What can I do to see it more clearly? What can … 
  7. The Raft of Concepts
     … In other words, directed thought and evaluation are factors of right concentration on the level of first jhana. Even if you can get into concentration really quickly, it requires some thinking to get you there. And if you get into concentration slowly, you’ve got to learn how to think your way into the concentration. So think about the breath; visualize the breath in … 
  8. Judging Your Efforts
     … We’re trying to create a state of concentration here. In fact, all the factors of the path are created. You create right view. You create right resolve. You bring these things into being. That’s what bhavana means. But then you also have to evaluate them. This is where two qualities become very important. One quality, ardency, is mentioned under the teachings on … 
  9. Right Inner Speech
     … Your sense of the form here can become a basis for concentration. The feeling that comes when you learn how to play with the breath so that it feels more and more comfortable, more and more satisfying: That becomes an element of your concentration. The perception that stays with the breath: That’s an element of concentration. Any acts of directed thought and evaluation … 
  10. Meticulousness
     … We like to talk about the levels of concentration and which levels you can base your insight on, but it all comes down to how meticulous you are. Just because you’ve attained a certain level of concentration doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to see anything unless you have this habit of being meticulous, of noticing things that other people don’t … 
  11. The Pursuit of Excellence
     … You’re continuing to flow toward the concentration. As you get more and more used to it, you realize: “Okay, this is a better pleasure.” A value judgment, but a good one. You find that there are layers to the concentration as you peel them away. That, too, is a value judgment: You begin to realize that some states of concentration are more solid … 
  12. Into the Cave with the Tiger
     … When the concentration has gotten really good, it’s not distracted, you really are well settled here: Then you begin to see that even this state of concentration has its drawbacks. This stillness in the present moment, this awareness in the present moment: There’s still a process of fabrication going on if you want to stay at this level. When you see that … 
  13. Mistakes
     … Developing goodwill not only puts the mind in the right space but also gets the mind into concentration. It’s one of the topics of concentration. You can combine it with the breath, thinking about how, when you breathe in a way that’s comfortable for the body, you’re really showing yourself goodwill. Learning how to work with the breath energies in the … 
  14. Renunciation Isn’t Deprivation
     … But there’s part of the mind that would like to say, “Why can’t we have it all? The pleasures of the senses, the pleasures of *thinking *about sensuality, and the pleasures of deeper concentration, insight, release?” But those pleasures work at cross purposes. The simple fact of ordaining doesn’t mean you’re going to be deprived of sensory pleasures. They’re … 
  15. A Good Buddhist Ego
     … You get the mind into concentration and you don’t think about the fact that you’re doing the concentration, it’s just a process that you’ve mastered so smoothly by that point it becomes almost automatic. Your sense of self is not called into question. There’s nothing to obstruct what you want to do. It’s when you meet up with … 
  16. A Mind Larger than the World
     … You find your happiness instead in the practice of concentration. You want to have the concentration as your food as you go through life. Of course, you don’t have as much time to practice concentration when you’re outside of the monastery as you would in the monastery, but you actively have to make time for your meditation because the world doesn’t … 
  17. Developing Discernment
     … the strength of conviction, strength of persistence, strength of mindfulness, strength of concentration, and strength of discernment. And he explains them in such a way to show that the first four lead to the fifth. So if you’re looking into ways for how to develop discernment, look at how to develop conviction, persistence, mindfulness, and concentration. How do these things contribute to giving … 
  18. The Pursuit of Pleasure
     … It starts with right concentration and goes on and culminates in nibbana. That’s the kind of pleasure we try to use as our path, because this pleasure is not intoxicated. The mind is not dulled. It’s a pleasure that comes from a sharp mind, learning how to use your powers of observation to sharpen the mind, at the same time that you … 
  19. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … This is why right concentration is the heart of the path. In those four noble truths that the Buddha taught, this is where happiness lies. The noble truths focus on suffering and stress, but there in the fourth noble truth, at the heart of the truth, is right concentration, and one of its factors is bliss or pleasure, happiness. Another one is rapture. This … 
  20. Determined to Practice
     … to abandon unskillful behavior, to get the mind into concentration, to develop discernment, to gain release. All these things follow naturally from the initial conditions. The problem is those initial conditions: Those are the things that do require an act of will. They don’t happen on their own. There are two primary ones that the Buddha mentions. One is friendship with admirable people … 
  21. A Handful of Leaves
     … by developing the qualities of the path, which come down to virtue, concentration, and discernment. Virtue is when you avoid harmful behavior. Concentration is when you get the mind solidly gathered around one object. And that’s to give strength to your discernment, to see exactly what you’re doing that’s causing the suffering and what you can do to stop. That chant … 
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