Search results for: "Concentration"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
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