Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Right View
     … But after a while, you began to notice that there’s a little bit of stress in the concentration, a little bit of inconstancy here. Can you move the mind onto a new perception, to a new state of concentration where there’s less of that stress? Learning to ask yourself that question is what develops your concentration, develops your meditation, and develops your … 
  3. Right View, Right Attention
     … That’s why he inclined his mind into concentration. So you try to apply the same standards right now. This is a time for concentration so that anything that’s not related to the breath, just put it aside and hold onto the breath. This requires three qualities. Right view, remembering that the stress and suffering that the mind feels is not something that … 
  4. Two Kinds of Middle
     … You tune your conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment to the level of effort you can manage. In that way your practice stays in tune. In this case, the middle is a midpoint on a continuum. You can slide up or down the continuum and it’s not all that difficult. The question of how much you push, how much you pull back: There are … 
  5. Strength in Humor
     … This is where mindfulness comes in, along with the need for concentration. Mindfulness and concentration are also strengths to nurture you and to give you a sense of well-being in the midst of difficult situations. If you feel nourished inside, it’s a lot easier to deal with the craziness in the world. You don’t get sucked into it out of weakness … 
  6. Circumspection
    In the bases of success—the four qualities that are needed for concentration to succeed—the fourth one, vimamsa, has lots of different translations. One is “discrimination” in the good sense of the term, as in having a discriminating palate. “Analysis” is another. The Canon never really explains the term clearly, so there’s room for lots of different interpretations. One of the Thai … 
  7. The Train Trestle
     … There is some impermanence here, some inconstancy, but relative to a lot of other things in life, this state of concentration is pretty constant. It allows you to put down your guard a bit. As the Buddha said, settle in here. Indulge in the pleasure of the concentration, because the mind needs that sense of pleasure. Otherwise, it’s going to go out looking … 
  8. Strength Training
     … The Buddha talks of the path as a path of strength, and the strengths of the mind are conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. The Buddha has one way of formulating the path in these five terms. He himself often compares the path of practice to various skills, and some of them have to do with strength. The skillful meditator is one who can … 
  9. Enlarged Awareness
     … In this way, you establish a really good solid foundation for your meditation, a good foundation for your concentration. If your concentration is one-pointed, then as soon as anything disturbs that one point even the least little bit, your concentration is gone. But if it has the whole body as its foundation, and you have a sense of your awareness filling the whole … 
  10. Countercultural Conditioning
     … Breathe in ways that gladden the mind, concentrate the mind, that are conducive to releasing the mind—things that we usually don’t think about. He says that if you pay attention to your breath, it has lots of potential, and it’s going to have an impact on the mind. Then there are new ways of talking to yourself—first, to get the … 
  11. Going Out of Your Way
     … As the Buddha said, when you’re avoiding unskillful thoughts, that can mean either that the mind is in concentration, or simply that it’s thinking things that are skillful: not based on sensuality, not based on ill will, not based on harmfulness. But that’s not necessarily special. What makes it special is when you decide you’re going to focus in on … 
  12. For What It’s Worth
     … This, the Buddha said, is an important part of getting the mind into concentration. Sometimes we think that we get the mind into concentration to get the well-being. But he says that there also has to be some well-being first, a sense of gladness. This can be created by reflecting on your virtue, reflecting on your generosity, living in a harmonious community … 
  13. The Elephant Hunter
     … He says, “You practice the teachings and you get into the four stages of right concentration. Those are like footprints.” Think about that. For those of us who haven’t gotten into right concentration yet, we’re still wandering around in the forest and we haven’t even seen any footprints at all. Someone tells us there are footprints, and we say, “Well, that … 
  14. Believing & Knowing
     … Conviction, persistence, mindfulness, and concentration are like the beams and the rafters going up. Discernment is the ridgepole—the discernment that leads to the right ending of stress. As the others are going up, they’re going to be a little wobbly. They’re not one hundred percent sure. It’s only when we start having direct insight that discernment really starts yielding results … 
  15. No Dharma Without Karma
     … As the Buddha once said, there’s no way you’re can reach any of the higher attainments, such as getting into good concentration, if you’re stingy. So there’s no Dharma without generosity. And, two, there’s no Dharma without karma. I keep running into this again and again: people who want to be told that the reason they’re suffering has … 
  16. Whole-body Consciousness
     … But your discernment took you there, and the discernment was based on virtue and on concentration. The virtue makes you honest, makes you sensitive to what you’re doing and the power of your actions. Concentration, again, makes you sensitive to what you can do simply with the intentions of your mind, the perceptions you hold in mind. And because it’s still and … 
  17. Wise About Pleasure
     … That’s the third strength—mindful in such a way that you’re going to give rise more and more to concentration, because this is where you get the strength to keep going. Of the various factors of the path, concentration is the one that the Buddha compares most consistently with food. You breathe in a way, focus on the breath in a way … 
  18. To Be Trustworthy
     … You can plant concentration. You can plant discernment. For instance, with concentration, you can give rise to a sense of well-being inside the body that doesn’t have to depend on the world outside. The mind gets to settle down. In the beginning, it’s taken with the breath. Try to savor your breath, enjoy it. Get as sensitive as you can to … 
  19. Right View Comes First
     … You’ve got right view, and then from right view comes right resolve, from right resolve comes right speech, from right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. In another description, though, he starts with right concentration. He says all the other factors of the path are requisites for right concentration. But then he describes each of the factors and … 
  20. Look after Yourself Happily
     … As the mind begins to feel that it’s had enough of concentration, okay, you know there’s work to be done and you can put it to work. If, in doing the work, things start getting unclear, go back to the concentration. The Buddha calls it a home for the mind. So get used to living at home. There are times when you … 
  21. A Memorial to Your Life
     … It’s basically virtue, concentration, and discernment. We hear so much about how craving is a bad thing in the Buddha’s eyes, but there is the desire that’s part of right effort, and here it’s one of the bases of success. The trick, of course, is to desire the right things and to focus your desire properly on the causes, not … 
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