Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Comprehending Suffering
     … That’s because as you develop the path, and particularly as you work on concentration, you get to see what’s going on in the mind a lot more clearly. If you ask the right questions, which is what right view is all about, you’ll come to understand things that have been happening in your mind all along that you simply haven’t … 
  3. The Allure of Self
     … As when you’re practicing concentration: Anything that comes in to interfere with the concentration, see it as not-self, not-self. If there’s any sense of self lingering in the concentration, okay, make it skillful. That way, you’re not totally set adrift. You begin to see that the Buddha’s teaching really is for your own well-being. He really is … 
  4. Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence
     … Just thinking about getting the mind concentrated is very wearisome.” If that’s how you think, you’re never going to get the mind concentrated. The duty with regard to concentration is to give rise to it and develop it. In terms of self or not-self, in the Canon there’s a case where a monk decides that if the five aggregates are … 
  5. Developing Discernment
     … This is why the Buddha says there are two duties that you *do *as you get the mind to settle down with right mindfulness and into right concentration: One is to keep track of the object you’re determined to focus on, like the breath. And the other, as he says, is to “put aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In … 
  6. Clinging & Its Cure
     … You take those aggregates and turn them into concentration; you turn them into a right view; you turn them into all the factors of the path. That will provide you with a way out. An important part of that is having right view about what the clinging is. The Buddha lists four kinds: clinging to sensuality, clinging to views, clinging to habits and practices … 
  7. A Path Rooted in Desire
     … When you do this, the mind gets into concentration—the kind of concentration where you’re centered inside with a sense of well-being, clearly aware of how you’re breathing, how you’re talking to yourself, the perceptions you’re holding in mind as you’re trying to create a state of concentration. This way, you see the processes of the mind in … 
  8. Speaking Truth to Defilement
     … This is one of the reasons why the Buddha has the precepts as one of the assisting factors to right concentration, the requisites or the supports for right concentration. Because if you want your concentration to lead to discernment, it really does help to be observing the precepts. Years back, when Ajaan Suwat was leading a retreat in Massachusetts, at the very end of … 
  9. A Genius about Your own Mind
     … He studied with teachers who were able to get their minds to very subtle levels of concentration: the dimensions of nothingness and neither perception nor non-perception. Yet he saw that there was still danger those attainments. There was still a problem there. They didn’t meet with his standards of totally deathless happiness. And so he moved on. And, through trial and error … 
  10. Restraint Leads to Freedom
    The mind, when it’s in a state of concentration, is expansive. Your awareness fills the whole body. The object you’re focusing on, the breath, fills the whole body. But to get there, you have to start out with restraint. The mind has to stay with the body in and of itself, and you have to put aside all thoughts with reference to … 
  11. Passion for Dispassion
     … There are some people who find the processes of getting the mind into concentration really interesting. Other people find concentration easy, not so much of an issue, but then they get interested more in the discernment side: figuring out where their attachments are, why they’re attached, what they can do to pry lose those attachments. But the important thing is you learn how … 
  12. Protection
     … Whatever your concentration, whatever your insights, they get scattered. This is why restraint of the senses is an important part of the meditation. And the meditation itself can be used as a type of protection. In other words, you have to maintain it. You can’t just let it go, thinking now that you have other responsibilities, other things going on, you can put … 
  13. Sensitive in Seven Ways
     … When the Buddha says “concentration,” what is concentration like? It’s not just a word, and the meaning is not just in its definition. It’s in the actual quality of the mind. When the Buddha talks about being generous, when he talks about having goodwill, it’s not just in the words. You want to see what those words are for—the qualities … 
  14. A Total Training
     … And you might say, “Well, where’s my freedom to think?” Well again, you’re free to make yourself suffer if you want to, but do you really want to? How about bringing the mind to think about things that really are helpful in leading to happiness instead? This is why the Buddha stressed right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration in the practice … 
  15. Unattractive
    As Ajaan Fuang used to say, the breath is the basis of our skill here, and concentration focused on the breath is the safest of all the concentration practices. It’s the one where you can see most clearly the stages of jhana as the mind settles down. You can see the different kinds of fabrication: bodily, verbal, mental. Bodily, being the breath itself … 
  16. Laying the Infrastructure
     … We tend to think of insight practice and concentration practice as two separate things. But where does the insight practice come from if it doesn’t have this good foundation of stillness? After all, it’s only when you’re still that you can see subtle things move. So the time spent on concentration, being very careful to watch this very mundane thing, the … 
  17. On an Even Keel
     … But no, you look at the path itself, and you can see that pleasure and equanimity play a huge role in the right concentration. The four jhanas are defined by their feeling tone. You want to develop pleasure, you want to develop rapture, but you have to learn how to do it in such a way that you don’t destroy your concentration. So … 
  18. No One Size Fits All
     … As you’re trying to get the mind into concentration, the big questions are: “How do you get the mind to settle down? How do you get it to enjoy where it is and get some refreshment out of it?” Then there are the questions of insight. Here again, the Buddha didn’t teach one single technique. He just set up some questions: “How … 
  19. Blowing Bubbles
    Blowing Bubbles April 11, 2013 One of the first instructions you get in practicing concentration is that if you notice you’ve wandered away from the breath, try to come back as quickly as possible. And just because it’s a basic instruction early on doesn’t mean that it’s something to forget later on in the practice. It really is important because … 
  20. The Evening News
     … You get sensitive to when there’s rapture and pleasure coming from getting the mind concentrated. Then you see how those things together with the perceptions that go with them—the perception of the breath, the perception of the feelings, the perception of the body—have an impact on the mind. They fabricate the mind. Then you allow that impact to calm down. With … 
  21. A Small, Steady Flame
     … The word jhana, or concentrated mental absorption, is related to a verb, jhayati, that means “to burn.” Pali has lots of different words for the word “burning,” and jhayati is used to describe a steady flame, like the flame of an oil lamp. The words for “burning” used for other types of fire — like a raging bonfire, a wood fire, or a forest fire … 
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