Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Simplify
     … This is why we spend so much time sitting here with our eyes closed, working on mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, because these are the qualities that will see the mind through any situation. When you see people really “losing it,” this is what they’ve lost. They’ve lost their mindfulness, they’ve lost their concentration, they’ve lost their discernment. So you want … 
  3. How to Be Happy
     … This combination of inner virtue and discernment lies at the basis of what’s needed to get the mind into good concentration. We talk about gaining discernment from concentration, but you also need to have some discernment to get the mind into concentration to begin with. Discernment is what allows you to know what to do, where to look, where the real problems are … 
  4. Totally Secure
     … This is how concentration gets developed. You really stick with the object of your concentration no matter what. It’s like having a gyroscope in the ship. No matter which direction the waves tilt the ship, the gyroscope stays on an even keel. No matter what happens outside, no matter what happens inside, you want to keep your mind on an even keel. That … 
  5. Levels of the Breath
     … What you’re going to notice depends on which one you focus on; and which one you focus on is going to determine how strong and steady and precise your concentration can be. First you work with the in-and-out breath, which is the easiest to observe and can get the mind to a certain level of concentration, but the in-and-out … 
  6. Doubt vs. Questioning
     … For example, a common complaint about concentration, as you begin to fabricate it, is that you notice, “Hey, this is fabricated. This is willed. There’s got to be something wrong here.” You’d think that concentration should be something that happens naturally. Sometimes it does, but other times you really have to will it. You really have to work at it. After all … 
  7. Food Insecurity
     … You want to be confident in that, because when the Buddha talks about comparing the different aspects of the practice to different parts of a fortress, concentration is the food. With concentration you’ve got bodily fabrication (the breath), verbal fabrication (directed thought and evaluation), and then mental fabrication (perceptions and feelings). You put them all together in the right way, and you’ve … 
  8. Because the Mind Is Purposeful
     … We’re fabricating a state of concentration. That’s the best way to get to know fabrication: by doing something skillful with it. It’s like learning about wood. When you make different pieces of furniture out of wood, you learn its characteristics: how the different kinds of wood respond to being planed, how they respond to being sawed. You learn this because you … 
  9. One Person
     … Mindfulness and concentration go right together. Without the mindfulness, there can be no concentration, because when you make up your mind to stay with the breath, you have to keep remembering each time you breathe in that that’s what you’ve made up your mind to do. Then try to make being here as pleasant as possible, so that it’s interesting, enjoyable … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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