Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 7
  2. Testing Insights
     … You have to look at everything in terms of cause and effect—as when you look at concentration. First learn how to do it, then notice what kind of effect it’s having on the mind. If it’s not having good effects, adjust your concentration. In the course of adjusting your concentration, you’re going to get insights. Again, look at the effect … 
  3. Self View & Conceit
     … I once read a book by a monk saying that concentration and effort require a strong sense of will and motivation, but motivation requires a sense of self, and we all know that Buddhism is against a sense of self, so right concentration is not to try to do concentration, and right effort is not to do any effort—which is getting everything all … 
  4. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … But you’re not going to see that until your concentration gets good. And your concentration’s not going to get good until you see its value. It sounds like a double bind but it’s actually pointing out that it’s going to be a complex process. You get some concentration, you learn some lessons, then you forget them. Then you get concentration … 
  5. Fourth Truth, First Duty
     … Now, for the sake of concentration, you do want to hold on to them for the time being. But an important part of both right mindfulness and right concentration is that you put aside any thoughts—any aggregates—about anything else that has to do with the world. You begin to see that those are perceptions and fabrications, too. This will sensitize you to … 
  6. Insights
     … If your concentration is just in one spot and that’s the only kind of concentration you have, then you’re in trouble. As soon as you move from that spot, your concentration’s gone. That’s the kind of concentration that’s hard to take out into the world. What you want is a combination of having one spot as you focal point … 
  7. Evaluation
     … That’s what gets you into deeper concentration. That’s what helps you develop discernment as you’re doing the concentration. It’s the kind of discernment that ultimately can get you away from your attachment to the concentration altogether, but first you use your discernment to get yourself attached, because this is a good attachment. When you’re well attached to the breath … 
  8. How to Listen to the Dhamma
     … That brings the mind into concentration. So, listening to a Dhamma talk doesn’t preclude getting the mind into concentration. In fact, if you listen to the talk well, and the talk is relevant to what’s going on in your mind, it can naturally lead to concentration. Then, from concentration, as the mind is really centered, you can develop more discernment that leads … 
  9. Honoring the Noble Ones
     … The mindfulness then turns into concentration. Now, there are people who are afraid of concentration. I don’t know how many books on meditation start their discussion of concentration with a warning: “You’ve got to watch out, or you’re going to get stuck on concentration.” The Buddha never taught that. After all, he taught right concentration, and as he said, you need … 
  10. Discernment Fosters Concentration
     … In some of the lists, concentration fosters discernment; in other lists, discernment fosters concentration. The five faculties, five strengths: Those are lists that put the concentration first. You start with a certain conviction in the Buddha’s teachings and you get to work, get the mind to settle down. When the mind is settled down, then it starts gaining insights. In the seven factors … 
  11. Sensuality
    Sensuality January 26, 2012 Two big enemies of concentration are sensual desire and ill will. It’s all too easy—as you’re sitting here putting aside your duties of the day, your various responsibilities, and you create an empty space here in the present moment—that these are the thoughts that come flooding in: the sensual pleasures you’d like to fantasize about … 
  12. Maintenance Work
     … keeping the mind in one place, maintaining it in concentration. Ajaan Lee once said there are three steps in concentration practice: doing, maintaining, and then using the concentration. The using is fun. Once the mind has settled down, you can use it as a basis for understanding things. You suddenly see the motions of the mind as it creates thoughts, and it’s a … 
  13. Four Bases of Success
     … The Buddha describes them as four types of concentration: concentration based on desire and the fabrications of exertion; concentration based on effort and the fabrications of exertion; concentration based on intent and the fabrications of exertion; and finally, concentration based on *vimaṅsā—*a Pali term that has many meanings in English. It can mean your powers of judgment. The Thais like to translate it … 
  14. Virtues Bright & Neither Dark nor Bright
     … You’re treating it as part of training the mind in mindfulness, ardency, alertness, getting the mind prepared to settle down in concentration, the kind of concentration where you can be honest with yourself—because it’s only when your concentration is honest that it’s going to be conducive to discernment. After all, what are going to see with your discernment? You’re … 
  15. The Fourth Frame of Reference
     … We read about the ajaans, about the people in the Canon who gained strong states of concentration. We read about the descriptions of concentration. But what’s the reality of concentration? Exactly what do those words correspond to? If you spend all your time playing around with the hindrances, you never get to know. The only way to gain direct knowledge of these things … 
  16. A Path Under the Trees
     … That’s what right concentration for. When the Buddha was able to follow the path of right concentration, he discovered the other path factors as well: everything from right view to right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. He followed that path, developed it, and that was what led to awakening. In his awakening, he solved two … 
  17. Judging Just Right
    Ajaan Fuang would often make the point that we’re practicing not only right concentration, but also just right concentration. In other words, we have to approach this as a skill, because it is possible for the mind to get into really heavy states of concentration where everything blanks out. You have no sense of the body. Nothing is going on at all, and … 
  18. Survival Dhamma
     … It’s true that people without precepts can obtain concentration, but it’s a concentration infiltrated with dishonesty. And that kind of concentration is really dangerous. You get all sorts of twisted ideas about how now that you’ve got a good solid state of concentration, the breaking of the precepts doesn’t matter, that you’ve somehow reached a level beyond the precepts … 
  19. Metta Meditation
     … May all living beings be happy.” In that way, you’ll find it easier to keep coming back, which is what the concentration is all about. Concentration isn’t something built up from nothing. We all have certain powers of concentration already. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human beings, or we wouldn’t be sane human beings. So in the beginning … 
  20. The Creator of Worlds
     … But ideally, you have to wait until the concentration is strong enough to handle these things. There are some times when outside issues are really pressing and you have to make do with whatever concentration you’ve got to deal with them, because the issues demand resolution right away. But there are a lot of other issues that you’ve been living with for … 
  21. A Passion for the Path
     … So you work on developing concentration, getting it as good as possible. This is why we develop a passion for the path even though we’re trying to develop dispassion for the aggregates. We have to substitute our passions for other things with a passion for the path: a passion for the practice, a passion for concentration. You want to do this really well … 
  22. Load next page...