Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Self-Control
     … That’s the Buddha’s gift to us, showing us the skill of learning how to treasure our virtue, our concentration, our discernment, as our most important possessions—how to protect our intentions to make sure that they’re not simply pushed around by negative things outside. You look around at the world and it’s hardly ideal at all. We’re living in … 
  3. The Challenge of Right View
     … As in concentration: All the stages of concentration up to dimension of nothingness are all called perception attainments—as when you’re focusing the body right now. Learn how to perceive the sensations of the body as breath sensations and view how they relate to one another in that sense. All the way down to the little physical sensations: See them all as breath … 
  4. Practice in Dying Skillfully
     … Beyond the sensual pleasures, there’s the pleasure of concentration. If you’ve had some experience with concentration, that’s where you want to go. If you can’t manage anything higher than that, try to gain a sense of being still with a sense of ease that doesn’t have to depend on sensual pleasures. That can help wean you off the fear … 
  5. The Door of the Cage
     … This is where he brings in the practice of concentration, and has us form a right view around the concentration. This is a habit and practice you can cling to, and, as I said, the habit-and-practice clinging that he provides you with is going to be pivotal. This is going to be the central one that he focuses on. In terms of … 
  6. The Most Important Thing to Be Doing
     … That’s why we work on concentration, to get the mind to settle down and have a sense of well-being. You soothe the mind with the breath. The question often arises, “How much concentration do you need?” The Buddha talks about different levels of jhana, as he calls them, but we’re not here to focus on jhana, we’re here to focus … 
  7. Habits & Practices
     … When mindfulness is well-established, it takes you into concentration. So these are the precepts that prepare you for concentration practice, getting you sensitive to your intentions. Concentration practice, of course, gets you even more sensitive to your intentions. You try to maintain one intention against whatever else may come to bump into it. It’s precisely there that you’re going to gain … 
  8. Patience & Tenacity
     … We hear all the time that you need concentration first before you can gain insight. But a lot of practical experience, backed up by what the Canon says, indicates that there has to be some insight to do the concentration. You have to understand the mind to some extent before you can get it to settle down. That means you’ve got to figure … 
  9. A Point of Balance
     … As I’ve said many times before, the heart of the path is right concentration. Only when the mind is balanced in right concentration can it get away from these currents of craving that keep pushing, pushing, pushing. So as you focus the mind right here on the breath, you’re putting yourself in a position where you really can solve the problem of … 
  10. Comfortable with Yourself
     … The Buddha said that when the mind is rightly concentrated, that forms the heart of the path. All the other elements of the noble eightfold path are ancillary, because the path depends on this sense of well-being, of getting along inside. If the different things that come together to create the present moment, that compose the present moment, are on bad terms with … 
  11. Persistence
     … And you can see this most clearly when you get the mind in concentration. So develop your concentration. So there are the guidelines for what kind of effort is going to be needed at any one time. And finally, there’s the amount: How much effort is too much? How much effort is too little? This is something you’re going to have to … 
  12. Heightening the Mind
     … You lift it above your ordinary, everyday activities and you get into a good state of concentration. In the beginning, the mind and the object seem to become one when you’re really absorbed. But as you allow the mind to stay in that state for a while, it begins to separate out as well. You begin to see the object as one thing … 
  13. The Path of Adventure
     … We come to the practice with some virtue, some concentration, some insight already. But we also come with a lot of other things that are not part of the path. They’re obstacles. Our virtue is not all around. Our concentration and insight are not all around. Sometimes there are little gaps, sometimes the gaps are enormous. So as we come to the practice … 
  14. Part I : Basic Instructions
     … Qualities like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment: These are all good things to have when the unexpected happens. So rather than plan specific strategies for how you’re going to deal with this, deal with that, remind yourself that often you have to think up and adjust your strategies in line with the situation, and that’s best done if you’re really alert and … 
  15. Trustworthy Judgment
     … This requires all of the skills involved in concentration: mindfulness, alertness, discernment, tranquility. If an idea comes in your mind, you don’t get swept away. You watch it for a while. You think about it. If you were to make that decision, where would it lead you? Go through the steps. If something strange comes into the mind, learn how to recognize it … 
  16. The Intelligent Heart
     … Then you look at what he has to say about training the heart, training the mind—in mindfulness, alertness, ardency, developing concentration, developing discernment, seeing where it is you’re causing yourself unnecessary suffering—and it all makes sense. As the Buddha said, though, just because something makes sense doesn’t mean that it’s true—but it’s a good sign. If something … 
  17. What You Sense Directly
     … But what advantage do you gain from saying that? It’s more useful to realize that what you’re experiencing right now, as you try to put this state of concentration together, is the root of the bodily, verbal, and mental actions that could lead to rebirth. After all, to move your body, you have to breathe. To speak, you have to engage in … 
  18. Look after Your Mind with Ease
     … Don’t think of it as an unfortunate obstacle as you’re trying to get the mind concentrated. It’s an essential part of the concentration that you learn how to rope in the mind’s thoughts and gather them in closer and closer and closer to a sense of stillness. So, right now, talk to yourself about the breath. How is the breath … 
  19. A Flammable Mind
     … Sometimes people can develop strong powers of concentration, but if there’s no real discernment to go along with it, then even that cool fire can go out. The mind is then back to what it was, the same old flammable state. This is why concentration has to be coupled with discernment—the discernment that sees how the mind creates these issues, how it … 
  20. Locate Your Craving
     … This is why the Buddha said that when you do jhana, or right concentration, you’re developing not only tranquility but also insight. The insight and the tranquility help get you into concentration, and the concentration helps sharpen both of these qualities of the mind. This is why we stay with the breath—not because we want to get the breath but because it … 
  21. Inner Strength, Inner Wealth
     … Built on these is the strength of concentration, the ability to get the mind to be really, really still. As the Buddha said, have respect for concentration. It’s not something you just want to stick into the random free moments of your life. You have to give it some priority. Set aside some time for it. This is your time to be by … 
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