Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 77
  2. To Stay the Course
     … But if you simply put in a lot of effort without getting the mind still in concentration, without having a sense of equanimity, you burn yourself out, just as gold would get burned up if it were stuck in a fire all the time. If you simply got the mind concentrated, things would sit there and wouldn’t develop. That’s like blowing on … 
  3. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … You breathe in ways that gladden the mind, steady and concentrate the mind, release the mind. This doesn’t happen on its own. It’s a training. In the course of the training, you’re going to be talking to yourself as you give yourself directions: “Do this, do that.” Then you learn from what you’ve done. This is what the meditation is … 
  4. The Balance of Power
     … This is why we develop right concentration. This is our main ally. In the comparison they have of the different qualities on the path, concentration is your food. It’s what gives your nourishment. So you want to develop these allies as much you can. In other words the idea of being peaceful, a mind that causes no harm, it sounds nice but if … 
  5. Issues of Control
     … All five aggregates, for instance, are involved in concentration. Form, of course, would be the breath. Think of the breath going through the whole body. Feeling would be the sense of ease you’re trying to develop. Perceptions would be the images you hold in mind about where the breath is running in the body. Thought fabrications try to adjust things and observe. The … 
  6. An End to Suffering
     … Again, this is why we work with concentration, because when the mind does get concentrated there’s a sense of ease, a sense of well-being. It feels good inside. It’s nourishing, it’s strengthening. And when you actually do the work, you get the results. Have some conviction in the path. This is what helps with that sense of desire, the sense … 
  7. The Right Piece in the Right Puzzle
     … You have to see that these things, too, once you’ve mastered the concentration, are stressful, and inconstant—and they’re based on craving. So you have to let go of the craving even for the concentration. Even for your discernment: You have to let go of that craving too. That’s when you apply not-self as a perception all around. But again … 
  8. Complexities of Karma
     … You want that mindfulness to be really strong, which is why you want to develop it to the point of concentration, where you can stay focused on one thing in spite of the disturbances around you. Like right here, as we’re sitting: It’s a relatively quiet place. There’s a little bit of noise in the background, and there may be pains … 
  9. Unskillful Thinking
     … Common Problems Unskillful Thinking November 24, 2004 The practice of concentration often goes best when you treat it as a game, something you do for enjoyment. After all, some of the factors of right concentration include pleasure and rapture, and these things don’t arise if you treat the concentration as a chore, as something grim you have to slog your way through. So … 
  10. Staying, Moving, & Neither
    Staying, Moving, & Neither December 28, 2010 If you were to boil all the issues of concentration practice down to the most basic one, they’d come down to the question of when to stay in place and when to move. The next level up, when you’re going to stay in place, is how do you do it? How do you get the mind … 
  11. Things as They Function
     … This is why we have the training in the precepts, training in concentration, training in discernment. The Buddha’s giving us good things to do so that we can see clearly what it is for the mind to do something. As he says, we suffer because of the cravings that lead to becoming. So he has us engage in some skillful becoming, which means … 
  12. Stepping Back
     … Here you are, looking at the breath, and as Ajaan Lee says, “Just four concentrations, and you can’t master them.” The mind keeps slipping off, and no matter how determined you are to stay with the breath, you find yourself someplace else. Often it doesn’t seem like the meditation’s heading in any particular direction — just kind of mucking around — and you … 
  13. Attahi Attano Natho
     … It gets even better when the mind really settles down and can develop a state of concentration, because concentration brings with it a sense of pleasure, even a sense of rapture, as you can stay with one thing that feels really good. Traditionally, they talk about concentration as being food for the meditator because it provides that sense of ease inside, a sense of … 
  14. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … It’s devotion to the heightened mind—in other words, to the practice of concentration. As the Buddha said, noble right concentration is the heart of the path, and all the other factors are its requisites or its aids. So as we sit here meditating, trying to get the mind into right concentration, we’re focusing right at the heart. The problem is, there … 
  15. Discerning Actions
     … But is there still some disturbance left? This is one way of appreciating the mind’s various stages of concentration as you get deeper and deeper. It’s also a reminder that these states of ease, states of well-being, are the results of actions. One of the big mistakes you can make in meditation is to hit something really spacious and blissful and … 
  16. Keep the Mind from Wandering
     … This is the discernment that comes through the practice of concentration. Ultimately, you get to the point where you have to learn how to outgrow the food even in the concentration, but until you reach that point—and it’s going to quite a while before you reach that point—learn to appreciate the food you’ve got here, the potential home you’ve … 
  17. Right Effort
     … To develop concentration, arouse a skillful desire to be concentrated. The term “skillful” here is important. Look at the meditation as a skill, not as something you’re just going to push yourself through with blind effort. But notice what skills are required to get the mind to stay still. Once it’s still and you get up from the meditation, how can you … 
  18. The Heart to Keep Going
     … Also remember that we’re not here just for the pleasure and the rapture that can come with concentration. We’re here for all the other skills that go into training the mind. Each time you find the mind wandering off and you bring it back, that’s strengthening a very essential skill—the skill to get your mind off a bad topic and … 
  19. Choices
     … It can provide a sense of well-being, a place where the mind can settle down and gain some concentration. That concentration can be your food. So breathe in a way that feels refreshing, that creates a sense of fullness in the body. That is possible. Then when the mind settles down, you can start seeing things in the mind more clearly. The little … 
  20. Cooking the Present Moment
     … It also has to do with your ability to get the mind into concentration despite the pain. Once the mind is in concentration, it’s not so easily overcome by pleasure or pain. If you learn to get the mind to settle down, it requires being with the breath, and being with the breath at the same time that there’s pleasure arising from … 
  21. Abandoning & Developing
     … You base your concentration on your breath, and then you notice: Do you have the qualities of mind that help you stay with the breath? ** The two main sets of qualities that the Buddha teaches in that context are the hindrances on the one hand, and the factors for awakening on the other. They’re a paired set. Often you see them together in … 
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