Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Equanimity & Endurance
     … This is why we practice concentration and try to get the mind to the levels of concentration where the mind is just there, not getting worked up about anything, not getting excited, not getting down, just right on an even keel. We don’t tend to think of that as a gift to others, but it is. It’s the basis for all our … 
  3. Virtue & Right View
     … You may wonder why the Buddha didn’t include concentration in here, too. It follows on right view; once there’s right view, there should be right resolve, and from right resolve comes right concentration. But for people who don’t have strong powers of concentration, it’s still possible to hold on to right view and to your virtue. These things actually come … 
  4. Sensitive to Fabrication
     … One of the reasons we work on concentration is, as the Buddha said, that the levels of concentration all the way up through the dimension of nothingness are perception attainments. You have to learn how to hold on to a perception that you find congenial, that helps you to settle down. Then these perceptions get more and more refined. When you’ve learned how … 
  5. Gratitude, Goodwill & Generosity
     … I mention this because we often think of meditation as a process of just stilling our thought-processes and getting down to a state of concentration, trying not to think at all. And yet an important part of getting the mind to concentration is learning how to think skillfully first before you can stop thinking. Because some thoughts are very sticky: They actually prevent … 
  6. Anchored by Skillful Roots
     … When you’ve got a taproot that goes way down into the mind—in terms of concentration, in terms of discernment—you find a source inside that’s nourishing. That’s the source that can feed your need for happiness so that it doesn’t have to depend on anything else. In other words, your goodness doesn’t have to depend on outside conditions … 
  7. Balanced Breathing
     … Often, when we think about concentration, we think about tensing up around the object. That kind of concentration can get the mind focused, but it’s hard to keep it going. It doesn’t last. When you can stay focused with a sense of ease, though, that can last for a long time. It can become your basic default mode. So be careful. That … 
  8. The Quality of Your Awareness
     … This is why we practice concentration. This is why we pose questions in the mind to learn about the mind as it’s entering concentration. Because what else are you going to observe? You observe the mind in action right here. And that’s where everything becomes plain.
  9. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … After he had gone for many years dealing with dead ends, he was able to get the mind in right concentration. From right concentration, he started applying his purified mind to questions. Like the question, “Is death the end?” Or: “Have there been births before, and is there the possibility of births afterwards?” He saw that there had been many births. His memory went … 
  10. Breath Energy
     … After all, when the Buddha describes right concentration, he’s talking about a full-body awareness. Where there’s a sense of ease, he says to allow it to work through the body. A sense of fullness or refreshment? Let that permeate through the body. Again, you don’t push it through. Just allow it. You’ll find that the sense of the body … 
  11. A Good-natured Attitude
     … And the other is that it’s just right—not only right but “just right.” Your concentration is just right, the amount of effort you put into it is just right. And how are you going to know what’s just right? You have to experiment. And you have to learn how to listen both to your body and to your mind, to see … 
  12. Perceptions for Training the Mind
     … As the Buddha said, the various levels of right concentration, all the way up through the dimension of nothingness, are perception-attainments. We use perceptions to stay with our object. But remember that when the Buddha’s describing how you get into right concentration, in his description of right mindfulness, there are basically two activities. One is staying focused on one topic. That’s … 
  13. Doubt vs. Discernment
     … You’re going to need virtue, concentration, and discernment, and he divides these things up into factors that are easy to remember. There’s a lot that’s not explained, but at least he heads you in the right direction. When we chant the analysis of the path, notice that the first five factors have very short definitions. The factors having to do with … 
  14. The Beginnings of Wisdom
     … As you get in the more advanced stages of the practice, you look at the states of concentration that you can develop. Sometimes you don’t realize they’re states of concentration. The mind just gets really, really still—very expansive, very bright—and you might ask yourself, “Is this it? Is this what I’ve been practicing for?” Well, you pull out that … 
  15. Purity
     … As the mind gets into concentration, you discover that there are levels of concentration. In the beginning, you have to talk to yourself about staying with the breath and adjusting the breath, because you want the mind and the breath to fit together well—and you’re dealing with the parts of the mind that are not ready to settle down yet. In some … 
  16. Mental Balance
     … All the good things the Buddha has us practice—generosity, virtue, cultivating the sublime attitudes, getting the mind into good state of concentration, developing insight, gaining release: The primary focus is on what they do for your mind, but in each case, you’re not only helping yourself. The people around you benefit as well. With generosity, the dual benefit is obvious. One the … 
  17. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … What’s the best thing that the mind can fabricate? There are some very subtle states of concentration, very strong, and as you develop them, you find yourself getting attached to them. But that’s okay, because that attachment allows you to let go of attachments, say, to sensuality, to unskillful thoughts, or even to weaker and less subtle states of concentration. You finally … 
  18. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … After all, the desire to get better concentration, the desire to get rid of your defilements, to abandon unskillful qualities, develop skillful ones: Those desires are all part of the path. There may be some pain that goes along with that kind of desire. That would come under what the texts call renunciate pain—when you realize that there is a goal that can … 
  19. The Veils of Delusion
     … This is why insight requires such strong concentration. People talk about doing insight meditation without much power of concentration, yet the insights they get are these little fleeting things, little bits and pieces here and there, but there’s nothing continuous, there’s nothing solid. The context is missing. And the solidity of mind, the solidity of your focus that can keep you focused … 
  20. Skillful Selfing
    The Buddha’s instructions on right mindfulness are basically his directions for getting the mind into right concentration. You stay focused on the body in and of itself—and here, to do that, we’re going to take the breath as our object. You put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, anything that’s not related to the … 
  21. Watch What You’re Doing
     … You get into a good state of concentration and you begin to see, after you’ve been there for quite a while, that this concentration seems so still and so basic and so elemental, but it really does require lots of different decisions being made to keep it going. Again, it’s a matter of learning to detect what you’re doing and what … 
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