Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Respect
     … But have some respect for your concentration, as we chanted just now. Give it some time. Resist any temptation just to drop it and go off after whatever else catches your fancy. That’s one of the things that respect means: You go out of your way. You don’t follow your immediate desires, your immediate likes or dislikes. The Buddha spent his life … 
  3. Heedfulness for the Holidays
     … And the nourishment, of course, is your concentration. He compares the different levels of concentration to different kinds of food, which get better and better and more and more nourishing as you go up the levels. And finally, there’s discernment, which is the wall around the fortress. One of the features of the wall is that it’s well-plastered. In other words … 
  4. The Dhamma Mirror
     … The clinging is what you’re doing, and you’ll see that clearly as you deal with distractions in concentration, and as you’re doing the concentration itself. This is why, when the Buddha introduced his son to the practice, one of the first images he used was a mirror. Just as you use a mirror to reflect on your face, you look at … 
  5. Listening to the Body
     … If you had just this one breath, how could you make it comfortable? Don’t anticipate what the next breath is going to be like or when concentration is going to come or when a sense of ease or rapture you’ve read about is going to come. Just focus on this one breath. Make it comfortable. If you had only one more breath … 
  6. Best Friends
    When you read the Buddha’s descriptions of right concentration, you notice that the two activities that help the mind to settle down are directed thought and evaluation. In order to clear away unskillful thoughts in the mind, you have to direct your thoughts in the right direction, toward the breath. And you keep directing them there, Keep reminding yourself: “Stay with the breath … 
  7. The Noble Truths of the Breath
     … We look for these areas and refresh them because the qualities of right concentration are pleasure and refreshment. And you can create those qualities by the way you breathe. The question sometimes comes up: Here we are, working with comfort, but isn’t the whole point of the Dhamma to understand suffering? Well, how are you going to understand the subtle ways in which … 
  8. Sensitive to the Mind
    We practice concentration to get the mind in one place—right here. There are different ways of doing that. The breath is home base: Of all the meditation methods that the Buddha taught, this is the one he taught in most detail because it helps to clarify a lot of the big issues in the mind, especially around the issue of fabrication, or saṅkhāra … 
  9. The Kamma of Self & Not-self
     … Once you develop a good, strong body of skills on how to be mindful, how to bring the mind to a good state of concentration, you’ve taken the sense of self and its quest for a good long-term happiness about as far as it can go. But the quest for happiness doesn’t end there. It goes further. At that point, you … 
  10. Ānāpānasati Day
     … From the calm there comes concentration. As the mind gets concentrated, it settles into equanimity. The equanimity that comes when your needs for a sense of inner well-being have been met allows you to view yourself, to view the world, with a lot more stability. Then, based on these seven qualities, you gain clear knowing and release. So it’s all there in … 
  11. The Karma of Pleasure
     … But if you can appease that hunger for pleasure with the pleasure of a well- concentrated mind, then you can look at these other pleasures and willingly admit that they do have their drawbacks. They involve intoxication. You have to blot out large areas of your awareness if you’re going to enjoy them. It’s like listening to a concert of music. The … 
  12. A Legacy of Strengths
     … As it gets more established, it turns into concentration, which is the fourth strength. This is when you gain a real sense of nourishment, a sense of ease, of well-being. Again, you don’t create the ease and well-being directly. You work on their causes. In fact, the causes are your work right now. There’s directed thought, where you keep reminding … 
  13. The Water in Your Cup
     … Don’t get tied down by the perception that when you’re meditating, the breath has to be gentle or shallow or whatever for there to be concentration. You can concentrate on all kinds of breathing. But you want to listen to what your body needs right now. Pay close attention. This way you get to see things you didn’t see before inside … 
  14. The Hall of Mirrors
     … Ajaan Fuang, when he gave meditations instruction, in almost the second or third sentence would say, “Don’t try to put yourself into a trance or to hypnotize yourself.” In other words, don’t force the mind into some preconceived notion of what good solid concentration should be. Simply allow it to stay with the breath and try to use as gentle a touch … 
  15. Into Position
     … There’s a poem by the Buddha about the various objects that a good practitioner should have respect for, and concentration is one of them. The poem goes on to talk about the triple training, and yet concentration is part of the triple training; the other parts are heightened virtue and heightened discernment. You may wonder why the Buddha has to mention concentration twice … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. Values
     … If the mind is scattered, you learn to breathe in ways, think in ways, that get it to settle down, be more concentrated. If it’s feeling low, you try to find ways of making it glad. You don’t just sit there with whatever. If the mind is low, you try to gladden it. If it’s scattered, you try to concentrate it … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. The Allure of the Hindrances
    The texts say that there are five hindrances to concentration: sensual desire, ill will, sloth & torpor, restlessness & anxiety, and doubt. Each of them has its allure. That’s why we fall for them. Each has its advocate—or advocates—in the committee of your mind. As soon as it comes, they’ll tell you that this particular hindrance is not a hindrance. It’s … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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