Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Mindfulness: The Whole Formula
     … The purpose of mindfulness is to get the mind into concentration, to stay with one topic—say, the breath in and of itself—until you’re thoroughly immersed in it. There’s a sense of pleasure that comes from it, a sense of fullness, and you can allow that pleasure and fullness to spread through the body, so that it seems to run along … 
  3. Wild Horses
     … This is the pleasure of concentration. As you sit here focused on the breath, you can get the breath really comfortable as you explore how the breathing process feels in the body. That feeling of comfort, even though it can be very intense, is not counted as a sensual pleasure. Even though it’s related to the body, it’s not counted as a … 
  4. Right Action
     … This focuses you on the two big hindrances, to remind you that you don’t want to go there, because if you’re going to get the mind in a good solid state of concentration, then, as the texts say, you have to be secluded from sensual passion, be secluded from unskillful mental qualities. Sensual desire and ill will are the two big unskillful … 
  5. Mindful & Discerning 24/7
     … One of the reasons we do concentration practice is to give the mind some rest between the battles. But also, the process of getting the mind concentrated teaches you some important things about its workings. As the mind begins to settle in, you use directed thought and evaluation—verbal fabrication—to get the mind still. Ideally, you should get to a point where you … 
  6. Beneficial Thinking
     … Which is why, in the beginning of concentration, you don’t just order the mind not to think. You know it’s going to think. It has to have its reasons for doing things. So what you want to do is put its thinking to good use: Think about good reasons for not thinking. Make your thinking conducive to the mind’s settling down … 
  7. Meaningful Freedom
     … When the Buddha talks about the insights that come from concentration, the powers that come from concentration, he says that they come when there’s an opportunity, when there’s an opening. Tthe opening may be shaped by your past karma, but you want to be ready for it when it comes, especially for the opening for insight. That, too, is a possibility. The … 
  8. Up for the Challenge
     … Strength of conviction, strength of your persistence, strength of mindfulness, concentration, discernment: These are things you can keep working on. And you’re going to need them, too. Sometimes we like to think that as life reaches its end, things get easier. After all, we’re not as strong as we were, it’s time to rest. But actually some of our most difficult … 
  9. Conviction & Truth
     … How true are you in following the precepts? How true are you in developing concentration, discernment, and all the big and little qualities of the mind that go along with the path? You want to check yourself all-around to see if you are really following the path all-around. Are there some really big blind spots in your practice, or in yourself? You … 
  10. Character
     … They’re a necessary part of your meditation, in that you learn to develop in daily life the qualities you’re going to need as you try to bring the mind to concentration and then try to use that concentration to understand why the mind keeps creating unnecessary suffering for itself. Even though it wants well-being, well-being, well-being, what it actually … 
  11. Skills to Make a Difference
     … That’s the beginning of both concentration and discernment. As Ajaan Lee notices, the more refined your evaluation, the better the results are going to be. Try to be really sensitive to how the breath feels. He says it’s like sifting flour to make a cake or sifting sand to use to make clay tiles. If your sifter is coarse, you’re going … 
  12. Perplexity
     … You’ve got to develop all the factors of the path, from right view all the way down through right concentration. As for skillful thoughts, you encourage them. As the Buddha noticed, you can think some skillful things that are not involved in any sensual desire, not involved in ill will, not involved in harmfulness. But even then, sitting and thinking them for a … 
  13. Delight
     … You’re observing the precepts, finding pleasure in getting the mind concentrated, using your discernment to get past your defilements. You’re practicing non-affliction even as you’re headed toward the ultimate state of non-affliction. The same with non-objectification: Objectification is when you start with the idea, “I am the thinker,” and then from there you identify yourself as a being … 
  14. As Days & Nights Fly Past
     … This is why we try to develop the mind in concentration, because one of the skills you have to learn to get the mind concentrated is to say No to impulses that would have you think about other things. It’s as if we have a committee inside, and not all the committee members are on board with the meditation right now. Some of … 
  15. Conspiracies in the Mind
     … When you practice concentration to the point where the mind really does settle down in jhana, those levels of concentration are just footprints. Psychic powers are scratch marks. The only real guarantee is the experience of the deathless. And even with that, you have to be very, very honest and have a lot of integrity not to overestimate yourself. You have to work on … 
  16. Fabrication at the Breath
     … I was reading the other day someone complaining that they’d read a piece saying that it’s important to have strong concentration in your practice, and this person said, “No, my teacher taught me that strong concentration is delusional, because you don’t see your defilements. You have to spark your defilements. You have to stir up your defilements to see them.” Well … 
  17. Sort Things Out
     … The discernment gets sharper the more the mind gets still, the more it has a sense of being well-fed by its concentration. This is why discernment is based on concentration. So do your best to master this skill, as this is the basis for all the things that you going to learn—that you need to learn—to find a happiness that really … 
  18. Karma & Gratitude
     … That’s what the noble eightfold path is—everything from right view on through right concentration: It’s the karma that leads to the end of karma. So as we’re working on concentration—in other words, basically right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration all together—at least that’s what we’re trying to develop: The karma that’s going to get … 
  19. What to Tolerate, What Not
     … That kind of concentration doesn’t accomplish anything. You want to be clearly aware. One of the ways of making sure that you don’t slip off into what Ajaan Lee calls delusion concentration is to try to keep your awareness of the body as full as possible. Spread it right from the beginning of the session and then adjust the breath from that … 
  20. Samvega vs. Dispassion
     … What are you still holding onto? This is one of the reasons we practice concentration: to get the mind quiet so that you can really observe what’s going on, so that you can see, when the mind moves to something: Why is it moving there? We practice concentration together with restraint of the senses, all based on that principle that the Buddha taught … 
  21. Lessons for New Monks
     … I mean, there are people who can know about the Dhamma without being virtuous—we see this all around us—but to really gain the concentration and discernment that allow you to see how the Dhamma applies in your life, in your mind, in your behavior requires that you be virtuous. To begin with, it requires that you have a sense of restraint and … 
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