Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Take Care
     … The more sensitive you are to that potential, the more solid your concentration’s going to be. The more solid your concentration, the more you can see. The two go together. So, as you’re meditating, take care. And even when you get up from the meditation, take care again. We’ve been receiving some Dhamma magazines recently, and they show lots of evidence … 
  3. Ugly Body, Happy Mind
     … It’s interesting that non-return is also the point where you’ve perfected concentration. So when you can get the mind concentrated—focusing on the breath, getting some gladness out of the calm—see if you can also get some gladness out of the insight that comes when you contemplate the things that have tied you down for who knows how long. As … 
  4. Part V : Finding a Teacher
     … This is why we sit here practicing concentration, to get everything as still as possible, so that we can see the slightest fluctuations in the mind—when there’s stress present and when there’s not. The practice of concentration not only gets you still so that you can see movements, but also gets you more and more sensitive to more and more subtle … 
  5. Discernment Is in the Details
     … Now, the pleasure here can be the pleasure of concentration. But if there’s no pleasure in concentration, you have to be very careful about your physical pleasures. One of the things that always fascinates me about the Pali Canon is the fact that it’s got wilderness poetry. And it’s ascribed to Maha Kassapa, of all people, who was probably the sternest … 
  6. How to Talk to Yourself
     … You’re here to develop some concentration. So you drop those thoughts and you’re back at the breath. No matter how many times you wander off, you just keep coming back to the breath. When you do come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially gratifying. When we talk of “breath” here, it’s not so much the air coming in … 
  7. Opting Out
     … virtue, concentration, discernment, release. It’s the release that makes these dhammas noble. But they’re also noble in the sense that you’re not harming anyone. You’re not harming yourself, you’re not harming the people around you in your search for happiness. You’re taking responsibility for your happiness, but you’re not defining your happiness in terms of fitting in … 
  8. Mature Strategies
     … Even when you try to make them constant in concentration, you find that even the most refined states of concentration have their ups and downs. In this way the Buddha has you cornered. You let go of the grosser forms of happiness, the grosser strategies for happiness, and get used to more and more refined ones. And they finally take you to the point … 
  9. Facing Danger & Hardship
     … Second, try to make your concentration well-established. Third, develop tranquility, and fourth, put forth effort. It’s interesting that tranquility and effort go together there, but sometimes it requires a lot of effort to remain tranquil in the midst of dangerous situations. So mindfulness, concentration, tranquility, effort—this is how you create a skillful state of equanimity. This is the equanimity of a … 
  10. A Full Life
     … Let go of anything you notice that’s unskillful, and delight in developing concentration, delight in developing mindfulness instead. Develop the right attitude toward the right effort on the path. Take joy in doing these things. When you see that you’ve been able to get past where you might ordinarily not be able to stay with the breath, but that you were able … 
  11. Resources for Endurance
     … We sit to get the mind quiet, bring the mind to concentration, gain insight. If everything depended just on the quality of the intention, that’d be all you’d have to do, just hold on to that good intention. But the question is, does it work? A lot of times, other things need to be brought in as well. You check the results … 
  12. Exploring the Basics
     … So one of the skills of concentration is knowing how to stay focused without tensing up around the spot you’re focused on. In my early years with Ajaan Fuang, he would say, “Try to catch hold of the breath.” So I would subconsciously tense up around it to catch it. One day I happened to be sitting on a bus in Bangkok and … 
  13. A Clear Sense of Priorities
     … This is why when the Buddha set out the factors of the path, it wasn’t just right concentration or right view. It was a whole series of factors including right speech, right action, and right livelihood. And then he set the path in a larger context as well, your social context: the people you associate with, the way you associate with them—all … 
  14. Breathaholic
    When you’re practicing concentration, you try to make it right concentration—in other words, you try to get it to fall in line with the Buddha’s description of jhana. We usually translate the word jhana as absorption, and if you’re going to be absorbed in the breath, it really has to be interesting, pleasurable. This is why it’s important that … 
  15. The Dhamma Is in the Method
     … When he finally got the mind in right concentration, he wanted to know the skillful use of his concentration. So he used it to gain the three knowledges, and in each case, he asked himself, once he had gained that knowledge, “What’s the skillful use of this knowledge?” In terms of the first two knowledges, there were people who had attained those before … 
  16. Sunrise, Sunset
     … What kind of thinking does the mind like to settle down in? When you’re trying to meditate and part of the mind wants to get into concentration, while another part says, “Not for the time being. Let me wander around a little bit first,” what are those thoughts? Do you like wandering around in thoughts of lust? You can excuse yourself in all … 
  17. Between Either & Or
     … You pursue certain pleasures—the pleasures of jhana, the pleasures that come from mastering virtue and concentration, generosity—so that you can use them. Use the pleasure of concentration to put the mind in the proper mood and the proper frame of mind, making it stable enough so it can really see things in a balanced way. And often this requires a lot of … 
  18. To Discern Suffering
     … I need it to hold the banana and not let it mush in my fingers.” It’s the same with the concentration. You hold on to it as it’s developing, out of the desire to create a path. You don’t want the concentration to turn into mush in your mind. Desire is not a bad thing. All too many people think that … 
  19. Endurance
     … The same with concentration practice: If you try to focus on one thing but can’t endure anything else that’s happening or coming into your range of awareness, you’ll never settle down. So no matter how uncomfortable or irritating things may be, you have to learn how to put them aside and choose what to focus on. Then make up your mind … 
  20. The Five Strengths
     … There’s concentration, the ability to stay with the breath consistently, with this sense of ease and fullness of the body. And there’s discernment as you begin to see cause and effect, exactly what you do that creates unnecessary stress, and what you can do to stop that. You see the real causes are right there in the mind. Your craving and clinging … 
  21. One Hand Clapping
     … The problem is that many of us think that when we’re getting the mind into concentration, there shouldn’t be any other thoughts, anything else aside from that one object. In the very high levels of concentration, that does happen, but as you’re getting started out, you’re bound to have other thoughts coming up in the mind. It’s simply a … 
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