Search results for: "Concentration"

  1. Page 89
  2. The Fabrication of Pain
     … And it’s endowed with wrong view, wrong resolve, all the way down to wrong concentration. The way you’re talking to yourself about how the pain and the body have interpenetrated, and the pain and the body and the mind are all the same thing: That’s wrong view. The resolve to get rid of the pain: That’s wrong resolve. The way … 
  3. Three Levels of Evaluation
     … how you can maximize them so that the mind can stay still and balanced for a long period of time, how to keep the mind clear so that you can get the higher benefits of concentration, i.e., the discernment that can come when things are very clear in the mind, with a strong foundation of mindfulness and alertness. It’s a lot easier … 
  4. Stay
     … Once you’re here, you’ve got to protect it, maintain it, because the mind that has been nurtured with concentration gives rise to discernment that’s more and more reliable. It’s not the case that you can trust everything that comes up in your concentration, but still, it’s a lot more likely to be reliable, and you’re also in a … 
  5. Asalha Puja
     … As you work on comprehending suffering, you need to develop the path, because the path includes right mindfulness and right concentration. Without the stability that comes from right concentration, without the clarity that comes from right mindfulness, you wouldn’t be able to stay with suffering for long enough to comprehend it. So these truths, as you work on their duties, begin to come … 
  6. A Frame of Reference
     … There are actually four qualities that can lead to concentration. One is desire: You simply want to do it, and that means that you’re interested in it, you find that it captures your imagination. Another is energy: You put energy into it, persistence, you stick with it. That gives rise to concentration. Then there’s intent, when you find that you can get … 
  7. Even Common Animals Can Be Trained
     … With concentration, you restrain your mind from wandering around as it ordinarily might. You keep your mind tied to an object. The Buddha’s image is of an elephant tied to a post. It’s been a wild elephant wandering through the forest, but now they’re going to tame it. So they tie it to a post, and even though it may pull … 
  8. The Pain of Conviction
     … The skillful mental state that says, “I want to have more concentration, I want to get past this,” is a painful thought, but it’s a good one. But as the mind settles down in concentration, you’re going to have a sense that you feel relatively okay right now. You’re on the path, and it’s going somewhere good. And there is … 
  9. Worlds
     … They get a little bit of concentration and they say, “Okay, the next step is discernment.” So they abandon their concentration and destroy it before it’s really had a chance to do its work. We like to figure things out too much in advance. After all, we think we’re clever; it would take less energy, take less time if we could move … 
  10. The Prison Break
     … The Buddha’s example here is an image for people who are beginning to gain some concentration and they’re discontent. They want to move on. But first you’ve got to learn how to tame your discontent. Realize that if you’re going to do a good job, if you really want to get out of suffering, you have to follow the steps … 
  11. Judging Your Meditation
     … They’ve got this level of concentration; you don’t have that level of concentration. You have to remember: That person’s mind is that person’s mind; your mind is your mind. It’s like comparing yourself to other people in the doctor’s waiting room. There’s no contest as to who has the most interesting disease, or who has the most … 
  12. Beyond Nature
     … There’s still going to be a subtle level of suffering in the breath even when you’re concentrated on it. The breath can get very subtle and very pleasant, even rapturous, but there’s still an element of stress there. But for the time being, you’re going to use that as a path. In fact, you put all three types of fabrication … 
  13. Willing to Question Yourself
     … You don’t want the Dhamma talk to get in the way of your concentration. If you pick up something that strikes you as relevant to what you’re doing, there is a process where you have to think it through. Try to figure out what it means, how it fits in with the Dhamma that you already know. As the Buddha said, when … 
  14. Radiating Goodness
     … That’s why we work on developing a sense of well-being with the breath, along with the qualities of mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment that go with staying with the breath; the ease and well-being that come when you get a sense of being at home with the breath, understanding the way the breath energy flows in the body and using the breath … 
  15. The Buddha’s Qualities
     … There’s a little bit of concentration or a little bit of mindfulness. Don’t be careless with those things. If you tend to them, they grow, they get stronger. And this is a path of developing strength. Often we tend to forget that here in the West. A lot of the Dhamma is expressed in really nice, fuzzy ideas; soft, warm ideas. But … 
  16. A Post for the Mind
     … If the mind is well fed with concentration, well fed with breath energy, and if you learn how to protect it, then you’ve got something good to feed on. Then when you see the other animals wanting to feed here or feed there, you ask yourself, “Where are you going? What are you going to gain from this?” And as long as the … 
  17. Inner Worlds
     … We get a taste of this when the mind settles down, even just in concentration and you can give all your attention to this world inside. If you do it well, then as far as you’re concerned, the world outside doesn’t even have to exist. It doesn’t matter. You need a space in the mind where things outside don’t matter … 
  18. Right Learning
     … This technique not only helps you get into a good state of concentration but, once you’re there, it also helps you to realize that your concentration is composed of many different elements. After a while, some of the elements start seeming unnecessary and they, too, become disturbances. The Buddha talks about directed thought and evaluation in the first jhana. You direct your thoughts … 
  19. Respect, Confidence, & Patience
     … Ajaan Fuang once noted that when someone is having trouble in concentration practice, or the concentration of the practice is getting out of balance, it’s usually because one of these factors is lacking. So it’s not that you blindly follow steps one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You find which aspect of the mind is out of balance and then focus … 
  20. Mind in & of Itself
     … That’s how right resolve leads to right concentration: the concentration that allows you to do this work with more precision, in more places where you hadn’t been able to do it before, so that you can bring the path into your life, so that your life becomes the path. That’s when it gets results.
  21. In Your Power
     … mindfulness, alertness, concentration—all the factors for awakening. As you create more knowledge, you also create less and less suffering. The knowledge you want is specifically in terms of the stress, the cause of stress, and what you can do to stop that cause. Those are the truths you want to see. That’s what it means to have appropriate attention. You can learn … 
  22. Load next page...