Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Everything Comes Together Right Here
     … And they like to talk about how when you do concentration practice, you then drop the concentration and you do insight.” But again, there’s no clear line drawn between the two. What is insight? Basically doing concentration with a lot of sensitivity. The Buddha calls it having your theme well in hand. The image he gives is of a person sitting looking at … 
  3. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … getting the mind into concentration and then seeing where there is still something that’s eating away at the mind, even in the concentration. Or when you leave concentration, what is it that leads the mind to get involved in things outside? One way of developing insight is, as you leave concentration, just try to notice: What is the first thing the mind’s … 
  4. Mindfulness the Seamstress
     … When you hold a certain perception of the breath in mind, what does it do to the breathing? What does it do to the mind? What kind of concentration do you develop? After all, there are lots of kinds of concentration: There’s concentration with mindfulness, concentration without mindfulness; concentration where you feel so locked in that you can’t even think, other kinds … 
  5. A Gentle Touch
     … So we develop a state of concentration for these purposes. This is how the Buddha determined what was right concentration, what was wrong concentration. Right concentration is the kind of concentration in which you can do these things. Wrong concentration either blots things out so that you can’t see anything, or it lacks the sense of ease and well-being that give you … 
  6. Discernment All Along
     … In that set, your discernment comes first, followed by virtue, and then right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This emphasizes the fact that you have to have some understanding of what you’re doing if you really want to develop virtue, if you really want to get the mind into concentration. But then, there are the five faculties: You start with conviction. You have … 
  7. Second Wind
     … Then when you have a sense that you’ve had enough rest, you can ask, “What can I do now?” Remember, what you can do now is to try to understand the mind as it’s in concentration. So do whatever is needed to maintain that concentration. And often that’ll be a sense of interest. Boredom is what kills concentration. So start thinking … 
  8. Hitting a Wall
     … Then you bring that intentness back into your concentration. So that’s the general framework for dealing with the problem of effort, especially when things are difficult. You look at your motivation and you look at the amount of effort you’re putting in. And you look at the type of effort you’re engaged in. Sometimes when you’re trying to develop concentration … 
  9. Right Resolve & Right Concentration
    The two path factors of right resolve and right concentration are very closely related. Right resolve is a concerted intention you keep in mind. You basically lay down the law for yourself that you don’t want to think in unskillful ways, because that leads you to acting in unskillful ways. And then as you’re able to start thinking in more and more … 
  10. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … The same with concentration: When you’re doing concentration, you’re actually working against the three characteristics. You’re trying to get the mind under your control, make it solid, constant, and steady, and give rise to a sense of well-being. You apply the three characteristics in this instance to anything that would pull you out of concentration—or, as you’re getting … 
  11. Isolating the Aggregates
    Isolating the Aggregates July 20, 2011 As the Buddha says, one of the rewards of concentration is that you get to understand the aggregates: what’s form, what’s feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness. You get to watch how they arise; you get to watch how they pass away. When you see them clearly, you can begin to see where you’re clinging to them … 
  12. Building Concentration
     … When you’re trying to put together a state of concentration, you have to figure out: What are the causes and what are the effects? Ajaan Lee has already given some advice. He says—when you’re trying to get the mind into concentration—directed thought, evaluation, and singleness of preoccupation are the causes. Directed thought is when you focus on a topic, as … 
  13. Stress
     … This is reflected in one of the suttas where the Buddha talks about getting the mind into deeper and deeper stages of concentration by looking for the disturbance that’s there in whatever concentration you’ve got. You work with the breath, think about the breath, adjust the breath. Once you’ve got something good, you try to maintain it. Once you’ve maintained … 
  14. Relationships
     … You develop virtue, you develop concentration, and then based on the concentration you develop discernment. You need the virtue for good powers of concentration, because it helps you lead a life in which there are no regrets. You don’t do anything harmful to yourself; you don’t do anything harmful to other people. As a result, when the time comes to settle down … 
  15. Stepping Out of Truth Games
     … Like right now, the desire for thinking about tomorrow’s meal or tomorrow’s activities comes up and can eat away at your world of concentration. Or your memory of what somebody close to you did recently overcomes the mind. Or sleepiness, any of the hindrances, will eat away at your world of concentration and replace it with a different one. Those are things … 
  16. Mud Houses
     … This is the best thing you can do with aggregates—create a state of concentration—and yet concentration has its limitations, the big one being that you have to keep maintaining it. It’s always ready to fall apart. You get skilled in the concentration so that you don’t let it fall apart, but a steady effort has to go into that. The … 
  17. Factors for Awakening
    As I mentioned the other night, in all the lists of the wings to awakening that mention mindfulness and concentration, mindfulness always comes before concentration. And I’ve mentioned many times that the Buddha’s instructions for mindfulness are basically his instructions on how you get the mind into concentration. You start out ardent, alert, and mindful, focused, say, on the breath in and … 
  18. Walking Meditation: Stillness in Motion
     … The same ability to watch movement but not move along with it, helps you analyze your own concentration. The Canon talks about developing an ability to step back a bit from your concentration after you’ve mastered it. In the first stages of concentration practice, the Buddha recommends learning how to indulge in the concentration, enjoy it, immerse yourself in it, really get absorbed … 
  19. Discernment on the Path
     … The mind gains confidence, and the rapture and pleasure are now born of concentration—the fact that everything is centered. You really are single-minded. Then you learn how to stay with that. One problem that people often have when they develop concentration is that they get the mind to settle down just a little bit and then they’re concerned, “Now we have … 
  20. The Alternative of Concentration
     … This provides a touchstone, because you notice the desires that really pull you out of concentration are the ones you have to deal with, and lust is a primary culprit. The other side of the mind, the side that inflicts punishment on itself: That’s dangerous when it damages the state of concentration as well. So concentration provides both an alternative and a touchstone … 
  21. Beyond Gratitude
     … We’re working on our concentration and discernment. We do have some concentration already: simply the ability to read a book, to follow a conversation requires concentration. The question is, how you take that concentration and string it into longer periods of concentration? This is where mindfulness comes in: the ability to keep remembering. You’ve made up your mind you’re going to … 
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