Search results for: "Concentration"
- Page 93
- Don’t Get Discouraged… Some people find the concentration easy but then the discernment is hard. Other people find the discernment easy but the concentration hard. Some people find both sides hard. So we have to have a way of reinforcing our conviction until we begin to see the results. Then the results themselves begin to become fuel for our further practice. But you look at the Buddha …
- A Goal Without Limits… Some people say the Buddha here is referring to the concentration of infinite consciousness and not to nibbāna, but the concentration of infinite consciousness does contain some of the sub-factors of name: It’s based on a perception, the perception infinite consciousness, and it’s maintained by acts of attention and intention. So when the Buddha says that there’s no name or …
- True for What Purpose?… The same with the concentration: You focus on the breath, you talk to yourself about how the breath can be comfortable here, it can be comfortable there. There may be parts of the body that are in pain, but you don’t have to focus on them. You focus on the parts that you can make comfortable. Get them on your side. Then, once …
- Joy & Discontent… That’s part of right concentration. And even before right concentration, it’s how you talk to yourself throughout the path. People sometimes come and ask, ”How do I do this directed thought and evaluation?” Well, you’re doing it all the time. You pick up a topic and then you comment on it. Pick up another topic and comment on it. Or you …
- Discipline… Even in mindfulness practice, going into concentration practice, you have to set some limits for where the mind is going to go. Certain things are off-limits. An image they use in the Canon is a group of monkeys who live in the Himalayas. Some of them stay in the area where only monkeys go, while some of them move into areas where human …
- Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!… Build a basis around a nice state of concentration and start getting proud of it? The concentration’s gone; the value of that practice is gone. So you have to be very careful. You have to learn how not to create a sense of self, of your identity around these things. That’s how you get to the other shore. There can be a …
- It’s Good to Talk to Yourself… The Buddha calls it directed thought and evaluation, two of the factors of jhana, strong concentration. Then even when the questions and answers settle down, there are still perceptions—the images you hold in your mind—and those carry you all the way through many of the even very refined levels of concentration. So the trick is not so much stopping your thinking, but …
- A Mind Without Inertia… He compares these things to food—and particularly the sense of wellbeing, rapture, and refreshment that come from getting the mind into a good strong concentration. That’s your food and nourishment on the path. It gives you energy. At the same time, his various teachings on the things that can be attained as we practice provide the motivation that gives you the passion …
- Great Expectations… As the Buddha once said, if you don’t have this higher level of pleasure—the pleasure that comes from concentration, getting the mind secluded from sensuality and unskillful thoughts—then no matter how much you may know about the drawbacks of sensuality, you’re going to go back to it. That’s precisely the problem of modern psychology: They don’t know this …
- The Skillful Heart… You train the heart, you train the mind, not only to be virtuous, but also to develop powers of concentration, because you realize, if you’re really going to be discerning, you have to get the mind really still, really centered, so that it can really see what’s happening inside it. Otherwise, the mind’s running around all the time. Everything it sees …
- Delight… Let’s cultivate the seeds for concentration, cultivate the seeds for peace of mind, cultivate the seeds for insight, the seeds that will help lead us to freedom. This is a possibility that’s available to all of us. It depends on the choices we’re making right now. So it’s a good thing that we’ve got this opportunity. Let’s make …
- Broad, Tall, & Deep… Ordinarily, he’d have you wait until your concentration was strong so you could stay with these perceptions, and the mind would have the precision, stability, and strength needed to stay with them for a long period of time. But they’re useful perceptions to keep in mind even before you reach that level of strength in your concentration. When the body feels weak …
- What Are You Taking into the Future?… We talk about getting the mind into right concentration, into right mindfulness as a refuge: It’s not a place where we’re hiding away. On the contrary, it’s a place where we’re actually seeing what’s going on in the mind, and see how the mind can take anything and create suffering out of it. But if it has skill, it …
- A Stranger to Your Thoughts… Look for the things that are arising and nibbling away at your concentration, or actually blocking your concentration. Because those are the important things to analyze. You can read about how everything in the world is inconstant. The trees are inconstant. The mountains are inconstant. But if you’re not attached to the trees or the mountains, then their inconstancy doesn’t really mean …
- Strength of Body, Strength of Mind… Each of the factors requires right effort, which requires an element of will, starting from right view and all the way through right concentration. So the strength of your will, the strength of your determination, is what really makes all the difference. In Ajaan Mun’s final sermon, he talked about how every meditator is a warrior who requires discernment, mindfulness, and concentration as …
- Stay Tuned… In other words, the practice of concentration has to be something you like to do. This is why it’s important when you meditate, when you’re trying to develop a state of concentration, that you choose an object you like. Or you can take the most common object, which is the breath, and you make it into something you like. In that way …
- A Sense of Well-being… So in the process of practicing concentration and getting the mind more and more subtle, more and more refined, you’re also learning interesting lessons about the role of perception, the role of intention, in how you experience things. You see how much your intentions really are an energy that creates all kinds of experiences. And that’s a lot of what Buddhist insight …
- Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself… Some of the levels of heaven, for example, are related to different stages of concentration, skills you can master. His design of the universe is not like what anybody else had designed at that time. Of course, he didn’t design it, he didn’t think it up, he just discovered that, through action, this is what you can experience. He’s often been …
- Caring Without Clinging… Equanimity based on singleness, however, comes from getting the mind into a good solid state of concentration. As we chanted just now, getting to the point where the breath gets more and more refined, the mind settles in, your sense of awareness fills the body, the sense of breath energy throughout the body feels connected and open, so there’s a less and less …
- Strength of Conviction: 2… Whatever sense of self remains is required for the practice of concentration, for the practice of discernment. Here again, there will be that element of conceit that Ananda talks about: “If the noble ones can do this practice, if the awakened ones can do it, I can do it, too.” So you recognize that conceit for the sake of concentration and discernment, but you …
- Load next page...
