Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Training Your Inner Teacher
     … Then you train the mind to get into concentration so that it stays comfortably with one object. Those kinds of thoughts you want to develop. This is a reordering of our priorities. A lot of times it goes against the grain. But we have to realize that it’s for our own good. But you can tell yourself only so long that it’s … 
  3. Make the Most of Right Now
     … You start thinking, “Well, I’ll make a practice of relaxing my way to awakening, or taking the ease-full path.” I was listening to a Dhamma talk from another tradition last night in which the teacher was saying he didn’t like the idea of translating samādhi as concentration because simply the idea of concentrating the mind makes you tense: There’s something … 
  4. The Desire for Freedom
     … And finally he was able to find it, starting with right concentration. This is why he said at one point that right concentration is the heart of the path. The other factors are its requisites or its supports. So what we’re doing right now: We’re not just going through the custom of having an evening sit, being quiet for a little while … 
  5. Full Attention
     … All these things, the Buddha said, count as fabrication, and the skill of meditation is learning how to fabricate a good state of concentration. You’ve got the instructions in the Buddha’s description of right mindfulness. This is how you do concentration: You focus on the body in and of itself, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. And part … 
  6. Take the One Seat
     … Getting the mind into concentration is a very good way of learning how to watch it. You need mindfulness to stitch together your moments of awareness, moments of attention, so that they become continuous. Mindfulness is the ability to remember you’ve got to stay with the breath. Alertness is what watches the breath. As you settle down with the breath, you notice there … 
  7. Cherish Your Friends
     … It’s called directed thought and evaluation, which are two of the basic factors for Right Concentration. But otherwise, try to keep the mind as quiet as possible — because you want to notice what’s going on. And, of course, what you’re going to notice is that there are a lot of other ideas floating through the mind. Sometimes they don’t just … 
  8. Stop Shooting Yourself
     … As the mind gets more still, as its concentration and discernment gets stronger, you really begin to see that the physical pain doesn’t have to invade the mind. We pull it in—to use another image—or we use the perception of the pain to shoot ourselves. Part of the problem is that we’re used to feeding on these things. So to … 
  9. A Home for the Mind
     … You can maintain that as a steady goal only if the mind is well trained, if you’re mindful, alert, concentrated, discerning. These are the qualities that we develop as we meditate. Then there’s that reflection on the requisites: the food, clothing, shelter, medicine that we use. Why do we use these things? Because we have to look after the body. It’s … 
  10. The Path Is and Isn’t the Goal
     … In other words, you’ve got the five aggregates right here in your state of right concentration. So there’s still the possibility of clinging right here as well. In fact, in the beginning, this is what you’re doing: learning how to cling to the aggregates in a new way as you turn them into the path. But then, ultimately, even that has … 
  11. The Skill of Renunciation
    The Buddha’s description of concentration is that you seclude your mind from sensuality and unskillful thoughts. For most of us, when we hear that you’re going to drop sensuality, it sounds like a deprivation. But actually it’s not. You’re going to be trading one form of happiness for another: the sense of well-being that comes when the mind can … 
  12. Factions in the Mind
     … You develop mindfulness, you develop concentration, the mind gains a sense of inner peace when the concentration gets strong. You develop alertness: You begin to see your own actions a lot more clearly, and you sense the importance of their consequences. This is important, as it’s the basis for heedfulness. And heedfulness is so important that it was the topic of the Buddha … 
  13. Living Honorably
     … This is why we’re meditating, to gain the strength of mind that comes from mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are the things that give you the strength to deal with these problems. As long as the mindfulness and concentration are not yet strong, you need other forms of strength, such as conviction and persistence. You’re convinced that this has got to be … 
  14. How Completion is Found
     … In terms of the concentration practice, there are those seven steps in Ajaan Lee’s “Method 2.” And those are a very useful way of reviewing how things are going in the meditation. Ajaan Fuang once noted that when people came to him with problems in their meditation, he’d found the solution some place in those seven steps. One of those steps was … 
  15. Control
     … If you gain a sense of peace in the concentration and you say, “I want this to last. I don’t want anything else ever to come,” that doesn’t happen. Ultimately, these things do lie outside our control. But on a less than ultimate level, we do have some control over them. For a certain period of life, if you want to raise … 
  16. Worldly Effort
     … Take the practice of concentration. They say not only does it bring peace to the mind right here and now, but if you die, if you’ve attained any of the levels of jhana, that’s where you go—the Brahma worlds corresponding to the jhānas, and you stay there. They talk in the Canon about Brahmās who think that their worlds are totally … 
  17. Bless Yourself
     … That’s the kind of mindfulness that gives you a good solid foundation and gets the mind into concentration. So wherever you go, make sure that you maintain these two qualities: virtue, right view. And the fortunate thing is that nobody can take them away from you. Someone once asked Ajaan Mun, “Can you separate a person’s virtue from his or her mind … 
  18. Furnishing Your Home for the Mind
     … Look at the description of right concentration: pleasure and rapture born of seclusion. Seclusion here partially means physical seclusion when you get away from all the concerns of your daily life, all your responsibilities. That right there gives a sense of relief. But the relief is even greater when you develop what’s called mental seclusion. Even though you may have carried a lot … 
  19. Think
     … But there’s a state of non-perception that’s actually wrong concentration. No discernment gets developed there. Remember, the path requires not only right concentration but also discernment, right view, which means you have to learn how to talk to yourself in new ways, develop new types of perceptions. First you want to see what perceptions you have around the pain. How do … 
  20. Random Word Generators
     … In fact, that’s the level of energy that can get you into deeper concentration. That’s one way of dealing with these other thoughts. You just get really interested in what’s going on in the body and changing your perceptions of what’s going on with the breath. But if you find it really hard to pull yourself out of all that … 
  21. Acceptance
     … You learn how to get the mind into concentration, how you get the mind to become more mindful, more discerning: all these skills that we work on as we meditate. So when we find that the mind is not getting concentrated, we don’t just sit there and accept it. We say, “Okay, what’s wrong?” We try to figure things out. If the … 
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