Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. The Reality of Emotions
     … This is part of the duty of the path, learning how to develop the factors of right concentration: the ease and wellbeing, even the sense of rapture, that can come from the way you breathe, from the way you focus on the different elements in the body. Even uncomfortable feelings can have their uses. The Buddha gives an analysis of the different emotions that … 
  3. Gaining the Dhamma Eye
     … The same with the practice of concentration, the practice of discernment: We try to bring our minds in line with the instructions to see what happens. In other words, you really put the Buddha’s teachings to the test. That’s one meaning of practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. The other meaning is that you practice for the sake of disenchantment … 
  4. Breath Energies
     … So learn how to re-imagine the body so that it can become a vehicle for right concentration, and from right concentration on to right discernment. The potentials are all here. You simply have to expand your imagination to make the best use of them.
  5. Kamma & Rebirth—A Handful of Leaves
     … Because that would undercut your concentration, and the foundation for the pleasure would fall away. Either that or you’d just drift off into a pleasant spot where you’re not quite sure if you’re awake or asleep. So as you develop your powers of concentration, this is one of the skills you’ve got to learn: how to be with pleasure but … 
  6. The Armored Car
     … You want to have that centered quality to your concentration, so that you can carry it out into the world. If you’re sitting around talking all the time, you have to ask yourself, “Where is my concentration right now?” You’ve lost your axle, so try to reestablish it. We establish it as we sit here with our eyes closed, but then we … 
  7. Bare Attention
     … Get the mind in good strong concentration. That’s how he got on the path: by beginning to see the difference between cause and effect, skillful and unskillful, by focusing on the actions of his own mind. This means that to develop appropriate attention in our own practice we’ve got to look in our own minds for what’s skillful and what’s … 
  8. The Uses of the Breath
     … You don’t want your concentration to be contracted or tightened. Try thinking of your awareness as a light that spreads as a radiance in all directions. The breath can spread in all directions, too. It can come in from all directions, go out through all directions. This is a stillness that’s not constricted and it’s not confined. It’s a stillness … 
  9. Of Past & Future
     … As for the factors of the path — concentration, mindfulness, alertness — develop those. If you see any moments where craving disbands, try to be very clear about how that happens — whether it’s simply one craving taking over another one or if there’s actually a moment when craving stops and nothing takes its place. Look into that. Make it clear. As for the right … 
  10. Battling Darkness
     … This is why we practice concentration; this is why we develop mindfulness of the present moment. This is going to be your stronghold because this is where you can see these things in action. So you want to create a place here in the present that’s comfortable, where you feel at ease, where you feel secure, where you feel solid. Start out by … 
  11. Transparent Becoming
     … And that’s what we’re doing now as we meditate, as we develop a state of concentration in the mind. You’ve got that one focus on the breath. In the beginning, you need to have craving to do the practice properly. And for the craving to get activated here, you have to make the breath interesting. This is one of the reasons … 
  12. Befriending the Breath
     … You make this your home.” This is one of the traditional terms for getting the mind in concentration: vihāra-dhamma, a quality that forms a home for the mind, a place where you feel that you can stay comfortably. It’s like having a true friend who will never let you down. In Thai they talk about your eating friends, the ones that you … 
  13. At Play
     … If we get grim about it, we’re missing an important part of concentration practice, which is that it has to be based on a sense of gladness—a sense of ease, finding enjoyment in being right here. Remember the stages in focusing on the mind: First you’re sensitive to the state of your mind and then you gladden it. You can gladden … 
  14. Borrowing the Buddha’s Wisdom
     … He also gives instructions on how to do it—the noble eightfold path, which boils down to virtue, concentration, discernment. This is the raft. He gives instructions in virtue in terms of right speech, right action, right livelihood; concentration in terms of right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration; discernment in terms of right view, and right resolve. He spells it all out. Now, there … 
  15. Pain & Patience
     … This is why we develop right concentration, so that there’s at least some sense of well-being in the mind as you look for the pain. In other words, once you accept the pain and accept that it’s something that you really do want to see through, okay, then muster the willingness to develop all the qualities of mind—the concentration and … 
  16. An Exercise in Freedom
     … The mind is capable of developing mindfulness, alertness, conviction, persistence, concentration, discernment, goodwill—all kinds of good qualities. The more you exercise these qualities, the greater your range of freedom, the greater your range of choice. But the Buddha starts with basics. He starts with a basic problem that’s totally self-evident, that there is suffering and we don’t like it. There … 
  17. Clinging & Feeding
     … We convert our form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness into a state of concentration. We use the fabrication of thoughts to develop wisdom, the perceptions that the Buddha recommends to develop wisdom—the purpose of that wisdom being to develop dispassion and disenchantment. Then we feed the mind with conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, all of which are good food for the mind … 
  18. Adult Dhamma
     … Because after all, what is the path that the Buddha points out? There’s virtue, there’s concentration, and there’s discernment. These are all qualities in your own mind. We all have them to some extent. Learning how to develop what’s in your own mind is what’s going to make all the difference. The Buddha’s discernment isn’t going to … 
  19. The Language of the Heart (1)
     … As they say in the texts, the establishings of mindfulness (satipatthana) are the themes of right concentration. In other words, when mindfulness is really established and solid, you’re going to get the mind into jhana. Mindfulness gives you a frame of reference to look at what’s happening in the mind, to recognize certain states of mind as either skillful or unskillful. And … 
  20. The Taste vs. the Reality
     … Even the stories, the narratives we like to make about our own practice, about the progress we expect, about how we’ll attain concentration, and from concentration we’ll quickly move on to insight, and there it will be — liberation: We like those stories because of the taste. We like to read the stories of the ajaans, because the stories are contrived in ways … 
  21. Getting the Most Out of the Present
     … Being mindful, getting the mind concentrated on the breath: That’s all path. And the whole point of the path, as the Buddha said, is that it’s going to bear fruit. So, how do you get the most out of the present moment so that it bears the best fruit? When the Buddha talks about being in the present, many times it’s … 
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