Types of Concentration?

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It might be difficult for readers to understand exactly what you're experiencing in your meditation. You learn techniques of meditation to get you started on a path, but eventually that path must be understood by you, personally. You become like a scientist experimenting with what works and what doesn't work. For that you have to know what "working" even means... as you develop your path, this is an essential aspect to understand. What am I trying to achieve here when I sit down to meditate?

The path the Buddha described made Tranquility and Insight the markers of progress. If what you are experimenting with, within your own mind and body framework, moment to moment, is (over time) leading you to more and more calmness of mind, calmness of body, then you might be able to consider whatever methods you were employing successful.

Similarly, if whatever you are experimenting with, within your own mind and body framework, moment to moment, is (over time) leading you to deeper and deeper understanding of the nature of reality (three marks of existence), causing you to see more finely these qualities, subtler and subtler in your experience, then you might be able to consider whatever methods you were employing successful.

Both these two developments, Tranquility and Insight, should lead to letting go, fading away, cessation of your experience, in a gradual way.

AN 4:170

Mindfulness of the breath is a common practice that can develop both of these to their fruition.

SN 54:13

As you practice in this way, the Four Establishments of Mindfulness should simultaneously be developed.

MN 10

Upvote:1

"Like the universe is doing the concentration from which no personal claims can be made"

That would be a distraction if you were going for highly concentrated Samatha states. If you are practicing insight vipassana type meditation then Anatta (or transcending the personal) is what is supposed to be happening as momentary concentration is used to widen perception.

The way I practice is to anchor my attention to my breath and then move my attention to distractions from the breath when they arise and when they fall go back to the breath.

Upvote:2

What you are experiencing isn't concentration. Concentration is marked by ekagata or one pointedness. If the universe, dinosaurs, and the Maltese falcon are all dancing on the head of your breath, what you are experiencing isn't the breath, it's the breath and all that other stuff together. Concentration will ultimately lead you to a place of openess, but that field of openess has no content save for increasingy subtle feelings of joy and excitement. If there anything in addition to that, you're missing your target.

Stay on the breath. Don't move a muscle. Sit for at least an hour but preferably an hour and a half. If you're consistent in your practuce, eventually your breath will wash all that other stuff away.

Upvote:3

This exact topic is the central topic of the book I can't recommend enough:

"The relaxed mind. A seven-step method for deepening meditation practice." - by Dza Kilung Rinpoche

I started pulling out quotes for you but had to stop when I realized I'd have to quote half of the book.

When we focus or concentrate, we want to be careful not to do so in a narrow, forced way. In school we were sometimes urged by our teachers to focus and concentrate when studying and taking tests. Usually that meant that we were to furrow our brow, squint our eyes, and close off all distractions from the task at hand. This is very judgmental. In a critical and somewhat aggressive way, we are accepting and rejecting our thoughts. But here we want to do the opposite - we are looking for an opened focus.

Open means open to the whole environment - physical form, energy, everything. Be confident in openness. Then, when you feel yourself starting to relax, it's time to focus. Focus doesn't mean tensed up; it means attention that is loose and calm.

When thoughts appear, you don't really need to disconnect from them or escape from that situation. Rather, you allow the mind to be wide open, and using this wide-angle lens, you experience a more clear and spacious view of reality of the mind and its nature. [...] Another aspect of openness, touched on earlier, is to be without any judgement when our meditation environment includes things such as the sound of birds, a telephone ringing, a baby crying, and so forth. We may experience phenomena coming from our six senses. Be wide open to all of them and just let them be - no judging of "good" or "bad". Their empty nature will be naturally revealed.

-- and then starting from page 82 I would have to copy most of the rest of the book, because most of it is exactly about cultivating this openness.

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