I have practiced meditation over a number of years but I still have terrible concentration. I kept a daily samatha practice of 20-30 minutes for a two or three years, then didn't practice for a few years but have been very consistent since the end of summer last year. Since a little over a year I have been putting in at least an hour most days. I attended a Goenka 10 day in August this year and have been putting in about 2 hours a day since then and 3-5 hours on days that I have off work.

The year prior to the retreat I was practicing noting. During the Goenka course I realized I need to increase my concentration skills, so I have almost exclusively focussed on samatha. Yet even with consistent 2+ hours a day my concentration is terrible. I can rarely keep my attention on my breath for more than a few breaths. I tried using the tip of my nose as my concentration object which seemed better for a couple weeks (despite causing much tension) before going back to being lost in thought for extended periods of time.

My goal after the retreat was to be able to consistently access first or second jhana and then return to practicing vipassana with these skills (to hopefully gain stream entry). I read in Ian And's concentration thread that focusing on the rapture would aid in concentration, however it almost seems that focusing on the rapture aspect makes my already poor concentration even worse. I very consistently experience rapture but if I try to move the rapture to the center of my focus then my mind has wandered within a minute.

I can keep more focused practicing the body sweeps I practiced at the Goenka course than with my breath. Even though I have been primarily practicing samatha in my sits I am able to sense the subtle vibrations nearly any time that I turn my attention to my body throughout the day. However, I tend not to remember to turn my attention inward while working because of high stress.

Sorry about the long ramble but any advice would be much appreciated. I feel that with all the time that I've putting into samatha has not increased my concentration. I will be very thankful for any pointers to refine samatha or possibly to abandon samatha due to terrible concentration skills. Thanks in advance!

Nick

Hello Nick,

Developing concentration can take time and diligent practice. But it also takes a mind at ease. By this I mean setting up the correct condition for the development of deeper concentration skills. Developing concentration isn't a "one size fits all" affair. So, you may have to experiment a while to learn what works for you.

At one point in your post you mentioned that: "However, I tend not to remember to turn my attention inward while working because of high stress." By "high stress" do you mean "restlessness and worry" about worldly matters going on in your life? If so, it is this restlessness and worry which has become the hindrance to your ambition to develop concentration.

Yet, one of the first things you need to do is to provide the mind with the right condition for concentration to take place. That means putting aside the world and worldly matters during your time of practice. This can be difficult to do sometimes because often the only time you have to think about things that are on your mind is during periods of time that you've set aside for meditation, and these worldly concerns invade the mind and distract you from your practice. There are different ways to handle this, and you may have to experiment to find a way that works for you.

One thing I used to do was not to fight the invading worldly concerns, but to use them as an object of my meditation. If there was a problem in my life that I needed to figure out, I would use my time during meditation to contemplate that problem to see if I could come to a resolution. Sometimes I was able to find a resolution, and other times I didn't. But that didn't hamper my development of concentration because I had made the worldly concern my object of meditation. And my mind never wandered while I was contemplating that worldly concern.

Once you've been able to resolve the worldly concern, at least for the moment, you can then turn toward developing a calm mind while taking up a different meditation object to focus upon. Once you're able to set the mind at ease (that is, set up the right condition for concentration to arise and develop) then you can focus on developing deeper states like absorption (dhyana). But never overlook providing the mind with the right condition in which to develop an attribute, or you will just spin your wheels without going anywhere.


You say 2 hours a day, but is that divided up into two sits of one hour a piece? When you're first beginning to increase concentration, the best progress comes when you're able to sit for longer periods. That is, periods longer than just half an hour, meaning 45 minutes to an hour (or more). Sometimes it can take 45 minutes just to calm the mind down, to go through all the things that are causing restlessness so that the mind can become at ease. Make sure you give yourself enough time to create the condition of ease for the mind.


Piti or rapture / elation is not something you want to spend extended time focusing on when attempting to use it to enter into dhyana. Note the rapture, and let it subside naturally, but don't become overly fixated on it. You can note the rapture by gently continuing to follow the breath, making the breath your meditation object and just observing the rapture on the periphery if you observe it at all. The reason for this is because piti is a somewhat excited state for the mind (meaning that there is mental movement), and what you ideally want is for the mind to calm down from the excess movement created by piti. In other words, ideally at this point, you will want to docus on calming the breath. This is why it is pointed out that piti subsides as the mind enters the third dhyana which in addition to the joy or pleasure of sukkha is composed of clear awareness, equanimity, and mindfulness. The third dhyana is more peaceful, and there is less movement going on in the mind. And as joy or sukkha subsides from the third dhyana, one enters the fourth dhyana which is composed of equanimity and mindfulness and is very, VERY peaceful, and clear when practicing tranquility meditation (samatha). This is where the clarity of mind arises when developing insight practice. It is that clarity of mind which provides the condition for insight to take place.

The following is a bit advance for where you are now, but it's always good to know ahead of time. Once you are able to access the fourth dhyana you will notice a marked difference in your ability to concentrate. That concentration ability will continue to develop and become stronger the more often you are able to practice entering the fourth dhyana. The fourth dhyana might be described as appana samadhi or fixed concentration.

When you have mastered being able to practice and enter dhyana at will, you may notice that the mind may naturally gravitate toward this kind of appana samadhi all on its own very quickly, because it has become accustomed with how to achieve it. That's when you will know that you have mastered it.


Good! Then use your practice in body sweeps to help you increase concentration once you are able to put the mind at ease. Use whatever works for you. And don't give up. You can do it if you keep at it, through thick and thin.

Good luck to you.

In peace,
Ian

Hello Ian,

Thanks you so much for your detailed response! It is very helpful to get some feedback.



There is 'restlessness and worry' for sure, but also a lot of 'doubt' in second guessing myself. I had been thinking that doubt was a bigger hinderance at this stage but it very well could be that restlessness and worry are what is causing slow progress which in turn leads to me doubting myself.



There is 'restlessness and worry' for sure, but also a lot of 'doubt' in second guessing myself. I had been thinking that doubt was a bigger hinderance at this stage but it very well could be that restlessness and worry are what is causing slow progress which in turn leads to me doubting myself.



Usually it's split into 2 one-hour sits. Sometimes it is one two hour sit. On days that I have off I generally sit for two hours in the morning and another 1-3 hour sit in the afternoon. I notice when I have two consecutive days off (and thus am able to get at least one 2 hour sit each day) that I reach a deeper state of calm-- I'm not sure how much of this is sitting and how much is distance from work.



This makes a lot of sense and is quite helpful.



There is a part of me that wants to go back to scanning and sweeping but I feel that it would be beneficial to develop some straight up concentration practices before going back to this practice. Probably the most concentration I can hold is when I have done a couple of scans and then some sweeps and then it actually becomes more difficult to do either scanning and sweeping because the vibrations throughout my body are too strong. I can sit in a state focusing on these vibrations in a mostly concentrated manor most of the time. There is a part of me that feels this is missing something though. After reading on DhO about many people able to sit with no distracting thoughts for an hour, I thought this would try to build up such skills as it will definitely give a boost to my practice.

Again, thanks so much for your comments- this is very helpful!

With metta,
Nick

Hi Nick,

Could you describe how this doubt acts as a hindrance for you. How does it keep you from realizing your practice (meditation and the development of concentration)?

You say "second guessing myself" in relation to doubt. If this is accurate, then is it also accurate to say that there is no doubt about the Dhamma? Or do you have doubt about your ability to follow the Path (and hence the Dhamma)? Or is there some other area of life that you have doubt about? You need to clarify this for me so I can understand what you mean by it.

I guess what I'm attempting to get at is: Have you 1) had opportunity to confirm from a personal standpoint that the Dhamma is something that you want to pursue, and 2) have you been able to educate yourself about the Path espoused by the Dhamma? With regard to this second question, have you read and digested a description of the Path such as Bhikkhu Bodhi's The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering? This might go a long way to inspire you to make the effort to follow the Path.


This is good that you are able to get in sits of at least an hour at any one time.

Your observation about having two consecutive days off and your ability to reach deeper states of calm is indicative of the need to get beyond worldly concerns and worries in order to set the mind at ease. If you can translate that same thing into your other sits on days when you are only able to sit for an hour or so per sitting (setting the mind at ease), that would help you to develop concentration skills more quickly. Yet, of course, it is sometimes easier said than done. Being able to separate yourself from your daily concerns during the time you have set aside for meditation is a skill that you will need to develop to make progress in developing concentration.


If you wish to develop an ability to dispel distracting thought, then using and paying attention to the breath (or whatever object you normally use in meditation), will be an adequate way to begin training the mind to settle down. In the instance of using the breath (or any other object), when distracting thought arises and you NOTICE it, just bring the mind back to the breath. Keep bringing the mind back, time and time again, when you notice that the mind has drifted off the meditation object. The more times that you do this, the sooner the mind will begin to obey your intention without you having to keep reigning it in. This just takes practice, doing it over and over, before the mind will begin to respond one day without you having to reign it in.

One way to use the breath to accomplish this which will induce a calm abiding aiming at absorption is to find a pleasant sensation in mindfulness of breathing on which to focus your attention. It could be as simple as following the breath at the tip of the nostrils where the air is being inhaled and exhaled, following the breath at that one spot only, kind of like watching a saw blade saw through a block of wood. Maintain focus on the point where the blade is sawing through the wood (or, the point where the breath is just touching the nostrils) and sooner or later you should find the mind becoming absorbed in that activity.

It doesn't matter too much which pleasant sensation you focus upon, only that you find one that appeals to you and that you follow it. In following it, you may notice that the mind becomes engaged in the soothing sensation that develops as a result of following the pleasantness of breathing. Usually when this happens the mind can easily become absorbed in the object of meditation (in this case, the breath). Once this occurs, you will be propelled into dhyana (jhana) meditation, which will help to strengthen concentration abilities when practiced consistently. Eventually, after much practice getting into this state, you should notice that you can direct the mind toward any object and it will stay there for as long as you intend it to.

It is at this point that you will want to transfer your practice into an insight practice to go along with your calming (samatha) practice, because now you are able to focus on an object in order to examine it in an effort to gain insight about it. This is a progressive practice, wherein you learn how to first set the mind up with the correct condition for accomplishing the ability that you want to develop, then, having developed that ability, you progress on to the next logical step in the procedure. In this way, you can make palpable progress in successive steps. Make sense?

In peace,
Ian

Hello Ian,



By doubt I do not mean that I am questioning Dhamma. I only mean that I question whether my mind is strong enough to be able to maintain the practice until I am able to see any real development. I am most likely to skip a sit when this thought goes through my head. I know that from a personal standpoint that Dhamma is beneficial but there is a large gap between my expectations of Dhamma and what I have thus far experienced.



I feel confident in my education of Dhamma. I have been reading Dhamma books for years and took several Buddhist Philosophy classes as an undergrad--I was lucky to have a practicing Buddhist in the philosophy department. I think if anything I have spent too much time studying and not enough time practicing. It wasn't until a year and a half ago when I read MCTB and discovered this site (and your concentration thread) that I realized that these things are attainable for those that dedicate themselves to the practice. Before reading this material I was still stuck in a theoretical understanding of Dhamma and my sits were about as beneficial as a mere theoretical understanding.

I have not read the Bhikkhu Bodhi book you mentioned but I will have an electronic copy and plan to read it. Right now I am reading his The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha so it will be a little while till I'm done--though I could take a detour.



I have been working on this with either breath or the tip of my nose as the object. I suppose my whole reason for posting here is feeling like I'm moving through water trying this. I feel that I should be more proficient at this by now (which leads back to the issue of me doubting myself). I think you are right about pointing out restlessness and worry as a larger factor. Because of restlessness and worry I feel doubt. It seems they usually come together but restlessness and worry is the first to show its face.



Yes this all makes sense. I can get impatient with myself. After the Goenka course I thought, 'oh I'll take a couple months to develop my concentration skills and get back to insight.' Now it's four months later and I still feel that I have made minimal progress. After reading of others able to develop these skills in a few weeks or months I have started wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with my mind that it is taking me so long. I'll try to be more patient about this.

Thanks for your help!

With metta,
Nick

Hi Nick,

I know what you mean when you say that you become discouraged about sitting and want to skip a sit because you're not sure of yourself. What I'm here to say is: "If YOU are not willing to take hold of this and begin to turn it around, then NO ONE is." And you don't sound to me like someone who is willing to give up just yet. That's why you're here, seeking advice and counsel.

What you have to realize is: There are going to be "good" days and "bad" days in proceeding with any kind of practice or endeavor. What you need to do is to develop equanimity about how each day is proceeding, and become firm in your conviction that eventually you will prevail in accomplishing your goal if you just keep at it. The journey of a thousand miles begins by taking one step, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Once you begin to experience some successes with your practice, that alone will begin to propel you forward to further achievement. If you can realize that, then you're on the right path to succeed.

Another way of looking at this is: You are in a battle with your mind! Either it is going to win this battle, or YOU are! If your resolve is so low that you wish to capitulate to the will that your monkey mind is putting before you, then perhaps you are too easily dissuaded. However, I do not think that this is the case with you. You've come too far, put too much study into this, that to leave it now would be anathema to you. You've got too much invested in this to give up now. Just learn to accept what is the apparent rejection of your mind to bend to your wishes at the moment and redouble your resolve to defeat it at the next battle! If you're in relatively good psychological health, this is the way to defeat the resistance your mind is putting up. By the way, everyone goes through this battle with their mind, so you aren't alone!


This background information is good to know, and further, is a good sign that you are serious about this endeavor. You have an inquiring mind that won't be satisfied until it learns what it wants to learn. I was the same way myself. And once I began to get some insight into how the Dhamma worked, I became unstoppable in my practice. I wouldn't miss a sitting if it killed me, and I think that you will develop in a similar way. You just need some direction and a few successes under your belt to become gung-ho about this.

If you are reading the Middle Length Discourses, you are reading a very good Nikaya for meditation practice. There are lots of good suggestions there to take into a practice. I would suggest taking it slowly and taking notes as you go along as this will help to add incentive to your meditation practice. I read these suttas one at a time, sometimes over a day or two depending on their length. Took me several months to finish the book. I took it slow and easy; I didn't want to go past something I didn't understand. You can intersperse a reading of Bodhi's book in between this and it should only help you begin to get the BIG picture about the Dhamma. His book is very inspirational, if you know what to look for. Also, it can be a quick read, even though it is packed with weighty ideas.

It sounds as though you are on very firm footing here. Reading the suttas and practicing meditation is a winning combination! You will learn from both.


Working with the breath is the optimum choice in my opinion. The reason is: the breath is always with us; we can turn to it at anytime during the day in order to bring about a calm demeanor when we need one. It is easy to watch, and can give rise to pleasant sensations that we can use to strengthen the depth of our concentration.

One quick suggestion about working with alleviating any hindrance when attempting to meditate. Before you begin the formal sit, spend some time (maybe five minutes or so) just gathering your mindfulness as best you can before launching into the sit. By this I mean, establish mindfulness in front of you first, and don't take off until you have done so. This was something I had to learn the hard way, but it always works to improve any sitting that you perform.

Some suggestions for establishing mindfulness are: Sit with eyes open and just begin following the breath. Make sure you establish a coarse sense of the breath being breathed in and out. You don't have to manipulate it, just follow it naturally as it wants to go. Another thing you can do is to read a passage from the Dhammapada or some other Dhamma book and just contemplate it for a few minutes, establishing your mind around the ideas being presented. These types of exercises, performed before formal meditation, will help to establish mindfulness as you enter the meditation proper. You should begin noticing a marked difference in the sits you do when you establish mindfulness before hand, and the ones you do when you forego this exercise.


Do not become discouraged by your experience with attempting to develop concentration skills after having taken the Goenka course. Everyone goes through such experiences. What is more important at this moment is what you are deciding to do about it. It's likely that you are just not aware of how to proceed in order to accomplish this goal. And that is why you came here: to find out what it is that you need to do in order to begin making palpable progress.

Although I do not know you personally and have not had occasion to sit and converse with you to find out more about your individual circumstances and what might be causing this apparent rut you are in, thoughts like the ones expressed above are indeed the result of self doubt. Now that I understand what you mean by this, we can devise a plan to help combat that inquiring aspect of mind. Let's begin, though, by developing good habits with regard to meditation, and taking it one step at a time. Learn how to set up a successful meditation session by establishing mindfulness before hand. I think you will surprise yourself once you catch onto this.

In peace,
Ian

I really can't thank you enough for taking the time to write this. I feel that I have a much clearer idea of what I need to be doing at this point.

Peace,
Nick

Any questions or problems you may confront while beginning to establish your renewed practice, post here and I'll do my best to attend to them.

Take it easy and don't beat yourself up so much. Be at ease, and things will work themselves out.

One way to establish mindfulness is: think about how you might approach walking on a tightrope over a deep gorge. If you're a bit skittish of heights like I am, you'll realize that you need to develop strong focus and attention to each step you take. Bring that strong focus and attention (as though your life depended on it) into your practice and watch the difference this makes in your meditation sessions. While this may sound a bit extreme, it should give you an idea about the level of mindfulness you should be aiming for. It really will make a difference.

Be well,
Ian

Thanks again Ian--I really appreciate it. I like the tightrope analogy and will test it out.

With metta,
Nick