How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Dee Miller, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 6:43 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 6:43 AM

How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 17 Join Date: 2/3/13 Recent Posts
Hi,

Last night I twice entered a state where my concentration was intense and completely effortless. This morning, I'm back to having a lot of pressure in my body, and I wasn't able to get back to that level of concentration. The description at http://www.aimwell.org/Books/Mahasi/Progress/progress.html#Equanimity seemed bang on. How do I get back there?

I've been meditating for about three months. I do it at least twice a day for half an hour, though I go much longer when I feel like it and have the time. I've used various forms of mindfulness of the breath while sitting, and lately I've been trying a lot of noting as I go about my day.
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Richard Zen, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 8:14 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 8:14 AM

RE: How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 1665 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
Concentration improves with less attachment and that includes attachment to concentration states or any meditation practices. The practices have to be done and not be part of rumination. The best student is one who notices the thought interruption and continues concentrating regardless. Concentration is a conditioned practice and you will have good days and bad days.

Are you trying to develop concentration or mindfulness? The equanimity you referenced is related to mindfulness. It sounds to me like you're noting to equanimity but then solidifying it in just the jhana. If you like equanimity but you want to progress further you need to be noting pleasant sensations and letting them arise and pass away on their own and not attaching to any phenomenon.
Dee Miller, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 8:32 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 8:24 AM

RE: How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 17 Join Date: 2/3/13 Recent Posts
Yeah, I've already noticed that it's become a bit of a distraction.

I'm also having a lot of grandiose thoughts which I'm dealing with by responding with 'nothing special'. The word 'nothing' is similar enough to 'noting' that it acts as a cue to go back.

I guess I'm not really sure what the distinction between mindfulness and concentration is!
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Ian And, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 10:39 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 10:35 AM

RE: How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 785 Join Date: 8/22/09 Recent Posts
Hi Dee,
Dee Miller:

I guess I'm not really sure what the distinction between mindfulness and concentration is!

Richard seems to have a good handle on assisting you with concentration. So, I'll focus this reply on the question posed above.

For a more in-depth answer regarding how mindfulness (sati) is defined, please see the following thread The Practical Aspects of Establishing Mindfulness. Especially, the first two posts.

Here is a brief quotation from that thread that may help to answer your question:

As Ven. Analayo has written in his book Satipatthana, The Direct Path to Realization, "What this definition of sati points to is that, if sati is present, memory will be able to function well. Understanding sati in this way facilitates relating it to the context of satipatthana, where it is not concerned with recalling past events, but functions as awareness of the present moment. In the context of satipatthana meditation, it is due to the presence of sati that one is able to remember what is otherwise only too easily forgotten: the present moment.

"Sati as present moment awareness is similarly reflected in the presentation of the Patisambhidamagga and the Visuddhimagga, according to which the characteristic quality of sati is 'presence' (upatthana), whether as a faculty (indriya), as an awakening factor (bojjhanga), as a factor of the noble eightfold path, or at the moment of realization."

Therefore if mindfulness is present (upatthitasati) it can be understood to imply presence of mind, in as far as the direct opposite of this is absent mindedness (mutthasati). Having a presence of mind implies that, endowed with sati, one is wide awake in regard to the present moment. Such presence of mind with regard to whatever one does or says will be clearly comprehended by the mind, and thereby more easily remembered later on.

Mindfulness has to do, in the present instance with regard to the problem posed in your primary post, with keeping the mind "established" in the present moment and not letting it wander off. Maintaining present moment awareness. Concentration has, in the present context, to do with maintaining focus on an object of meditation, such as the breath, without a break (or an unnoticed break) in attention on the object. Concentration is more aimed at a single object and remaining focused on that object, whereas mindfulness can take into consideration more than one object at a time into conscious awareness. Mindfulness, in general, has a wider scope of focused awareness, while concentration's scope is narrowed and limited to a single object of interest – kind of like focusing a beam of light through a magnifying glass onto a single object.

Establishing mindfulness first, before beginning meditation, is helpful in allowing a person to enter into meditative concentration (either in samatha – or mental calming, tranquility – meditation states or insight meditation states). Mindfulness helps to ground the mind, to give it a foundation for the development of deeper states of tranquil meditation, which helps to facilitate the arising of insight during these meditative states.

I hope this helps to better illuminate this word sati for you.

In peace,
Ian
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Richard Zen, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 9:59 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 9:59 PM

RE: How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 1665 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
Dee Miller:
I guess I'm not really sure what the distinction between mindfulness and concentration is!


Just to add to what Ian And says I would read the chapter (or all of it) "Insight vs. Mindfulness" in Daniel's MCTB:

There is a lot of confusion on the differences between concentration practices and insight practices. This may be caused in part by the “Mushroom Factor,” or may be due in part to other factors, such as concentration practice being easier than insight practices and distinctly more pleasant most of the time. Concentration practices (samatha or samadhi practices) are meditation on a concept, an aggregate of many transient sensations, whereas insight practice is meditation on the many transient sensations just as they are. When doing concentration practices, one purposefully tries to fix or freeze the mind in a specific state, called an “absorption,” “jhana” or “dyana.” While reality cannot be frozen in this way, the illusion of solidity and stability certainly can be cultivated, and this is concentration practice. Insight practices are designed to penetrate the Three Illusions of permanence, satisfactoriness and separate self so as to attain freedom. (N.B., the illusion of satisfactoriness has to do with the false sense that continuing to mentally create the illusion of a separate, permanent self will be satisfactory or helpful, and is not referring to some oppressive and fun-denying angst trip). Insight practices (various types of vipassana, dzogchen, zazen, etc.) lead to the progressive stages of the progress of insight. Insight practices tend to be difficult and somewhat disconcerting, as they are designed to deconstruct our deluded and much cherished views of the world and ourselves, though they can sometimes be outrageously blissful for frustratingly short periods.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 11 Years ago at 2/5/13 11:38 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/5/13 8:52 AM

RE: How to regain state of effortless concentration?

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
I guess I'm not really sure what the distinction between mindfulness and concentration is!


Mindfulnes (attention to) becomes concentration. As you've noted, part of the head pressure comes from wanting (to do concentration)/ missing (the pleasantness of concentration), wanting/wanting to not want. The mind is going off its object (breath) and getting into a "hungry" emotion. One really must go to the object with utmost care, while staying relaxed and light hearted.

If the mind minds its object willingly, receptively, it will enter concentration.

So initially, when one sustains the mind on the breath for a while -- say 20-30 minutes (but this can happen right away for others, too) the mind will then seem to brighten. (Before this can be a little light show and be part of coming-going discomfort or figetyness.)

When the mind gets well versed in this brightness, it will start to experience an almost athletic energetic joy.

Now we're talking about an initial jhana: piti. Joy.

These are practices that can seem a little far-fetched, but like any training there are reasons for this initial jhana training.

So one starts with just minding the object (say, breath) with real care, just the way one would pay attention in a friendly, close, relaxed way to something one finds beautiful/entirely lovable in a non-grasping way.

Honestly, no one has the ability to know you like you can know yourself. Some people have "previous supporting conditions" so they are actually well beyond the first jhana...and are naturally more likely to drop into a fourth jhana mind: tremendous, engaged/receptive equanimity, and this capacity exhibits in daily life as well. This relates to the Analyo quote in Ian's post: sati (smriti, Sanskrit: memory): is what causes the mind to start to choose beneficial actions increasingly over troublesome actions.

So part of me really appreciates the zen trainings (to which community you've mentioned some attraction) that don't place people in jhanic/insight frames, but start a practitioner which just "mind your mind". Just sitting (zen, shikantaza) however can be such a shapeless training field that people often feel lost or unable to use it to bring practical relief in life. So here in this thread we are all getting into a therevadan frame work, but there are many ways to approach what is already going usefully for you in this early practice: ability to sit and know that mind is still, unprovoked, coming off of emotional turmoil.

To me what you've already mentioned is very useful base and I question directing such a mind towards a Therevadan concentration framework to the exclusion of others (and one you've mentioned). Concentration is mindfulness, it is just mindfulness -- real care and steady attention to an object -- while learning not to peel off at every other thought, staying relaxed and friendly with the training, friendly with the mind when it uproots for something and friendly with the body when it's had quite enough.

Several of us are big fans of Analyo's book (see Ian's post): it is immensely practical and dense and well-documented (there is one wrong footnote that I know of). If you pick it up I'd give yourself permission to start anywhere in the book you want. It provides tremendous structure, but never feels far from any school of buddhist mental trainings, in my opinion.


**You are already showing signs of knowing exactly what to do (what not to do); then it's repeat with patience/openness/no expectation and replacing that with just closely paying attention as if to an sleeping infant or as if to something you really are keen to attend to, and being relaxed in the body.

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