Hello;
I am new here, not sure how I found this site, but glad that I did.
I have meditated, intermittently, over the years, but really didn't know what I was doing. Just following my breath as I had read and heard about. I was not aware that there is a huge ocean of information beyond that simple practice.
I am in the process of reading Daniel's book, and really appreciate what I have learned so far. I feel that I am starting to appreciate the overall terrain I am walking into.
My question pertains to the relation of Concentration and Insight practices. I am at ~pg. 45 in Daniel's book, where he is discussing using the breath as an aid in "understanding" impermanence. It seems that by focusing on the particularity/granularity of the breath, or speeding your mind up to do that, that concentration can be facilitated.
Is that a common occurrence?, having both practices work symbiotically?
Thank you in advance for your help and thanks to Daniel for his book.
Bill

First, welcome to the DhO, Bill.

Don't know if you've had the opportunity to discover it yet, but the Pali terms for what you are referring to are samatha and vipassana, which refer to calm (as in calming the mind) and insight. And, yes, they do go together like salt and pepper.

Because of the presence of the one (calm), the other (insight) becomes more possible.

It takes a calm mind (and a still mind) to be able "hear" the depths of what the mind can see (or recognize) in terms of insight.

It's a matter of becoming less and less distracted from what is. And being able to recognize what is. Like the characteristic of the impermanence of existence.

In peace,
Ian

Hi Ian;
Thank you very much. That's what I suspected.
Bill