Eightfold Path – Wise Concentration

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We continue our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, and this morning I’ll talk about a key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Concentration.  Wise concentration is more than just learning how to focus our attention.  If you’ve ever watched people watching a basketball game, they are concentrating, but that probably won’t lead to awakening, even if the Jayhawks had won.

Wise concentration is a bringing together of five components:  spiritual intention, focus, mental discipline, energy and attention.  We are harnessing our ability to awaken.  When we master awareness, we see how all things fit together, including how we fit in to the bigger picture. 

When natural awareness arises spontaneously, everything is known.  It is like opening up the encyclopedia of all knowledge.  Or I guess these days, we would describe it like having an internal Google search machine.

Before I talk about the various ways to concentrate our mind, We must make a commitment to concentration, by having a clear intention and creating some mental discipline.  Ask yourself the question. Why are you here?  Why do you want to learn to meditate?  When the going gets tough, what thought or emotion will motivate you to keep trying?  We begin by making a commitment to ourselves to learn and practice consistently and as continually as we can.  Our practice of concentration is not just while we are meditating.  We can actually spend every moment of our lives building up the muscle of concentration.   

The process of learning how to focus our minds is outlined in Lama Surya Das’ book, and he calls it the Five T’s of Concentration:

1.      Taming: a practice to keep coming back to the single point

2.      Training; a practice to allow the mind to relax and slow down

3.      Testing:  Take our practice out into the “real” world and practice concentration when sounds and other feelings and emotions and thoughts arise

4.      Transforming:  When we can use this focused energy to serve ourselves and others in higher ways of being

5.      Transcendence:  The mind and the practice become one.  It all becomes one;  you and I become one, experiencing ourselves and each other as part of the greater whole; it becomes possible to “go with the flow” regardless of our external circumstances

Concentration exercises:

1.      Watching the breath, counting the breath

2.      Awareness of breathing  (like a sharpened pencil at the point of making a dot on the paper)

3.      Walking meditation  (forwards and backwards)

4.      Chewing meditation  (three raisins for the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha)

The challenges of concentration (the five hindrances):

1.      Craving

2.      Anger/resentment

3.      Restlessness

4.      Sleepinesss/boredom

5.      Doubt

So, what are you paying attention to?  As you begin to study your mind, you will find where your energy is being spent.  Each of us has more than enough energy to create amazing lives.  But most of the time, we are scattering our energy hither and yon, with no sense of purpose or priority.  Practicing concentration helps bring your energy back to a central point, giving you the power to place that energy where love and compassion and wisdom can be found.  It’s no less than a miracle what you can accomplish when you conquer your mind.

“The one who has conquered himself is a far greater hero than he who has defeated a thousand times a thousand men.”  From the Dhammapada