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2020-11-30 Eightfold Path-Right Concentration (2 of 4): Otter Voice Meeting Notes

2020-11-30 Eightfold Path-Right Concentration (2 of 4)

Insight Meditation Center14min

Gil Fronsdal

00:01

So continuing the series of talks on Right Concentration as part of the Eightfold Path. So the Eightfold Path ends with concentration in a sense. There's two more steps of the Eightfold Path that becomes then kind of the Eightfold path, that becomes a ninth step and tenth step, which we'll do Thursday and Friday.

Gil Fronsdal

00:27

The eightfold path in a sense ends with concentration as being the quality of state of mind that is ripe for a deep letting go. Ripe for change and transformation. And so part of the function of concentration, developing Samādhi, is in fact to tenderize the mind, the heart. Soften it, relax it, so it's not so hard or brittle, or defended or tight. So it can't be released or free or relaxed in a very deep way. And so concentration kind of prepares the mind so that it can have also deep insight. It gives the mind a stillness or stability that I can see deeply.

Gil Fronsdal

01:18

Imagine that you're riding on a flatbed train. And you're standing in the middle of the train - safe, nice. With a telescope, big telescope in your hand. And you're standing there as the train goes along the tracks. And you're trying to look at the moon at night. And chances are with that the train is rattling so much and you can't stand still enough that you can't really hold the telescope still enough to really be able to see the moon. You might occasionally scan by the moon, but you can't really focus on it. But then if you take the same telescope, and put it on a tripod on solid ground, then the telescope is stable enough, you can find the moon and zero in and look at it carefully. So if the mind is rattled like going on a train and shaking all the time and bouncing around, it doesn't have the stability to see deeply into the full moon of our own hearts, full moons of our minds. And so we won't have stability for that and that function of concentration is for stability.

Gil Fronsdal

02:38

When people talk about concentration, Samādhi, a powerful word. They often refer to or think about altered states. There are what it's called altered sometimes. The question is what is most altered is the everyday mind. Though maybe everyday mind, it's frazzled and full of hindrances and distracted easily and preoccupied. Maybe that's the altered mind. And some people say that when we practice concentration practice, we're going back to the natural state of the mind, free of the weights altered by our attachments and preoccupations, and fears and angers and things like that. But still compared to everyday mind, that concentrated mind is quite different. And sometimes they use the word exalted, or they use the word, you know, a very powerful state of minds that tremendous stillness and bliss and peacefulness. And so it can seem very different from ordinary life. It can seem extraordinary and special. And in a sense it is. But we don't want to get too caught up with that idea or pursue it too much or think that's where we're supposed to be. So I'd like to talk a little bit today about concentration or Samādhi. And not so much in meditation, but in everyday life. That the ability to live our mundane life in such a way that the ordinary activities of our life. They become extraordinary. The mundane becomes, in a sense, sacred. That it's not like we're trying to get some different experience. It's more like the way in which we bring attention to the experience we're having. And so of washing dishes, for example, to have Samādhi. The Samādhi of dishwashing. Eating, the Samādhi of eating. Cooking, the Samādhi of cooking. Sweeping the Samādhi of sweeping. Driving, the Samādhi of driving.

Gil Fronsdal

04:52

And what this Samādhi here means is that we are just really there for the experience. We're not thinking about something else. We're not multitasking. We're not doing it, but really the mind is already ahead to the next task, the next thing we have to do. Or the mind is lingering in a conversation we had yesterday. That the attention in our hearts and our minds are kind of fully there for the activity we have. And so that making a cup of tea is a time of Samādhi if we do it wholeheartedly, completely. And there's something in the alchemy of doing something with our full attention, that doesn't really change the tea making exactly. But we're enveloping or we're meeting the tea cup, the tea that we're making whatever we're doing. We're meeting it with a kind of higher quality attention, a kind of wholehearted presence, that begins to infuse the situation with some really nice ways of being, qualities of being. Maybe not automatically at first. But Samādhi has a lot to do about settling in, and no longer being restless with, no longer bouncing around, no longer going off in mind and thinking about other things. But really, really being there for what we're doing. It can seem boring, because our thoughts can be much more exciting. or thoughts can be much more frightening. You know, we tell ourselves frightening ideas, and we're worried about the future about something. And so we're thinking about what's going to happen or something. But to trust and relax and feel like just okay, just a tea making for this moment. To learn to do that so that it becomes a delight. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. It's like it comes alive, there's a vitality, there's a livingness, there's a sense of intimacy and fullness with just this activity.

Gil Fronsdal

07:08

Now some of you probably have had, I hope, some of you had some nice experiences some time in your life. Or really being absorbed and doing some activity. I know that when I was younger, I used to read a lot of novels. And I just loved, I always feel so good, I'd be absorbed the novel. And the sense of well being would set in, partly because I wasn't thinking about all my worries anymore. And I was just being pulled and absorbed in the novel. And that kind of focus and concentration that brought me a kind of very simple delight or joy. And I think sometimes what I enjoyed about reading novels, was not necessarily the story I was reading, but rather the absorption I had. The kind of really there, fully for that thing. And there might be something else that does the same thing. That listening to music can do it perhaps or sometimes being at a park and watching some kids play or something happening in the park. And we get absorbed in this world. Sitting and watching a river go by can be kind of absorbing. The idea is to begin doing that in our everyday activities, the mundane world. So that the mundane world becomes sacred, which is probably not quite the right word because in Latin sacred kind of implies something that's been separated out, someplace outside of what's mundane or profane. But in Buddhism, what's sacred is` the whole world when the attention is really there for it. It's really a worthwhile thing to develop that capacity, mundane concentration, mundane wholeness of just being with what we're doing when we're doing it there. Because it builds momentum. It builds a kind of familiarity. We learn eventually, wow, this is nice. This is really great to be here in the experience we have while we're doing it. So all the all the discussion about concentration applies to everyday life as well.

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