Right Concentration (Samma Samadhi)

 

Oookay! Here’s where this little bubby sticks his neck out to either be chopped off by most Buddhists… or otherwise understood. Samma Samadhi is the furthest and most difficult item on the Buddhist’s lists of “Things to Do”. And to understand it… one must first gain a clear perspective of Samadhi (concentration).

 

 

What is Concentration?
Pause here for a second and re-consider…

Is it Focus? Attention? Thinking? Not thinking?
Sitting still and doing nothing like meditation?
Or being hypnotized? What?

Concentration occurs very frequently in our daily lives, it is “focus” that the mind uses to successfully obtain an information at any one given time.

Similar to a person watching The Simpsons on television, enjoying it and forgetting about the 12 mosquito bites on his/her legs, the severe pains in the wrist from earlier sport injury or even a thumping headache.

A man who walks right into a telegraph pole with his eyes fully opened… being so heavily caught up in thoughts, the data streams from the eyes were ignored.

Or a busy writer/thinker, whose ear data go completely unnoticed, with people having to call out his name several times before he could hear it.

 

 

Technical

Within the five senses of Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Touch… data are flowing constantly and uncontrollably. The sixth sense is divided into Thought, Memory and Feeling… these data are also constant and have minds of their own. Although information flows uncontrollably and constantly… the mind, as previously mentioned, is only capable of concentrating and obtaining only one data stream at a time.

End Technical

 

 

Strong Concentration

A card player who told his wife he’d be at Tony’s house for beers and watching a game of footy, but instead sat at a high-roller table dealing eight hours straight has excellent concentration! A highly decorated 12 year-old fast finger player of the gaming consoles, whose entire weekend is spent in front of joysticks and TV screens also has excellent concentration. A hit man working for a mafia boss… who is extremely light-footed, patient and capable of expert ambushing too, has a great deal of concentration. The same goes for a meditator who within less than one breath can control stillness of her mind… she too, has excellent concentration.

 

 

Stumbling into concentration is normal,
and forcing concentration isn’t hard.
However,
Concentrating without stumbling or forcing…
is the middle path.

 

 

Right Concentration

How to obtain concentration of something that is not yours? This type of concentration… as before mentioned is without struggling and requires greater Wisdom.

Right concentration is like feeding a spoiled cat… an ultimate fussy eater who swore legions to no one! The poor cat owner offering quality delicious and expensive dine, hoping and praying that the fluffy too-fat-too-furious fur-ball will enjoy… rejections are to be expected! And what does Sir Garfield do after he’s done feasting? Cat owners know too well…

Offering possitive feelings that the mind likes is the key to right concentration. Luring and steering it using its greed-hatred and delusion, but without any expectations. How delusional the mind is… depends on how much previous restraint training it had. Too little… and it will stumble into defilements. Too much… and constant wars will occur within (the so-called Kung-Fu mind or philosopher’s mind), these are struggling minds and are huge obstacles to overcome.

Similar to how one trains the mind for Samma Sati (Right Mindfulness)… the training process is forcing the mind to follow its actions, but the real Samma Sati itself occurs unintentionally. The mind had been trained to enjoy following its actions to see what the next con is… until its habits are just that. Therefore training must be without struggle, comfortable and fun… otherwise the cat won’t stay.

 

 

The One taught… first level of Enlightenment (Sodhabhan) is when one gets rid of Sakaya (Self) Ditthi (Idea of). The name says it all… one can never be rid of self, since there has never been a self to be rid off… only the wrong views or wrong ideas of self.

It never gets any easier than this folks. At the same time… it never gets any harder either, because of our over-forcing intellects and plenty of mistranslation of original texts by heavy thinkers and philosophers who used thoughts to find truth… and getting conned immediately in the process. Hence there are so few in this world who are awake.

 

The “Please fasten your seat belts” sign is now lit.
Please proceed with caution from here onwards…

Ones who are ready… should achieve realisation so lightningly fast (similar to Tripitaka stories) and not 20 years of practice. Those who are not… will continue to control themselves and miss all the glories of nature and truth.

the “Evil must be uprooted! Self control is the key to being a good person…”
not knowing the real “you” means there is still a lot of “you”. Evil is a concept… and idea… a world-word. Hitler didn’t just turn up one day… he was effects made by many causes, and even worse… he killed no one.

or “There is no me… I never get angry at anything!”
controlling “me” makes a truck load of “me”, not knowing one’s hatred to anger and true nature of anger itself are very dangerous lines of practice.

or “It is paramount that one should only like to perform good deeds… and fear the laws of Karma!”
That’s how all religions come about… fears and misunderstanding of nature.

To understand Not-Self, Not Soul… one must learn to overcome basic teachings of Buddhism.

 

in dhamma – a burning flame like the rest.

phramick ratanapanyo bhikkhu.

 

 

 

 

Related Topics:

Samma Sati (Right Mindfulness)

Knowing Equilibriums

The Knowing Middle

The Eyes

Truth