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Nothing is Enough // Or everything is not enough. // I have a hunger... //// The hunger is me. // If I feed it, it wants more. // Mostly, it wants something else. //// A wise person, said STOP. //

Monday, September 27, 2021

QUOTE: Comparison, concentrated and unconcentrated mind

I spent a long time (years) thinking I had developed a concentrated mind. I had falsely convinced myself.

I shifted toward an attitude of noticing the difference. Between concentrated and unconcentrated. And this helped me (1) learn how to use that concentration and (2) how to check if I was falsely convincing myself I was concentrated.

It turned out that what my old self thought was concentration was just a pleasant state of escapist mind. It felt different. It felt special. But it was still quite entangled with the world and my own concepts.

The real concentrated state has several forms (it's a region, more than a point), but in all instances has a sharper alertness combined with a easeful awareness (especially good if grounded in the body. It can be broad or narrow, depending on (if) a frame of reference used). It is without sensual greed, aversion, sloth, restlessness, or grandiose identification. It's also not trying to be something that one saw on TV or in a magazine ad or even in a sutta. It might take effort to get into a state of concentration, but once one is in it, the effort is either minimal (Jhana1) or none (Jhana2, internal assurance).

 It has a different feel from the everyday mind which is always striving and stirring, often feeding.

"The point is simply that you train the mind to be centered and then compare it to the state of mind that isn't centered, so that you can see how they differ, how the mind that has attained concentration and then withdraws to contemplate matters of the world and the Dhamma differs from the mind that hasn't attained concentration."

Ajaan Thate

"Buddho", by Phra Ajaan Thate Desaransi, translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 2 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/thate/buddho.html .

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