Let's Talk About Practice: Concentration

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Let's talk about Practice, with Tanya Wiser & Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Tanya Wiser at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 28, 2022. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Let's Talk About Practice: Concentration

Introduction

Tanya Wiser: Tonight, the focus will be on concentration practice. We will explore what concentration meditation is, how you do it, and some of the real simple basics. Before we start with a guided meditation, let me ask: when I say "concentration practice," what comes up for you? What are your associations?

Ann Rose: For me, concentration in this practice has been like noting my thoughts and not getting lost in them too much. I might notice feelings of frustration, anger, or sadness, and I just try to be with those feelings while sitting and focusing on the breath. It's also about not getting mad when I get lost in thought, so I can return to the anchor. I know if I'm doing too much, it becomes a problem because I start straining, and I don't like that feeling.

John: For me, it is purposefully focusing myself to do something.

Iris: I have this idea of what concentration practice is, and it brings me anxiety. I normally practice open awareness, and even doing that, it is hard for me to just focus on my breath consistently. The idea of concentration practice—where I associate it with longer periods of focusing on the breath—seems really hard.

Tanya Wiser: If I can share a little story about this: there was a time I was on a long retreat for a couple of months. When I came back, I had to take care of something at the bank. The bank teller wanted to know why I hadn't handled it earlier. I explained that I was out of town and unplugged on a meditation retreat. The person was perplexed and asked, "Really? Did you do astral projection? Were you in different places at the same time?"

I thought, Oh, this might be what a lot of people think about when they think of concentration or doing a lot of meditation. They think it's all about superpowers. I just wanted to share that story, because that is not the kind of concentration practice we are teaching tonight.

There are two different forms of concentration practice. One is when you are aware of your breath, and then a thought comes up, so you know you're thinking. Then there is a sensation, and you are aware of the sensation. You go from the breath, to a thought, to a sensation in succession, but you are aware of each thing. I've heard this described as "serial monogamy." We have intimacy with one object at a time, but they are serial relationships. This is more of the open awareness kind of concentration, a close connection to each thing as it arises.

The other kind of concentration is where you might have an intimate, ongoing connection to one object, like the breath. Both are ways we can become concentrated, and they can both lead to very deep states of connection, seeing into our experience, settling the mind, and calming. Part of what concentration isn't, is struggling. As much as you can let go of the idea that you need to try to make something happen, or be in conflict with what is happening, the better.

Guided Meditation

With that as an introduction, let's consciously find a posture that we would like to meditate in. Remember this idea of uprightness. If not in the body, at least in the mind, find an uprightness, an interest, and a commitment to showing up for our present moment experience. How would we be attending if we believed that what we were doing was really important?

Take a moment to rock your posture a little bit. Lean forward and back, and a little left and right, to help you find that centered, upright space. You can have your eyes closed, which is supportive for concentration practice, but if you need to open your eyes, it's okay to have a very soft gaze resting just in front of you.

Feel this arriving in this posture. Be curious about what this body feels like in this moment. What is this breath like? Maybe take a few longer, slower breaths. With the exhale, invite a sense of letting go of the day's stress and any over-efforting.

Let your awareness rest on this experience. Let the awareness of what's happening follow and be with whatever is most clear in your experience. To me, this feels a little bit like floating on a raft in a warm ocean on a beautiful day. The water is warm enough, and cool enough, that you can just let your body rest on the raft and float. You are supported by the ocean, feeling the subtle movement in the water, maybe receiving the sounds of the waves. In the same way we let our body follow the flow of the water, we can let our awareness rest on the breath or the sensations in the body. There is a certain surrender, a letting go into the experience. We live, and give ourselves to, the intimacy of that experience.

If we're working with an anchor like the breath, it can be this feeling of resting on the exhale, resting on the inhale, breath after breath. It can also be resting on a sound we're hearing. You hear a car, the sound fades away, and you can rest into that space too. If we get caught in thinking, the moment we realize what's happening, we're already back. We are resting right here again.

If you have an active mind and are having a hard time settling on that raft, try a three-breath journey. Follow an inhale and exhale intimately for three breaths in a row. That's it. A short period of being very connected. Then, you can just do another three-breath journey after that. Notice what it feels like to have that intimate connection to three breaths. And if it's a one-breath journey, no problem. Every moment matters.

You know that feeling when you're really relaxed on a lazy Sunday, and you can hear people talking or the phone ringing, and you just don't care? You are so content resting that things can go on around you, coming and going, and it's okay. Imagine having that feeling right now. Being with your experience, however it is right now, is just good enough.

Is it possible to have the breathing in the forefront and other things happening in the background? Can the breath breathe in and through the sounds, the sensations, or the thoughts? Practicing this way doesn't mean we're suppressing or rejecting anything. We are simply prioritizing being aware.

Ask yourself now, what can I notice that's different between the inhale and the exhale? Do they feel the same? Does the breath feel the same on the way into the nose as it does on the way out? Get a little closer. Notice the temperature of the breath. Is it smooth or rough? Sometimes with each exhale, I can feel a little more letting go, deep in my back and shoulders. Maybe the breath gets a little slower. Maybe there's a pause between the exhale and the inhale. Just rest on whatever you are aware of.

Reflections on the Meditation

Ann Rose: I was uncomfortable sitting on the floor—normally I sit in a chair. I was concentrating on trying to get comfortable, my leg fell asleep, and I realized this wasn't what I wanted, so I just got up and moved. Once I did, it was cool. I really liked the sensation of focusing on what the breath felt like going in. Usually, I just note "breathing in, breathing out," but asking what it feels like was really nice.

John: I thought I was doing a good job concentrating, and then all of a sudden, I just faded out and found myself leaning over. I told myself to stay balanced and focused, but it's difficult for me to do two things at the same time. My mind just tries to go to a quiet place. It was hard for me to start counting the breaths—I struggled with following the instructions because I was pretty comfortable where my mind was, so at some point, with a lot of respect, I just stopped listening.

Iris: Earlier in the meditation, you said something about imagining a lazy Sunday where you don't have to do anything and you just don't care. That was really helpful because I realized that with thinking, I naturally try to resist, judge, or change it. I also noticed that as my thoughts went away, my thinking energy just sort of came out, which was a very interesting experience.

Diana Clark: I'll just add that the analogy of floating on a raft was fantastic. I felt really great, like this relaxed floating. It was very nice.

Redefining Concentration as Samādhi

Diana Clark: Tanya, it was very helpful that you asked what associations we have with the word concentration. Iris, you mentioned it brought anxiety. For me, my shoulders go up towards my ears when I hear "concentration," like, Oh, I'm supposed to focus. Because of that baggage, I'd like to suggest we use the Pali word: samādhi^[1].

Samādhi has a much more relaxed feeling about it, and it turns out that relaxation is integral to concentration. If I were to define it, samādhi is the mind and the body feeling unified, collected, and in harmony, with a sense of well-being. This sense of well-being is integral. We often think of concentration as something strictly mental, but the body is deeply involved in this collectedness and wellness.

It's also helpful to think of samādhi as a spectrum rather than a binary. Sometimes we think, "I'm concentrated," or "I'm not concentrated, and I should be." That leads to beating ourselves up, straining, and striving. Straining and striving go in the exact opposite direction; they are forms of distraction. Instead, just notice: am I moving toward more settledness and well-being, or away from it?

Samādhi has three primary elements: collectedness, well-being, and the ability to see subtle things. I use the word "well-being" vaguely because we find our way into it differently. For some, it's a quiet sense of contentment—like drinking hot chocolate when I was a kid. For others, it's a big, joyful, "Wahoo, it's my birthday!" feeling.

When this well-being and collectedness happen, the mind is able to see things more subtly than we can in our regular "street consciousness." If mindfulness is like a telescope highlighting an object, samādhi is the tripod underneath it. It keeps the telescope steady. You can't see subtle things well if the telescope is jittery.

So, what is the difference between mindfulness and concentration? In mindfulness practice, we hold everything in kind regard. If the mind wanders to a sound or an uncomfortable body sensation, we put the flashlight of mindfulness on that sensation, hold it with kind regard until it's no longer compelling, and then come back to the breath. With concentration practice, we stay with the anchor—breath, breath, breath—and we have a "kind disregard" for the other things. We aren't shoving things away or insisting they be different; we just let them go and stay with the breath.

Why use the breath as an anchor? It doesn't have to be the breath. But the breath is helpful because the body is doing it, and the body is always in the present moment. The breath also has movement, making it a bit easier to pay attention to than something static. You could use a candle flame, loving-kindness phrases, or a positive image for concentration, but mindfulness practice is strictly about our actual bodily experience in the present moment.

If we do a lot of mindfulness, concentration naturally arises. You can achieve this by meditating for longer durations, establishing a daily practice, or doing a retreat.

To support this unification and well-being, what we do off the cushion matters. Watching short, highly stimulating videos back-to-back makes it hard for the mind to settle. Instead, we can practice letting go in our daily lives. Let go of the story about the neighbor's barking dog. Let go of insisting that you have to be right. Let go of your preferences when your partner wants to do something different. This practice is not about acquiring; it turns out that by letting go, beautiful things—including samādhi—naturally arise.

Q&A and Discussion

Iris: Does this mean you don't explicitly practice concentration? Does it just naturally arise through mindfulness, or do you explicitly do concentration practices?

Diana Clark: You can definitely do both. You can say specifically, "I'm going to do concentration practice," and stay strictly with the anchor. You also mentioned you do open awareness practice; you can absolutely have concentration within open awareness. It sometimes takes a little longer to settle, but that settledness tends to have a lot of stability. And yes, it is true that if you just do a lot of mindfulness, concentration will naturally start happening.

Tanya Wiser: I really resonate with the idea of letting go. There is a phase where letting go is an active process—like telling yourself, "No, let go of worrying about later." But the more we let go, the more automatic it becomes. Instead of having to forcefully let go, it becomes more like, "I just don't want to pick anything up." It's like a snow globe: if you shake it, all the snowflakes swirl around. When you set it down, the snowflakes slowly come to rest. The same process starts to happen for us. The mind comes to a place of resting and intimacy.

Iris: If you have a hard time letting go, how do you help yourself let go easier?

Diana Clark: It is definitely a skill. In daily life, try to recognize moments of contentment. We tend to be dismissive when everything is just okay. But there might be times when you're sitting in your car, or just finishing a meal, and everything is fine. Cultivating a sense of contentment reassures the mind and heart that it is possible to be okay without always looking for the next thing to fix. We get rewarded for fixing problems in life, so doing this is kind of radical.

Tanya Wiser: I like the idea of "let be." I don't have to do anything about this itch; I can just let it be. The irritating sound will happen, and then not happen. It is a willingness to let things be the way they are in meditation. At times, we need to make a firm decision to stop arguing with our experience. As we keep remembering that we aren't going to argue, the distraction simply fades because we are no longer engaging it.

Emmanuel: For me, the idea of letting go is to actually end up winning. I let go because even though, in my mind, the person who wants to upset me thinks they won, I win because I don't add to my own suffering.

Tanya Wiser: There is so much wisdom in that. When I think about the First Noble Truth^[2], that is exactly what you're saying: "I'm going to suffer if I keep fighting with this person. I don't want to suffer, so I will let them win. I win because I am not adding to my suffering."

Diana Clark: I'll add that simplicity is also incredibly supportive of letting go. Not being too busy, not living in a cluttered space—simplicity helps things settle. Practicing kindness towards ourselves and others also brings immediate well-being.

John: I think meditation is sort of like a mental massage. If my muscles are tight after exercise, a masseuse unknots them, and it's really relaxing. When I meditate, I have the same feeling. The mind gets tangled up with worries and planning, and meditation takes those tangles away.

Diana Clark: "Tangles" is a great word. In Buddhist literature, there is actually a famous expression about practice being the process of "untangling the tangle."

Tanya Wiser: I invite you all to think about moments in your life where you felt that sense of contentment, ease, and untangling. For the Buddha, it was the memory of sitting under a rose-apple tree^[3] as a child while his father worked in the field. Remembering that collected feeling of well-being guided his practice. For me, it's the memory of floating on boats or rafts on a lake, completely content and comfortable.

Ann Rose: To keep in mind with simplicity, as Diana put it, it's like washing the dishes. As Thich Nhat Hanh^[4] would say, if I'm going to wash the dishes, I should just wash the dishes. Even if I'm feeling bad about something, taking that simple moment feels nice. You don't have to go on a spa day to feel contentment.

Iris: Your meditation instructions reminded me of Sunday afternoons when I don't have anything on my agenda. That just feels really nice.

Emmanuel: I have great memories of cooking. I get together with friends and family, and we just spend time cooking and enjoying life.

Tanya Wiser: With cooking, you have to pay attention to how you're holding the knife, the pressure, the smells, and the colors. There is so much mindfulness happening. It is a very present moment experience.

Iris: Have there been times where you've lost motivation or interest in practice? How do you work with that when your motivation ebbs and flows?

Diana Clark: We are only human; of course this happens. I've gone through phases thinking, "This is crazy, I'm never going to do this again." Having friends who meditate—a sangha^[5]—makes a huge difference. Logging on or going to a group is a tremendous support. It is also helpful to reconnect with why you started meditation in the first place. Often we start because of some degree of suffering—from mild stress to a scary diagnosis. Along the way, we catch a glimpse of something that touches the heart. Reconnecting to whatever that was can bring back motivation.

Tanya Wiser: I realized that any time I got myself to sit down, even for just five minutes, it never made me feel worse. I can confidently say I always felt better. There was about a year where I only sat for five minutes at a time, but that year of five-minute sits left a huge impression on me. Even if you only sit for two minutes and ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?", that two minutes makes a difference.

Dedication of Merit

Ann Rose: I am very grateful for IMC, for Tanya, and for Diana. These sessions have been revolutionary for my mind, which has been its own battlefield. Yesterday, I realized that when I am feeling really anxious, I get stuck in overthinking and gossiping. I never would have been aware of that had I not taken the time to just be still. Even when I receive bad news, I don't have to hold on to it forever or strive to fix it. Taking five or ten minutes to sit in the morning and evening has been transformative. I can't imagine not taking that time for myself so that I can be better for others. Thank you.

Tanya Wiser: Thank you for highlighting that we don't just practice for ourselves; we practice for others. That is how the world becomes a better place—when people are more tuned into what's happening with them and more sensitive to what's happening with others.

That is a beautiful segue to the dedication of merit. We practice for the benefit of all beings without exception. Sometimes we have certain beings in mind who are suffering or could use the benefit of our practice. Does anyone have anyone specific they would like to dedicate this merit to?

Emmanuel: I just wish all of you, everybody here, lots of happiness.

Tanya Wiser: May this practice, our time together, and the things we've shared be of benefit to each other, to others in our lives, and to all beings everywhere.