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Eightfold Path: Right Concentration (2 of 4)

Continuing the series of talks on Right Concentration as part of the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path ends with concentration. In a sense, there are two more steps of the Eightfold Path that become the ninth and tenth steps, which we'll cover on Thursday and Friday. But the Eightfold Path, in a sense, ends with concentration as the state of mind that is ripe for a deep letting go, ripe for change and transformation.

Part of the function of concentration, of developing samādhi^[1], is in fact to tenderize the mind and the heart. It softens and relaxes it so it's not hard, brittle, defended, or tight—so it can be released, free, or relaxed in a very deep way. Concentration prepares the mind so that it can also have deep insight. It gives the mind a stillness or stability that allows it to see deeply.

Imagine that you're riding on a flatbed train, and you're standing in the middle of the train—safe, with a big telescope in your hand. You're standing there as the train goes along the tracks, and you're trying to look at the moon at night. Chances are, with the train rattling so much, you can't stand still enough to hold the telescope steady and really be able to see the moon. You might occasionally scan by the moon, but you can't really focus on it.

But if you take the same telescope and put it on a tripod on solid ground, the telescope is stable enough that you can find the moon, zero in, and look at it carefully. If the mind is rattled, like going on a train, shaking and bouncing around all the time, it doesn't have the stability to see deeply into the full moons of our own hearts, the full moons of our minds. We want to have stability for that, and the function of concentration is for stability.

When people talk about concentration, samādhi—a powerful word—they often refer to or think about altered states. The question is, what is most altered? Is it the everyday mind? Maybe the everyday mind is frazzled, full of hindrances^[2], easily distracted, and preoccupied. Maybe that is the altered mind. Some people say that when we practice concentration, we're going back to the natural state of the mind, free of the way it's altered by our attachments, preoccupations, fears, and angers.

But still, compared to the everyday mind, the concentrated mind is quite different. Sometimes people use the word "exalted" to describe a very powerful state of mind that brings tremendous stillness, bliss, and peacefulness. It can seem very different from ordinary life; it can seem extraordinary and special. In a sense, it is, but we don't want to get too caught up with that idea, pursue it too much, or think that's where we're supposed to be.

The Samādhi of Everyday Life

I'd like to talk a little bit today about concentration, or samādhi, not so much in meditation, but in everyday life. It is the ability to live our mundane life in such a way that ordinary activities come alive. They become extraordinary. The mundane becomes, in a sense, sacred. It's not like we're trying to get some different experience; it's more about the way we bring attention to the experience we're having.

For example, the samādhi of dishwashing, the samādhi of eating, cooking, sweeping, or driving. What samādhi means here 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 an activity while the mind is already racing ahead to the next task we have to do, or lingering in a conversation we had yesterday. The attention in our hearts and minds is fully there for the activity.

Making a cup of tea is a time of samādhi if we do it wholeheartedly and completely. There's an alchemy in doing something with our full attention. It doesn't necessarily change the tea-making exactly, but we're meeting the teacup and the tea with a higher quality of attention. It is a wholehearted presence that begins to infuse the situation with nice qualities of being.

These qualities may not happen automatically at first. Samādhi has a lot to do with settling in, no longer being restless, no longer bouncing around, and no longer going off into the mind to think about other things. It means really being there for what we're doing. This can seem boring because our thoughts can be much more exciting, or our thoughts can be frightening—we tell ourselves frightening ideas and worry about the future. But if we can trust, relax, and feel that it's okay to just make tea in this moment, it becomes a delight. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. It comes alive. There's vitality, livingness, and a sense of intimacy and fullness with just this activity.

I hope some of you have had experiences in your life where you were really absorbed in doing an activity. When I was younger, I used to read a lot of novels, and I loved it. I always felt so good when I was absorbed in a novel. A sense of well-being would set in, partly because I wasn't thinking about my worries anymore. I was pulled in and absorbed, and that focus and concentration brought me a very simple delight or joy.

Sometimes what I enjoyed about reading novels wasn't necessarily the story itself, but rather the absorption—really being there fully for that thing. There might be other things that do the same for you. Listening to music can do it. Sometimes being in a park, watching kids play, or sitting and watching a river go by can be absorbing.

The idea is to begin doing that in our everyday activities in the mundane world so that it becomes sacred. "Sacred" might not be quite the right word, because in Latin it implies something separated out from what's mundane or profane. But in Buddhism, the whole world is sacred when your attention is really there for it. It's a worthwhile capacity to develop: mundane concentration, mundane wholeness—just being with what we're doing when we're doing it.

Because it builds momentum and familiarity, we eventually learn, "Wow, this is nice. This is really great to be here in the experience we have while we're doing it." So the discussion about concentration applies to everyday life as well.

Receptive Readiness

On the Eightfold Path, as I keep mentioning, there are two versions of it. One is a path to freedom, and the other is a path of expanding that freedom that we've experienced. Concentration practice has both sides. We develop and strengthen the mind by being wholeheartedly present for the mundane experience of breathing, just like we would for making tea or doing the dishes. Or, if breathing doesn't work for you, using some other object or way of practicing mindfulness. There's a wholeheartedness just for that.

We just keep coming back and sustaining the attention over and over again, until the distracted mind begins to weaken and quiet down, making it easier and easier to stay present. It's almost like there's a concentration muscle in the mind that gets stronger, and the muscle for distraction gets weaker. At some point, the concentration muscle is stronger than what's left of the distraction muscle, and it gets easier to stay present. As we do that, the mind begins to shift and change.

When we have some familiarity with that, we can recognize some of the qualities of a mind that is free. Not that the mind is 100% this way; maybe it's just a little sliver of the mind, but we recognize, "Oh, there is something." That's the part of the mind that is soft, relaxed, open, and receptive. We begin using that as a reference point for how we develop the continuity of attention, which is concentration.

I have a book on the Eightfold Path called The Steps to Liberation—maybe I should have mentioned it at the beginning of this Eightfold Path series! I want to read a paragraph from it:

"When we know how a concentrated mind is part of the Eightfold Path, we can use the possibility of the peaceful expanse of mind as a guidepost along the path. Rather than straining with striving and expectations, we cultivate receptive readiness. We let go deeply so the mind can be free of tension. By understanding the value of a soft mind, we're less likely to get tense as we practice. When we remember the need to become free of the hindrances, we're less easily taken in by their authority. And when we understand the role of joy and mental brightness on the path, we will be quicker to recognize and support these states when they're there."

So, it's not a big "should." It's not a big strain. It's not something you have to perfect. The path to the perfection of concentration is through being relaxed about the imperfection of how it's going, how easily distracted you are, and how caught up you get. Regardless of how it is, keep coming back. And maybe come back with a kind of attention that is a delight to bring, that you enjoy doing. Maybe it's tender care, maybe a lovely curiosity and interest. Maybe it's a soft "just there," or maybe it's love.

Somehow find a way to really be with your meditation fully, with the idea of absorption—being absorbed in it, being really in its domain fully, but with a soft mind, a joyful mind, a receptive mind, a ready mind, a malleable mind. A mind that is not caught up in all its preoccupations. Developing that mind is one of the great tasks of meditation.

It doesn't really matter how long it takes. Mindfulness practice is moving in this direction. The more we practice mindfulness, concentration follows in its wake. The more we cultivate concentration, mindfulness keeps opening more and more.

Be very content with the mundane world of dishwashing and breathing, but see if you can meet those things wholeheartedly, as if each thing you're doing is the most important thing of the moment.

We'll continue with this topic of samādhi tomorrow. Thank you.