Access Concentration

[@moradben-menashe4823]

Dude your energy is amazing! This is the best video I’ve seen by far explaining this concept and motivating the hell out of me to double down on my practice! Thank you!!!

[@deannekearns7074]

This talk reminds me of a parable I heard in one of Thich Nhat Hanh's podcasts. A certain king had a mantra he used in his walking meditation: "With each step, I am touching the ground of reality." This mantra really captures the essence of Buddhism. Our practice is not focused on someday-we'll-get-there heaven. Concentration means being present, here and now, with your breath or your object or the music you're listening to. And as you say, concentration is necessary to successfully engage in our mundane endeavors as well. A very enjoyable talk. You're easy to listen to.

[@homerthompson6028]

I've done this before on accident. It was the first time I've ever known what inner peace felt like. I've been trying to replicate it ever since but I just can't.

[@retiredguyadventures6211]

I've been meditating off and on for about 48 year, and first experienced access concentration 30 years ago. It wasn't until this video that I understood what it was though...

[@vish4256]

Very informative and clear at the same time. A rarity.

[@ghrosopher]

Very clear description! Is this the beginning of a series?

[@buddhistgeeks]

There are more recordings in a series on Concentration, yes. You can find them all here, under the "Six Ways to Meditate" and then "Concentration" section: book.heartofinsight.training

[@synchromesh]

@@buddhistgeeks Thanks for the link, but that site seems to have gone away - is there an updated location?

[@michaelmurphy825]

Thank you! 😊

[@joeniemchak]

DUDE NO WAY I FOUND THE BUDDHISTGEEKS KZbin CHANNEL THIS IS AWESOME WHAT'S UP VINCE!!!!

[@sheilakirwan9462]

Thanks for this 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@thejoelrooganexplosion2400]

New sub! :) Love from England

[@JhanicSatori]

Very clear and good topic !

[@rf2sports225]

love that!

[@NeilBaylis]

Hi Vince, I enjoyed working with you a few years ago, helped me a lot. I'm currently doing some Tibetan practice. Alan Wallace says that shamata practice is intended to lead to a shamata state, which he says is the same as Access Concentration. Would you agree with that characterization? It makes sense to me, and allows me to connect my previous 'Hinayana' practice to what I'm learning now.

[@GlobalDrifter1000]

Very interesting.

[@Michal_Sobczyk]

What if there is just constant daydreaming and worrying without improvement in holding time of the object in awareness throughout months or years of practice? I spent thousands of hours doing this and I still can’t reach access concentration.

[@buddhistgeeks]

Usually, that's an indication that someone needs to do some personal healing/therapy work. Deep traumas held as tensions can prevent one from being relaxed enough to dip into access concentration. Or, when one does dip into access concentration, "it" (suppressed shadow material) can come rushing up because our concentrated relaxation loosens the normal repression barriers. Both of these problems, if they are persistent, can be resolved by turning toward personal work, and rather than by trying to power through or by doing the typical spiritual bypass move.

[@synchromesh]

@@buddhistgeeks Thank you for this answer - I haven't (yet) spent thousands of hours trying for access concentration but I do often find myself spending a lot of time during m8n on rumination & fixation that obviously isn't helping. :) When you say "personal work", are you referring to e.g. metta practice, or do you mean getting professional therapy specifically? Is there a level of "modern life accumulated dings & scratches" that can be safely "powered through" or is it necessary to have most/all of your personal shit together before you can aspire to upacara samadhi and beyond?

[@buddhistgeeks]

@@synchromesh No simple answers to these questions. Also, we feel this would better be asked in a student-teaching context. www.buddhistgeeks.training

[@beermilkshake]

Damn, that was one good explanation.

[@NothingTheGreat]

To what end are we supposed to hyper-fixate on the breath until it becomes an object of fascination? This just seems like an internally-generating form of craving and entertainment. Isn't the appropriate task actually to become disillusioned with sensuality so that you stop appropriating it and becoming entangled in it? If one wants an entertaining source of absorption to just sit there and watch they can look at a campfire or cat videos.

[@buddhistgeeks]

You're confusing the aims of concentration and insight practice. Early Buddhism doesn't reject concentration practice, or the cultivation of blissful states of absorption (jhana), they simply differentiate that as a different type of training from noticing the 3 characteristics (vipassana). There's a reason both are included in the tradition.

[@NothingTheGreat]

​@@buddhistgeeks I see no evidence in the early Buddhist suttas of samatha and vipassana being treated as separate practices, but rather as complementary qualities of mind to be developed, nor do I find a focused and narrow attention being advocated for toward the cultivation of the samatha/jhana aspect of the path. Please let me know if you’re aware of any. As you're no doubt aware, "concentration" is a less than ideal translation of the Pali samādhi, which is more aptly thought of as a stilling, settling, and unifying of the mind around a theme while in a state of alert presence. Not around the nostril tip, abdomen, or any other restricted physical area. The suttas are largely devoid of formalized techniques to begin with, but the only one which could arguable be seen as referring to breath-based meditation, the Anapanasati Sutta, only has a focus on breathing in the very beginning steps, and even here it is on the level of "knowing" that you are breathing in and out... not attending to the minutiae of multiple sensations, temperature, pressure, etc., within a fixed physical perimeter. You're meant to simply discern the breathing generally, because it serves merely as a peripheral anchor while you attend to and contemplate the arising phenomena of body, feelings, mind, and Dhammas. That's why it is considered a fulfillment of the Satipatthana. The jhanas are realized through the gradual training of precepts and sense-restraint, resulting in the ability to abide satisfied in seclusion by abandoning craving and aversion. Calming is either the natural result of this virtue and sense-restraint, or it’s a stopgap method of calming agitation in the interim without resorting to sensuality as you’re progressing toward that state. The Dhamma is fundamentally about going against the grain of samsaric sensuality, not finding new forms of sensual entertainment that are somewhat subtler and less harmful, such as my prior example substituting cat videos with breath fascination. Such fixated focusing on particularized sensations seems to be found only post-canonically, and goes against the very spirit of the the 4 noble truths laid out in the canon, which entails transcending the pull of the senses, not merely trading them. Apologies if my tone reads as aggressive; just being direct in order to layout the details of a contrary view.

[@thejoelrooganexplosion2400]

EcoDharma - David R Loy