Concentration in the Pali tradition

• Taking efforts to cultivate serenity
• Importance of meditating on lamrim topics
• 6 temperaments
• 40 objects
• 10 kasinas and 10 unattractive objects
• 10 recollections
• 4 divine abidings, 4 formless states
• One discrimination and one analysis
• 22 objects have counterpart sign
• Access concentration and full absorption
• How to prepare for concentration meditation

73 Concentration in the Pali Tradition (download)

Contemplation points

1. What are some of the reasons you might neglect to cultivate concentration in your spiritual practice? What is the danger in doing so and what is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s advice for practitioners to avoid this?
2. Why is it so important to train in serenity under the guidance of a qualified teacher and not try to do these practices on our own?
3. Spend some time considering the various meditation objects in the Pali tradition to develop concentration. What are some of the ways a meditator apprehends the various objects? How do they relate to a meditator’s temperament and be used by the meditator’s teacher to determine the best meditation object to recommend?
4. Consider the preliminaries to concentration meditation recommended in the text: review the disadvantages of sensual desire and cultivate the wish to be free from it, recollect the qualities of the Three Jewels and feel joyful, reflex that you are entering the path of renunciation that all aryas have followed, and feel eager to meditate, knowing that by doing this you will gain the bliss of Dharma realizations. How are these four beneficial specifically for the cultivation of concentration? Make your contemplation personal: How might considering these four preliminaries benefit your own life and practice?