Eightfold Path: Spacious Concentration

I am teaching the Eightfold Path in a slightly different order than is traditional*, because two years ago when we explored these concepts, I created the analogy of the cooking pot to view the whole set of eight aspects as a helpful way to remember how these aspects work together. So this time, with a slight refinement in the analogy, we are working in the order that makes sense for building upon that analogy. We started with the ‘pot’ itself. Imagine the Buddhist bell bowl that I ring at the end of meditation and that graces the masthead of my blog. The ‘pot’ holding the world in an open embrace, cupped, and that well represents Spacious View.

Once we have the pot, we need a few other things to start ‘cooking.’ We need to have on hand -- readily available in any moment -- the match to ignite the flame of our practice and that is Spacious Intention. We need the underlying logs, the fuel that keeps the flame burning, and this is Spacious Effort, the crossed logs representing the balanced effort required to support our practice and Spacious View. Too little effort and the fire goes out, too much and all is consumed in flame. Spacious Concentration is the spoon with which we stir our consciousness, creating a vortex of clarity and focus. The consciousness inside the pot may at first be murky, like when you add sugar to water and it turns opaque. But over the flame of Spacious Effort and with the focused stirring of Spacious Concentration, the murkiness disappears and consciousness becomes clear. The result is Spacious Mindfulness. As it continues to heat, held in Spacious View, fueled by Spacious Effort, sparked by Spacious Intention, and stirred by Spacious Concentration, a naturally occurring steam rises out of mindfulness in the form of Spacious Action, Spacious Speech and Spacious Livelihood, going out to interact with the world.

I like to teach the three steams last, because only when we get some clarity and awareness can we begin to notice for ourselves where we are unskillful in action, speech and livelihood. If we go there first, we can get stuck in self-righteousness, feeling we know how to be good, we’ve got this down; or we can feel scalded by what we perceive as scolding and get defensive. If we are told by a teacher that our actions, words and ways of earning a living are unskillful, without developing the clarity to see this for ourselves, we will most likely stir up a murkier, less conscious stew out of our lives, receiving the teachings as judgments, accusations that either anger us or leave us in despair. Coming from a Judeo-Christian background, as the majority of us do, these three areas can easily be taken as just another set of commandments, which would be a total misrepresentation of the Eightfold Path and its purpose.

So, Spacious Concentration. It sounds like an oxymoron. That’s good! Oxymorons attract the mind, like a puzzle to play with. Zen koans seem to be oxymorons of a sort. With each new aspect of the Eightfold Path, I spend a week of investigation with replacing ‘right’ or ‘wise’ with the word ‘spacious’ and it continues to be a rich exploration. Sometimes spacious seems quite natural, like Spacious View. But concentration seems perhaps the least likely to make any sense.

The word 'concentrate' may bring up associations that cause tension. Concentration seems to be about struggling to think really, really hard, with our brain laser focused on some problem.

But in fact the traditional teachings of concentration practices, called the jhanas, were developed by the Buddha to help us create the space for a spontaneous experience, like the one he remembered having as a child. Perhaps you remember a spontaneous experience in your life of sensing a state of open awareness, a unitive state, a state of loving kindness, a state of being known as vital and valued even while being as miniscule as a drop of dew on a rose petal?

This spontaneous awakening into bliss is not unusual. I’ve shared some of my early experiences of these ‘brief relief’ respites from the illusion of isolation. I imagine that many people who meditate are those who, whether they remember it or not, have had such experiences and, like the Buddha, believe they can experience it again and perhaps sustain that clarity.

Here’s the Buddha’s story: The young boy Siddhartha was sitting under a tree, observing his father doing a ceremony when he found himself in a state that was both pleasurable and powerful. Powerful enough that he remembered it many years later, when he abandoned the ascetic path after six years of self-imposed deprivation, pain and difficulty. He had been phenomenally skilled at all the ascetic exercises he undertook, but knew in his heart that something was missing. We can imagine him thinking “It shouldn’t have to be this hard,” and then remembering that naturally-occurring childhood state while sitting under a tree. He decided to see if he could replicate that simple experience. So he went and sat under a tree, what we now call the Bodhi tree or tree of awakening because he set his intention to sit there until he awakened. And he did, and the rest is Buddhist history.

The jhanas are specific instructions he developed for the cultivation of what I think could fairly be called a state of ‘unitive’ awareness during meditation. We have not been formally practicing jhanas, but what we do as our meditation is very much akin to it. First develop the ability to stay present with the breath, then expand that awareness so that the breath is just a part of the experience. The jhanas cultivate the ability to let go into a state that is beyond labels or words but is not lost in a fog of unconsciousness or dreamy. It may be experienced as light or many other ways, and the experience is both pleasurable and powerful enough to make a significant long term impact. As meditators we have no expectation of experiencing such a state in any given meditation. Instead we are cultivating the spaciousness of mind to receive such a state, and, at the same time, creating spaciousness in our lives, whether we ever experience bliss or not.

Many Buddhist practitioners are concerned about getting attached to bliss states. This is probably why traditionally the aspect of concentration is taught last, and the jhanas are reserved for more advanced students, as they could be so easily misunderstood as escape routes. Without a grounding in fundamental Buddhist concepts and substantial practice in mediation, a person could think of the bliss state as a goal to be pursued, akin to drugged states that allow them to forget about their lives. Our intention through meditation is not to escape challenges and responsibilities, but to transform our relationship to them, to rest in spacious compassion and clarity that allows us to be fully present with whatever arises in our lives. Our intention is to be responsive rather than reactive, skillful in our speech and actions, to be conduits of loving kindness rather than purveyors of misery.

The ongoing practice of Spacious Concentration can fundamentally alter the brain so that we can perceive the inner workings of the mind and have fruitful insights, which we will discuss more when we explore Spacious Mindfulness.

Spacious Concentration is the practice of staying fully present, refining that focus to a fine point of stillness in the here and now and letting go of all else.

The word ‘spacious’ that at first seemed to create an oxymoron when linked with the word concentration, now clearly has an important role. The very word ‘spacious’ helps to release tension in our bodies, in our minds, giving us room to let go.

Developing Spacious Concentration begins with relaxation. A little metta (loving kindness) practice is very helpful to soften the tension that can build up around the prospect of concentrating. “May I be well, may I be happy, may I be at peace.” When we really feel ourselves bathed in the infinite loving kindness, this unconditional sense of good will, our muscles and minds relax quite naturally.

In Vipassana (insight) meditation we focus on the rising and falling of our breath. But if we like, we can experiment with objects of focus from other traditions: a candle flame, a shell, a flower or a mantra, allowing ourselves to become fully absorbed in the experience.

There are two kinds of concentration: deep absorption and open field awareness. We practice both regularly in class. Alternating between the two, giving each sufficient time to be fully felt, is a skillful way to develop Spacious Concentration. If you think about our cooking pot analogy with Spacious Concentration as the spoon with which we stir consciousness as it simmers and transforms into mindfulness, you know that there are times when you need to stir constantly, like when making risotto, and other times when you can stir and then rest from stirring, but you never lose awareness that you have a pot on the stove.

In class we did more intensive concentration practices instead of discussion. I encourage you to do the same on your own. Also you might want to revisit the previous post on Right Concentration.

*Traditionally teaching starts with the panna or wisdom practices of Right View and Right Intention, which we did. But then tradition takes us to the Virtue Practices called sila, which are Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood, perhaps because these practices could be undertaken even without a meditation practice. Then the samadhi or concentration practices of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration are taught. But again the Eightfold Path is circular, the petals of a lotus opening, so any place we start is just fine.

Eightfold Path: Right Concentration

The eighth aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Concentration.
How is this different from Right Mindfulness?
The best way I can phrase it for myself right now is that Right Concentration is a dedicated practice that builds the muscle of mindfulness.

Why isn't it taught first, not last?
The Eightfold Path is seen as petals on a flower, all working in concert expressing different aspects of a single truth. Although it might seem sensible to teach Right Concentration first (and of course it is taught as part of any meditation practice), teaching it last assures that it is grounded in the wisdom of Right View and Right Intention and informed with the ethics of Right Speech, Right Action and Right LIvelihood. Understanding Right Effort helps to temper the potential for intensity in a concentration practice. And understanding Right Mindfulness adds clarity to the practice.

This makes sense given our general life experience of the word 'concentrate.' The word may bring up associations that cause tension. “Concentrate!” a teacher tells us, as if squinching our brains up tight and hunkering down over our paper will somehow produce the desired result. “I can’t concentrate!” we tell our kids when they are racing around the house as we are trying to do the taxes or some other equally challenging task. From these experiences, concentration seems to be about being able to think really really hard. And it’s really really hard to do.

Right Concentration is something else entirely. Done with Right Effort, it is a steadying of the mind so that we can sustain a clear focus on a single object or experience, or sustain a broad awareness of all experience that occurs from moment to moment.

Developing Right Concentration begins with relaxation. A little metta (loving kindness) practice is very helpful to soften the tension that can build up around the prospect of concentrating. “May I be well, may I be happy, may I be at peace.” When we really feel ourselves bathed in the infinite loving kindness, this incredible unconditional good will, our muscles and minds relax quite naturally.

In Vipassana (insight) meditation we focus on the rising and falling of our breath. But in developing Right Concentration, we can also experiment with other objects of focus: a candle flame, a shell, a flower, allowing ourselves to become fully absorbed in the experience. Choose your object, then close your eyes and do a little metta practice. Then in the light of that loving sense of presence, open your eyes and gaze upon the object of your focus. Allow the labels, associations, memories, etc. to rise and pass as part of the experience. Allow the background to come forward and recede, as part of the experience. Simply be with whatever arises.

Bring the fruits of this experience into your regular meditation, with your focus on the breath. Bring the fruits of this experience into a walk in nature, noticing, noticing, pausing whenever something draws your attention. Forget about getting anywhere. You are already here. Bring the fruits of this experience into your daily chores. Allow the water in which you wash your dishes to captivate your attention. Bring the fruits of this experience into your relationship. Aren’t your loved ones, your friends, your co-workers each as uniquely fascinating as a rose?

This kind of deep absorption is a lovely gift we give ourselves through the exercise of single object focusing. Next we can experiment with expanding our field of focus. We are fully aware of our bodily sensations and all that the senses perceive: sounds, smells, tastes, textures, temperature. A sound will become dominant and we stay with that until a it passes, then the most dominant sensation is our heartbeat, so we stay with that awhile, etc. Whatever arises we notice with a soft and open attention. Whatever thoughts or feelings arise we notice as well. They are simply objects of curiosity arriving and leaving this field of our awareness. As if we were sitting in Grand Central Station enjoying the comings and goings of people and trains – all the hustle bustle – as we sit holding the whole experience with great compassion in this still point of center.

We will undoubtedly have the experience of our thoughts getting caught up in story about some aspect of our experience. Upon hearing a sound, our habit of mind is to identify its source, so not surprisingly we may find we have sent our mind to investigate and conjecture. Left to its own devices without the intention to be present and the practice of Right Concentration, we may get caught up in further habitual thought patterns. We might wonder ‘Who would be making that noise at this time of day? Don’t they know better than to…’ Judgment gets into play. Then memory might leap in. The sound reminds us of something else. The person making the sound once did something else to annoy us. We may feel victimized. Why can’t I live in a quieter place? Which sparks a daydream about a little house in the country, etc. etc. You know all too well what I’m talking about. Our minds may have different patterns, but they all have patterns, patterns of story making. And all the stories are sticky like flypaper. The flapping paper always looks enticing, always seems to promise something fascinating, but then there we are, stuck in the story again.

Fortunately, unlike the poor fly, we truly can unstick ourselves at any moment. Right Concentration is the gentle practice of staying with whatever arises, hearing the sound as pure sound. And if we succumb to the lure of the flypaper story, Right Concentration paired with Right Intention can bring us back to the present and Right Mindfulness.

You may be familiar with the work of John Cage, the 20th century avant-garde composer. His most famous and controversial composition, titled 4’33” is performed without a single note being played. Imagine the first audience in 1952 waiting for the piece to ‘begin.’ For four minutes and 33 seconds Cage offers the audience the chance to listen to …the sound of an audience. Whatever coughing, restless stirring and maybe whispering sounds occur become the composition. Cage creates a formal place and time to frame these few minutes of direct experience.

I am sure that there were members of the audience who took the performance as a joke. If they took it as a joke on them, they were probably angry and that anger fueled attitudes toward every subsequent exposure to anything in art they didn’t readily understand. If they felt they were ‘in’ on the joke, because they were clever enough to ‘get it’ then they might have been smug, and they tripped over that smugness in every subsequent experience, never allowing themselves the pure joy of not knowing.

No doubt others barely noticed what had happened, so tuned into their own thoughts, so ready to tune out of whatever experience was presented, that those few minutes were a blur, and afterwards they looked around asking, “Wha..?”

Some chalked it up to a waste of time but let it go as soon as they were out the door. “What can you expect of artists? They’re all crazy, just confirms what I’ve always said…”

Others, after two or three minutes of this strange un-event, probably started noticing the quixotic tumble of their own thoughts and emotions: the confusion, irritation, amusement, impatience, aggravation -- whatever arose from this unusual situation.

Of these, some may well have become aware of the noise in the hall as pure sound, and they may have had a profound experience of being fully present for whatever arises, experiencing the sounds of coughs and stirrings as a life symphony.

No doubt, some of those who did probably turned that into a sticky story of how insightful they were, shoring up a sense of identity to protect them from the dreaded void. But others were undoubtedly affected deeply and began to experience the world around them in a very different way.

As a meditator practicing Right Concentration, why not give yourself 4 minutes and 33 seconds to formally be attentive to the composition that arises right now. Even as you read this, there are sounds and sensations around you to attend. Sensing in to your body, its pulsing energy and whatever else is present right now; sensing sound as pure sound rather than the ‘sound of’ something happening; looking around you, allowing the light and shadow to become prominent, then allowing color to become prominent, then allowing foreground and background to dance with each other; feeling the texture of your clothes on your skin, the pressure of your feet or buttocks resting on the surface below you.

Both deep absorption and spacious awareness are Right Concentration. And Right Concentration is possible even when the kids are racing around the house! Just think of them as a gift of awareness from John Cage.

An Introduction to the Noble Eightfold Path

Now we begin on the Fourth Noble Truth. To review the first three:The First Noble Truth is that there is suffering, the Second that it is our tendency to grasp and cling that causes this suffering, and the Third is that the end of suffering is possible. (For more in depth discussion, refer to prior posts in the archive at right.)

The Fourth Noble Truth is that The Noble Eightfold Path is the means to end suffering by developing Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

On our first encounter with the idea of there being ‘right’ views, speech, etc., we may bristle. We don’t want to be forced into a particular way of speaking or thinking. We want to speak authentically and think for ourselves.

For me the single most powerful sentence the Buddha spoke, the one that drew me to Buddhist study in the first place, was “Be a lamp unto yourself.” (Before I ever undertook to study Buddhism, I had that quote on the back of my book, Tapping the Wisdom Within, A Guide to Joyous Living.) For me, this list of do’s and don’ts just didn’t jive with that statement.

Since becoming a Buddhist practitioner it has been easy to just ignore the subject. There are so many rich veins of Buddhism to explore that even over the course of many years The Eightfold Path rarely came up in any dharma talks in weekly classes or retreats I attended.

But then when the upper retreat hall and residences were built at Spirit Rock, they installed a beautiful hand-painted prayer wheel in the pedestrian entry gate. It is adorned with illustrations of the Eightfold Path. As you walk through, you take a handle -- perhaps the one named ‘Right Effort’ -- and spin the wheel. Then that focus of Right Effort (or whichever handle you took) stays with you as an intention.

In my comings and goings, I always enjoy spinning the prayer wheel. I remember one day I was walking through, and I had a bit of an aha moment about the Eightfold Path. I recognized that I had resistance to being told what to do, but that in fact, these were not dictates that I must subscribe to or rules of behavior I have to live by, lest I fail to be a good Buddhist. Instead I could see them as useful guideposts, so that when I am suffering I can see them in the fog of my misery shining a helpful light to help me see the cause of my suffering.

For example, say I am feeling oddly discomforted and don’t know why. I can mentally review the Eightfold Path to see if there is anything there to guide me. Say that on this occasion when I come upon Right Speech, and then I remember that the night before I had been talking about someone, telling a story that wasn’t mine to tell, and now I have this residual sense of ickiness, as if I truly have wandered into a sticky and stinky bog in my mind. But now I can see that by not adhering to Right Speech, I had wandered off the Eightfold Path.

That guidepost sheds the light of awareness on my behavior and brings me back on the path. Each time I find my way back, I have learned something valuable. And though I will probably wander off the path many times in many ways, these guideposts help me return more quickly, so that my suffering is shortened as I develop the habit of looking to the guideposts for cues to my current discomfort.

If a path sounds constricting, like a ‘straight and narrow’ path, the truth is that this path is incredibly spacious. For by staying on the path, we free ourselves to be fully present in every moment in an unencumbered way. And that is deep authentic connection indeed.

Over the coming weeks we will explore the aspects of the Eightfold Path. Each is a facet of the same jewel of wisdom, and they are so deeply inter-related that insight in one aspect brings understanding in another. Together they have the capacity to enrich our lives, sweeten our relationships and deepen our practice.

Yes, the Buddha told us to be lamps unto ourselves. But he also offered these guideposts to shed light on our path in order that we may brighten and strengthen our own inner light.