Respect for Concentration
July, 2001
We just chanted about having respect for concentration. This is an important principle to keep in mind because all too often the stillness of our minds is something we step on. An idea pops into our heads and we go running after it. We leave our home base very quickly and then find it hard to get back. We’ve got to learn how to make concentration our normal state of mind: centered, present, alert to the body, alert to things going on. It’s not that you don’t sense other things when you’re concentrated, or that you don’t register them with your senses at all. Simply that the mind doesn’t move out after them. The mind stays firmly based in the breath, its home base, and from there it protects that sense of being centered, looks after it, maintains it. This is the only way that concentration can grow, can develop the real stability we need to withstand whatever comes up.