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Part 8. Right Concentration

I have the word “Samadhi” tattooed on my left arm. It’s the Pali Sanskrit word for Right Concentration, the final aspect of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. It is also the last of three aspects that concern themselves with mental discipline, concentration and meditation.

I learned how to develop Right Concentration in three main ways:
1. Focusing my attention on my breath.
2. Focusing my attention on a singular object.
3. Working with mantras.

Focusing my attention on my breath has been the mainstay of my meditative practice since the beginning. My first instruction on sitting meditation included lengthy comment on the importance of the process of breathing to the aspiring meditation student. If you are alive, you are breathing. It’s something you can always come back to. So as your mind becomes distracted by thoughts during meditation practice, simply return to your breath and remain there as long as you can. Then when you notice that you are lost in thought again, simply return your concentration to your breath. This is the process of meditation: continually pulling your attention back from your thinking mind then returning your attention to your living body, breathing in and breathing out. In this way, I feel like I learned to how internalize my practice of Right Concentration.

In 2003, while staying at a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in Southern France, I began to meditate with my eyes open. Oddly, up until that point I had been trained to keep my eyes closed during sitting meditation practice. So as I sat in meditation, instead of focusing my attention on my breath I focused on what I was seeing. At first I tried to focus on something very tiny on the ground. I would try to concentrate on it for the entire 45 minute sitting meditation period. Then I began meditating in nature, focusing my attention on a nearby tree for one sitting period, then focusing on the horizon the following period, then trying to see all things as One thing the following period. Over time, I feel like I learned how to visualize my practice of Right Concentration in this way.

In one context, I think of dharma as the ideas that we aspiring Buddhas need to understand to be free of the suffering caused by identifying with our egos. The historical Buddha described his Dharma as a raft on a river. We start our Path on the shore of greed, hatred and delusion. Then, using the raft of the Dharma we are carried to the shore of love, compassion and understanding. (And as an important side note, he mentioned that it is not necessary to carry the raft with you once you really make it across.) An ancient mantra that reminds me of this story is “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhisvaha.” I know that looks crazy, but it simply means “Gone Gone All the way gone All the way gone to the other side Fuckin’ awesome”, or something to that effect. In any case, as I sit in meditation I just concentrate and repeat the mantra evenly and consistently until reach a state of egoless absorption. In this way, I feel like I developed a way to vocalize my practice of Right Concentration.

Through these various methods of practicing Right Concentration, I feel like I was able to integrate the previous seven aspects of the Eightfold Path, coming full circle. I can see that each aspect of the Path works with the others to help us be free of the suffering created by our thinking minds. But again, it’s up to each of us as individuals to articulate these teachings in our own lives for any of it to work at all. Lasting peace of mind is possible, always. Just remember the teachings of the Buddha, come back to the present moment and you’ll see that everything is actually going quite well.