MSI Press Blog

How We Meditate Right Concentration furnishes the eighth step on Buddha’s Eightfold Path. Technically, Right Concentration signifies passing through four stages in meditation called jhanas , and arriving at mindfulness. While the steps on the path are not consecutive and are practiced together, Buddha said that by following the previous steps, that is, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Understanding, Right Effort, Right Intention, Right Livelihood, and Right Mindfulness, we arrive at Right Concentration. When we concentrate, we focus our attention on something. Concentration, here called samadhi ,  means that we focus our mind on an object that helps us to become more wholesome and pure in our awareness. As we know, a distracted mind races between ideas, thoughts, and concepts, filled with anxiety, worry, concern, and delusion (thinking that things differ from the way they actually are). This mind has been compared to the antics of a drunken monkey. A drunken monkey...

What We Mean to Do Right Intention (sometimes called Right Thought) relates to what and how we think. We are most concerned with the part of our thinking that always wants something (which, as humans, is most of our thinking). Buddha said that what we think (and say and do) is what we are. If we think, talk, and act in mean, selfish, and hurtful ways, we find difficulty coming into our lives. If we think, talk, and act in kind and loving ways, we find happiness coming into our lives. Buddha described it as “a shadow that never leaves us." Intention is our true nature trying to come out. It is our inner compass. If we are mindful or aware of our thoughts, we see the nature of our intent. We choose whether it is good or bad, helpful or hurtful. With Right Intention, we promise to be good, and mainly do three things: be aware that we always want things and can take them or leave them; renounce or give up those things that our thinking always wants; and becom...