Be honest: can you imagine holding your mind on a single object for four hours?
If you can’t, you definitely need to catch Episode 47 of Vibe with Venerables with Venerable Tsepal (@sravastiabbey). Ven Tsepal opens the second block of the Three Higher Trainings by concentrating on, well, concentration. She talks about the concentration we already have—the kind that gets us through a workday or an online form—then shows how far that sits from what the tradition actually means by samadhi. She draws on both the Pali and Sanskrit traditions, and makes the case that we have more in common across schools than we tend to assume.
What we get into:
- What constitutes Higher Training of Concentration.
- How concentration is a means to awakening.
- The difference between everyday focus and single-pointed meditative concentration.
- What shamatha actually is, and the four-hour benchmark that defines it.
- The supernormal powers and super-knowledges.
- Three conditions you can start cultivating today for better concentration.
Stay for the question about thoughts that arrive from nowhere, whether meditating with tinnitus is even possible, and the simplest experiment in the whole episode: a piece of paper, a pen, and one hash mark every time you pick up your phone.
Additional Resources
Book: Impermanence in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana – cited for the quote on jhanas and the return of mental defilements after emerging from meditative absorption.
Donation
This series is freely offered by Buddhism.net. If you’d like to show your appreciation and gratitude to the teaching Venerable, Venerable Chodron, and Sravasti Abbey, you may make a donation to Sravasti Abbey (https://sravastiabbey.org/donation/). We thank you for dāna, the practice of cultivating generosity.
