Tag: Lovingkindness

Concentration ultimately means one-pointedness of mind - the centering of the mind and mental factors rightly and evenly on an object. Right concentration collects together the dispersed stream of mental states to induce an inner unification. Unbroken attentiveness to an object brings along tranquility of the mental functions. The unconcentrated mind moves in a scattered manner and rushes from idea to idea, from thought to thought, without inner control. Such a distracted mind often gets overwhelmed by worries and concerns, it sees things only in fragments, distorted by the ripples of random thoughts ... read more of What is Right Concentration? ...

Speech – as well as written words - can have enormous consequences. Speech can break lives, create friends, create enemies, start wars, end wars. Right Speech has four components: abstaining from false speech; abstaining from slanderous speech; abstaining from harsh speech; and abstaining from idle chatter.

This has both a negative and a positive aspect. The negative aspect is abstaining from lying, the positive side speaking the truth. The determinative factor is the intention to deceive. If one speaks something false believing it to be true the intention to deceive is absent ... read more of The Divisions of Right Speech ...

Right Intention is the purposive aspect of mental activity - the application of thoughts to achieve ones goals. Right Understanding and Right Intention - the cognitive and the purposive side of the mind respectively - intertwine and interact in close correlation. Intentions are the link between our cognitive thoughts and our active engagement in the world. When the intentions are right, the actions will be right, and for the intentions to be right the right understanding must be present. Where wrong understanding prevails, the outcome is wrong intention which gives rise to unwholesome actions ... read more of What is Right Intention? ...