The Possibilities of Concentration

Here we are in the heart of the holidays, and there’s also so much else going on. For me it’s crucial not to rely on finding moments of calm, but instead to remember to create them.

We all probably do that when we can by settling into the couch with a good cup of whatever. Which is beautiful. But what about also cultivating a state of mind that’s not couch-dependent? 

One way to do that is with a little concentration. Not the focused, bearing-down type that we use at work, but concentration as in relaxation: just breathing, gently, with ease and with love.

With that kind of concentration, stress evaporates, at least for the moment. There’s just presence, stillness, and rest. There’s nothing sweeter than a nice comfy couch but when one just isn’t available – like when we’re in a courtroom or Zoom room or train – the breath and gentleness and ease and love always are.  

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Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call #513. I’m in London and in about an hour I’m going to meet with Elizabeth Rimmer, the Chief Executive of Law Care, the organization in the UK that offers support for all legal professionals. I’m looking forward to it and will let you know what I learn.

Let’s go to the third step on the Noble Eightfold Path, or the third one in the way I’m organizing the path just for this series: Wise Concentration. We’ve looked at Wise Effort and Wise Mindfulness, and Wise Concentration is the third of these three “Samadhi” steps of the path, or the elements of settling and focusing the mind. 

I’ve formally studied and practiced concentration only a little, so I know just a tiny little bit, and then only about the precursors to fully concentrated states, which are called jhanas. So I’ll share what I know about the precursors.

The way that sharing seems organized in my mind, or the way Wise Concentration breaks down, to me, is in terms of the “how” or the instruction, and then in terms of the benefits. So first, here’s the “how” or instruction for basic concentration.

Relax. That’s it, or pretty much it. Which surprised the heck out of me when I first heard it. But once I tried it, it made perfect sense.

Perfect sense but not if you’re thinking about the concentration most of us learned in law school or college or from our parents. What I was taught, before I’d ever heard about Wise-anything, was that concentration was when my mind was locked down on something or drilling down into something or bearing down on something. Which makes sense for work and for some other things, too, and I don’t know about you but I’ve had lot of moments of that kind of concentration: writing 100-page leases, reviewing pleadings, doing the 2am woulda/coulda/shoulda rumination dance. Doing what I was taught and locking my mind down onto something (or in the case of rumination, watching my mind “get locked” on something). Which, at least in the case when I’m trying for that kind of concentration, can be important to know how to do. I couldn’t have gotten through even one of those leases without it. 

But that’s not Wise Concentration. Wise Concentration is totally different and actually the opposite. It’s about relaxing the mind – and also the body, and the breath – and paying attention without that bearing-down energy. I was taught to do this by paying attention to the sensation of the breath at one particular point, where the air flows over the top of the upper lip, but there are probably other ways, too. But paying attention, in the lightest, most easeful, most relaxed, way imaginable.

If you’ve done this practice, you know how interesting it is to pay attention like that, or do your best anyway, and to notice where there’s still tightness in the body, tightness in the mind. And how interesting it is, when you see that, to let go over and over and over, just a little bit more each time. And how interesting it is to see, when you do that, the mind coming together in a gentle and stable way. For me so far in my practice there have been few greater moments of ease than those, when the mind lets go of all the busyness, all the emotionality, all the grasping and clinging and desire and aversion, and simply rests, stable and easeful and yet concentrated, in my case on the breath at the upper lip.

So this is as much as I can tell you about the how – as much of an instruction as I can offer - for now at least, other than to say, the practice is a kind of conditioning that feels very nurturing and I’d even say loving – so, a loving practice. 

Which points to the two possibilities Wise Concentration has to offer. One of which is that the concentrated mind isn’t grasping or clinging or hating; or sleepy or jumpy or anxious; or doubting the importance of letting go of all the doing and simply being. Meaning, the concentrated mind is free – for the moments that it’s concentrated – free of all of those stressors, free of the hindrances in the mind. Or you could say, free of suffering. 

Not in a permanent sense, which is why I’m saying, “for the moments that it’s concentrated” – because nothing lasts, of course: we know that. Even on longer concentration retreats, what I can report of my (again) very basic concentration practice is that it’s there and then gone, there maybe a little more sustainably and then gone, and so on, and then less accessible after the retreat ends but, over time and with practice, more and more available. 

And what’s available, really, is peace. Which is not only a beautiful thing, but also, such a relief.

Which doesn’t equate, by the way, with being unaffected: we live in the world, we see a lot as lawyers, we care a lot as lawyers, and the things we see and care about and the humans we see and care about, they touch us. So we’re not unaffected, because there’s compassion. Which is great – it’s what we want. But we’re not shaken by what we see. We can bear it. And that’s the difference: the heart is touched, moved, moved even to tears, but the concentrated mind remains nonreactive, quiet, and stable. 

All of which gives rise to the second possibility of Wise Concentration, which is that the quiet, stable, mind is the mind that is open to insight: insight into the fact that it’s not this challenging world and the people in it that cause us to suffer, it’s the way we relate to all of that; insight into the impermanent nature of everything, as a reassuring understanding; and insight into the ways we’re completely interconnected and the only alternative is to bring as much love to each moment as we possibly can. 

So the first possibility of Wise Concentration is freedom, and the second is insight, which makes Wise Concentration a worthwhile practice, as far as I can tell. 

So let’s sit and I’ll just share the teeny, tiny, basics of what I know about how to dip your toe into this practice.