I’ve been doing a series of Dharma talks on the six paramitas. The six paramitas are:

• Generosity

• Ethical behavior/Virtue

• Patience

• Effort

• Concentration/Meditation

• Wisdom

Last week I talked about the paramita of “effort” this week I’d like to talk about the paramita of “concentration.” Paramita is usually translated as “perfection” but a literal translation is “to carry across.” Because it is believed that practicing and actualizing these will carry us across the vast ocean of suffering - to the other side - which is enlightenment.

The basic Buddhist technique for developing concentration is simply to chose a particular object of meditation, place your attention on it, and then keep it there without wavering. You can choose from a wide range of objects, including your breath, a patch of color, the visualized image of Shakyamuni Buddha, or even your own mind, just to name a few.

Different traditions have their own favorite practices, and some measure of concentration is important for all of them. For example, followers of certain devotional Pure Land schools of Buddhism focus their energy on gaining rebirth in the western paradise of Amitabha Buddha. As part of their training, they may practice visualizing this Buddha and his surroundings in as much detail as possible, until the image appears with utter clarity to their mind’s eye. Followers of the Rinzai Zen tradition focus much of their attention on resolving koans (enigmatic teaching stories) — such as the famous “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “What is your original face before your parents were born?” — until they break through the limitations of ordinary, conceptual thought. Without strong and continuous concentration, neither the Pure Land follower nor the Zen practitioner is likely to achieve great success — and the same holds true for serious practitioners of other traditions as well.

Strong powers of concentration take time to develop, though occasionally a novice meditator may make surprisingly rapid advances. Even though you try to focus on one specific object (your breath, for example), any number of attention grabbers can easily distract you, including

• Sounds (of traffic, birds, and so on)

• Physical sensations (pain in your knees or itching)

• Memories (for example, what you had for breakfast)

• Anticipations and expectations for the future (maybe what you want for lunch)

Almost any other experience that you can name

Many of these experiences are distracting because they stimulate strong desire, attachment, irritation, or frustration. For this reason, meditators trying to develop powerful, single-pointed concentration also generally practice letting go of their strong attachments and aversions by recognizing how fleeting and unsatisfactory they are. Deep concentration can only grow in a contented mind.

In the early stages of your practice, you have to be patient and persistent, firmly (but gently) placing your attention back on the meditation object every time it wanders away, which will probably happen quite a bit. But, if you practice diligently enough, your attention will begin to gravitate naturally toward the meditation object (Instead of the distractions) and eventually come to rest there on its own. Instead of being at the mercy of your fickle mind, you gradually become adept at controlling it.

As your concentration deepens, you naturally progress through a number of well-defined stages of meditation. Although you can read about these stages in various meditation manuals, practicing under the guidance of a competent teacher is important — at least until you’re well established in the practice. Otherwise, you can get sidetracked in numerous ways. You can even practice what you think is meditation for many years, when in reality, you’re only building up habits of mental dullness.

If your practice is diligent enough, you can reach a level of concentration far beyond what you normally experience. For example,

You can develop the capacity to direct your attention to your chosen object of meditation and have it remain there with little or no effort, undisturbed by distractions or dullness.

This level of concentration not only deepens your meditation practice, but it also has beneficial effects on your life in general. Disturbances like anger, greed, and jealousy can’t easily arise in a calmly focused mind; when they do, they don’t remain there for long.

Deep concentration also brings the body and mind into balance, resulting in the disappearance of even chronic aliments.

Deep concentration allows you to focus unwaveringly on any task, enabling you to function far more effectively at work and play.

Ultimately, however, the purpose of developing the power of deep concentration is to enable you to investigate the nature of reality. Only in this way can you develop the penetrating insight that eliminates ignorance, the root cause of all suffering and dissatisfaction. This insight, also known as wisdom, is the subject of the last of the six perfections.