Right Concentration

237 pages

English language

Published April 3, 2015 by Shambhala.

ISBN:: 978-1-61180-269-6
OCLC Number:: 913469469

(1 review)

"The Buddhist jhanas--successive states of deep focus or meditative absorbtion--demystified. A very practical guidebook for meditators for navigating their way through these states of bliss and concentration. One of the elements of the Eightfold Patʼh the Buddha taught is Right Concentration: the one-pointedness of mind that, together with ethics, livelihood, meditation, and so forth, leads to the ultimate freedom from suffering. The Jhanas are the method the Buddha himself taught for achieving Right Concentration. They are a series of eight successive states, beginning with bliss and moving on toward radically nonconceptual states. The fact that they can usually be achieved only during prolonged meditation retreat tends to keep them shrouded in mystery. Leigh Brasington is here to unshroud them. He takes away the mystique and gives instructions for them in plain, accessible language, noting the various pitfalls to avoid along the way, and then providing a wealth of material on …

"The Buddhist jhanas--successive states of deep focus or meditative absorbtion--demystified. A very practical guidebook for meditators for navigating their way through these states of bliss and concentration. One of the elements of the Eightfold Patʼh the Buddha taught is Right Concentration: the one-pointedness of mind that, together with ethics, livelihood, meditation, and so forth, leads to the ultimate freedom from suffering. The Jhanas are the method the Buddha himself taught for achieving Right Concentration. They are a series of eight successive states, beginning with bliss and moving on toward radically nonconceptual states. The fact that they can usually be achieved only during prolonged meditation retreat tends to keep them shrouded in mystery. Leigh Brasington is here to unshroud them. He takes away the mystique and gives instructions for them in plain, accessible language, noting the various pitfalls to avoid along the way, and then providing a wealth of material on the theory of jhana practice--all geared toward the practitioner rather than the scholar"--

1 edition

Moorlock reviewed Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington

Review of 'Right concentration' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Brasington believes that jhāna practice as taught in the suttas has been misinterpreted in later works in such a way as to confuse it and make it seem unattainable by typical non-monastic practitioners today. He believes that the jhānas are accessible by determined practitioners and that jhānas are both immediately encouraging (and fun) and useful in how they can assist later insight practice. This book walks you through brief descriptions of how these jhānas play out and how to go about discovering them, after which Brasington goes into detail about how he resolves the conflicts between the suttas and later works on the subject. Most of that last bit was lost on me as I have only the most superficial familiarity with Buddhist scripture. But the earlier stuff about jhānas and how to get there from here was fairly easy to follow without a lot of scriptural background.

Subjects

Meditation
Theravāda Buddhism