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**gabbaman** · 04-20-2012, 06:11 AM

Bhikkhu Thanissaro uses "remains focused". the other bhikkhu use the English term "contemplating"

does anyone have any comment about these terms?

I feel that contemplating is near to the experience of a peaceful mind. To be at ease with things. For example, to be focused, in my experience, happens when all effort is put in a single aspect of a wider phenomenon. To contemplate includes the wholeness of an event.

There are two approaches when reading a Sutta. One is to be focused, as when happens with intellectual study. The other is to be within the Sutta, like feeling it in its broader meaning.

Personally, is like when listening to music. One can be focused in some aspect of it. It is tyring. But when you listen to the wholeness of the oeuvre is like a letting go... instead of the tension of being focused is a kind of being within the music, as becoming part of it.

When a sutta is under contemplation the distance between one and the sutta is lost and the understanding is not intellectual but done by heart.

There is a Sutta where Buddha tells his disciples to be Samanas or those who dedicate life to contemplation. That was the final word that made me a disciple of Gotama Buddha.

04-20-2012, 06:11 AM	#13
gabbaman Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 467 Senior Member	Bhikkhu Thanissaro uses "remains focused". the other bhikkhu use the English term "contemplating" does anyone have any comment about these terms? I feel that contemplating is near to the experience of a peaceful mind. To be at ease with things. For example, to be focused, in my experience, happens when all effort is put in a single aspect of a wider phenomenon. To contemplate includes the wholeness of an event. There are two approaches when reading a Sutta. One is to be focused, as when happens with intellectual study. The other is to be within the Sutta, like feeling it in its broader meaning. Personally, is like when listening to music. One can be focused in some aspect of it. It is tyring. But when you listen to the wholeness of the oeuvre is like a letting go... instead of the tension of being focused is a kind of being within the music, as becoming part of it. When a sutta is under contemplation the distance between one and the sutta is lost and the understanding is not intellectual but done by heart. There is a Sutta where Buddha tells his disciples to be Samanas or those who dedicate life to contemplation. That was the final word that made me a disciple of Gotama Buddha.
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