Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

The Concentration Algorithm

With Toby Sola recorded on May 4, 2025.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

Discover a “concentration algorithm” that transforms your practice. Instead of fighting distractions, this approach teaches you to work with them skillfully.

When your concentration wavers, notice what captured your attention, then make that distraction your new meditation object. This process reveals two valuable insights: first, that any sensory experience can serve as a meditation anchor beyond just the breath; and second, it helps you identify which objects your mind naturally gravitates toward, making sustained concentration more accessible in future sessions.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • James Baraz

    Groundlessness: Letting Go Into the Unknown

    Pema Chödrön writes, “It’s not impermanence per se, or knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation.” The truth of impermanence means that ultimately there is nothing we can rely on for lasting happiness. We will investigate the underlying feeling…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of May 30, 2022

    This week’s theme is: Bringing the Practice to Life. The Buddha’s teachings emphasise the whole of our lives as a rich ground for exploration and growth.  Through meditation, we cultivate skills and ways of relating that can be applied beyond formal meditation. This week we will explore bringing the practice to different areas and aspects of our lives. We will open to taste how this enlivens and rejuvenates our practice, and how it can nurture wellbeing for others and ourselves.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of March 30

    We’re fortunate that Martin Aywlard has generously offered to lead our daily meditation sessions for Europe and the UK. To find out more about Martin, and to view his other contributions to Sangha Live, click here. Monday, March 30 Being in the body Wednesday, April 1 The elements of bodily life Friday, April 3 Being…

    Read More

  • Fleet Maull

    Neuro-Somatic Mindfulness (NSM): An Integrated Approach to Embodiment, Personal Well-Being, Evolution, & Conscious Awakening

    Roshi Fleet will describe and offer a stack of embodiment practices for building the neural architecture for optimal well-being, psychological and spiritual evolution, and conscious awakening, providing a pathway to a joyful life of meaning and purpose. Specifically he will offer practices for targeting the five neural networks of healing and awakening.

    Read More

  • Ralph Steele

    Embodying cultural diversity: dancing with the basket of virtue

    Our Sangha has been predominately white since it branched off from the Asian countries. This Dharma talk offers a path for deeper inquiry and greater insight into how we can embody cultural diversity. The Eight Noble Truths will guide us toward a healthier way of conducting ourselves in the arena of cultural diversity, taking a…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of May 1, 2023

    This week’s topic is “A Path of Wisdom and Compassion”. Practicing Insight Meditation supports an understanding of how wellbeing is nourished, and how ill-being is conditioned. Attending to our own heart and mind with compassion and wisdom opens possibilities of freedom. Over this week of practice, we’ll develop wisdom and compassion, exploring creative responses to habits that appear to obscure these beautiful qualities.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Feeling the blessings of your life.

    We are easily and often exposed to the greed, hatred and delusion that easily directs our own minds, and seems to be running the world. Yet whatever our personal circumstances, there is much we can appreciate and be grateful for. In this session, Martin explores the quality of appreciation – mudita – as a way…

    Read More