One-Pointedness of Mind

[Mark Foote]

I posted a reply on someone's personal practice thread--didn't realize that's what it was, at first. I thought it might be of interest to the wider community.

Forthwith!

 

Quote

 

On 1/14/2026 at 11:20 AM, Keith108 said:

 

Good advice!

 

A minor quibble though. There is nothing direct about the Pali Canon. It was written over four centuries after he died, in a place where he didn't live, in a language he didn't speak. Folks seem to fetishize the idea that Theravada is some kind of original Buddhism, spoken by the Buddha himself. It isn't. That's not good or bad. Just something not to get too hung up on, imho.

 

_/|\_ 

 

 

 

You're right about the circumstances in which the teachings were finally committed to writing, and the language. I wouldn't have to rely on them  so much, if anyone else taught the things that are in those texts. I think their uniqueness, especially with regard to states of concentration and mindfulness as a way of living, speaks to their authenticity.

Something that might interest you. I spent part of yesterday reading an e-book by Kumari Bhikkyu, titled "What You Might Not Know About Jhana and Samadhi". In the book, he talks about modern Theravadin teachings that separate Samadhi/jhanas from Vipassana in the attainment of enlightenment, based largely on the Visuddhimagga commentary (composed a millennia after Gautama's death). He points out that the Pali sermon teachings do not make such a distinction.

Would seem that present-day orthodox Theravadin teaching is not necessarily in accord with the early Buddhist texts. 

I did write to Kumari Bhikkyu, after I read what he had to say about "one-pointedness of mind":

 

Ekaggacitta has three parts: eka (one) + agga + citta (mind). When a translator renders ekaggatā as “one-pointedness”, he would have to render ekaggacitta as “one-pointed mind”, which you may have seen. “One-pointed mind”—what does it mean? It is an odd expression, not understandable in normal English.

 

Some of what I wrote:

 

Here’s another way of looking at “one-pointedness”, from my experience:

 

… “one-pointedness” occurs when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a singular location in the body, and a person “lays hold of one-pointedness” when they remain awake as the singular location shifts.

 

(Just to Sit)

 

 

I find support from modern neurobiology, which speaks of “the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders”:

 

A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders (embodied self-location).

 

(Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214)

I would have to guess that an inability to discover the correlate of "one-pointedness" or "one-pointedness of mind" in personal experience is the cause of the divergence of Theravadin teachings from the the Pali sermon teachings. If a person hasn't had the experience, they can't begin to talk about the concentrations outlined in the Pali sermons, since Gautama made clear that "right concentration" WAS "one-pointedness of mind".

Bhikkyu Kumari is not alone in his dismay. Bhikkyu Thannisaro dedicated a sermon to deriding "one-pointedness" (How Pointy is One-pointedness), concluding that it meant focusing one's attention on a single object. 

 

I prefer Zen teacher Koun Franz's approach:

 

So (in seated meditation), have your hands… palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction:  place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6], by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site)
 

 

In Gautama's teaching, the first concentration follows "an act of letting go":

 

Making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness.

 

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)

 

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Mark Foote