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Arranging proper circumstances for calm abiding meditation
- Live in a proper and conducive place
- Have few desires and attachments
- Be content
- Avoid distractions and extraneous activities
- Maintain pure ethical conduct
- Abandon preconceptions about sense objects
2. Actual way to Practice Calm Abiding
a) Five deterrents to calm abiding
- Laziness
- Forgetting the object of meditation
- Laxity and agitation
- Not applying antidotes to the deterrents
- Applying antidotes when they are not needed
b) Eight antidotes
- Confidence or faith in the benefits of calm abiding
- Aspiration
- Joyous effort
- Pliancy, serviceability of body and mind
- Mindfulness
- Introspective alertness
- Application of appropriate antidotes
- Equanimity
3. Nine stages in practicing calm abiding
- Setting (placing) the mind
- Continuous setting
- Resetting
- Close setting
- Taming
- Pacification
- Thorough pacification
- Single pointedness
- Setting in equipoise
4. Six mental powers to attain these stages
- Hearing
- Thinking
- Mindfulness
- Introspective alertness
- Effort
- Familiarity
5. Four engagements to employ to do this
- Painstaking (forceful)
- Repeated (interrupted)
- Uninterrupted
- Effortless (spontaneous)