Search results for: "Thought"

  1. Page 101
  2. Mindfulness 2.0
     … As the Buddha said, one of the purposes of meditation is to think thoughts that you want to think and not think thoughts you don’t want to think. That, too, is one of the purposes of mindfulness. He calls mindfulness a governing principle. In other words, it watches over what’s unskillful and figures out how to put an end to it. It … 
  3. Parsing Out Suffering
     … Which kinds of activity are you attached to? Is there a particular perception you like? A particular feeling or thought fabrication? Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about his contemplation of the body. The practice got so that he was really good at looking at every person and seeing them reduced to what was inside. But it didn’t really put in an end to the … 
  4. Persistence: Lift Your Heart
     … Often I’ve thought I had a pain or tightness in my chest, but it really wasn’t in the chest. It was actually in the back. Or something that seemed to be in the back was actually in the stomach. You’re going to discover things like that only if you play with your perceptions. Turn them around. Turn them inside out, upside … 
  5. Happiness is a Skill
    When I went back to Thailand to ordain, a friend contacted a local newspaper, thought it would be a good story. And so a reporter actually came and asked me a question that ever since I’ve been asked many times, “Why do you want to ordain?” At that point I’d already met Ajaan Fuang and spent some time with him and decided … 
  6. Preparing to Meditate
     … Mindfulness becomes directed thought. Alertness becomes evaluation as you begin to evaluate cause and effect there in the breath. When there are comfortable breath sensations, you spread them out so that you’re alert to the whole body, mindful of the whole body. That’s when simple mindfulness practice turns into concentration practice as you develop this awareness of the whole body breathing in … 
  7. Mindfulness Defined
     … As Ajaan Lee notes, when mindfulness—the ability to keep something in mind—grows stronger, it becomes the jhana factor called vitakka or directed thought, where you really keep your thoughts focussed on one thing consistently. As for alertness, it provides the foundation for another jhana factor: vicara , or evaluation. You notice what’s going on with the breath: Is the breath comfortable? You … 
  8. The Pursuit of Excellence
     … Where do they land?” The monks reply, “They land on the western wall.” “What if there’s no western wall?” “They land on the ground.” “What if there’s no ground?” Back in those days, they thought that the earth was supported by water, so the monks reply, “It lands on water.” “What if there’s no water?” “Then it doesn’t land.” The … 
  9. Tools of Perception
     … The perception of form is gone, and what you’re left with is feeling, perception, thought fabrication, and consciousness. But even these aggregates are not the ultimate terms. In the commentaries they talk about this being the ultimate description of reality: the five aggregates. But the Buddha advises us to go on to perceive whatever arises and passes away simply as stress arising and … 
  10. Poison Your Fantasies
     … That’s why in the first jhana, there’s directed thought and evaluation. You’re talking to yourself about how well you’re staying with the object: adjusting the mind, adjusting the object so that they fit together well. You hover around both the mind and the object. When you feel that the object is good enough, you can just be with the object … 
  11. The Art of Right Speech
     … So when you anticipate a problem, give it some thought: What would be the most effective thing to say? If you try it out and it doesn’t work, well, go back to the drawing board. This is the Buddha’s basic teaching to Rahula. You make a mistake, well, you think it through: What could have been done differently? Learn to take your … 
  12. Stepping Out of the Waves
     … You don’t have to complete the thought. Just notice, “There it is,” and stop it. It’s as if you drop it, as when you’re holding a dish and you drop the dish. A part of you will be a little afraid that the dish will break, then you have to realize that these moods, even though they hit the floor, they … 
  13. Bare vs. Appropriate Attention
     … Back in the beginning of the 20th century, there were people in Asia who thought that you could reduce meditation to simply that: bare attention, simply observing things arising and passing away. The purity of that bare attention, they said, would guarantee purity of insight. Then they felt they had a method that could be exported to other countries as well. But what we … 
  14. To Discern Suffering
     … saying, “This is pleasure, this is pain, this pleasure I can handle, this pleasure I can’t handle.” Thought-fabrications add even more complex layers of likes and dislikes and analysis on top of things. And then there’s consciousness, your awareness of these things. We hold on to these things. This is how we suffer. The word for clinging in Pali means basically … 
  15. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … Then there’s fabrication, which is the mind’s habit of making thoughts, putting things together. There’s an intentional element here. And finally there’s consciousness, which is the basic awareness of things at the six senses. We suffer because we cling to these things. The word clinging, in some passages, is translated as desire and passion, but the word for clinging in … 
  16. Paying Off Your Debts
     … The way he learned was to look at his actions to see what results they gave, look at his thoughts to see what results they gave. This is the beginning of right view: realizing that whatever suffering there is in life comes from within, from your own actions, particularly from actions of the mind. But you have the freedom to change, the freedom to … 
  17. Lust
     … directed thought and evaluation. This can either be directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating the breath, or thinking about the defilement simply as an event in the mind, and analyzing it, noticing what stress it creates in which parts of the body, and how it clouds the mind. In other words, instead of looking at the object of your lust or the … 
  18. Responsible
     … So, if you want to act in a responsible way, the mind has to be trained, because it has lots of unruly thoughts, unruly cravings. You’ve got to get them under control, and this is something no one else can do for you. You’ve got to do it yourself. Of course, you’re not the only one who benefits as you get … 
  19. If These Walls Could Talk
     … There’s that line of thought that says, “If you try to get rid of your unskillful mental qualities, that’s engaging in craving for non-becoming. It’s showing aversion.” Well, there are times when you have to be averse to things that are unskillful. If you let unskillful qualities stay, they’re going to take over. And you’re missing out on … 
  20. The Buddha’s Buffet
     … Its habits, the ways it talks to itself, the ways it perceives the world, the ways it perceives itself, its ideas of what it has to do, its clinging to sensual pleasures or even just to the thought of sensuality: These are the things you’re addicted to. You can see the drawbacks, but there also has to be a part of the mind … 
  21. Nobility Is the Best Policy
     … Then he thought about what his father had said. So he put the sword back in the scabbard. Then he started thinking, and pulled out the sword again, but then thought of what his father said. This happened three times. The king woke up in a fright, saying he just had a horrible dream in which the prince, the son of that king he … 
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