Search results for: "Thought"
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- In Alignment… Regardless of what you thought were normal ways of practicing, normal ways of living, you come to see this state as true normalcy. This is balance. Or again, with Ajaan Lee: He said, “Look at the Buddha image in front of you. He’s not disturbed by anything. People bring flowers, he’s not disturbed; if people created a mess here in the hall …
- The Economy of Goodness… When the mind is here with a sense of well-being, then when any thoughts come up that would lead to anything unskillful, you see them clearly as they arise. And you see them for what they are: something you don’t want to get involved in because you’re feeding the mind well. It’s when we’re hungry for pleasures that we …
- Using Perceptions… That pulled all of her thoughts into that line so that she could be anchored in the body and have a sense of feeling solidly here. As she said, if she imagined only one spot, it was hard not to think around that spot. It was as if she had one hand full, but the other hand was free to grasp whatever came by …
- Determined on Awakening… What will the long-term consequences be? This is so different from what you ordinarily hear, which is that Buddhism is all about being fully in the present moment. “No thought of the past, no thought of the future. It’s being fully aware right here, right now.” But for the Buddha, discernment is a matter of looking at the long-term. Discernment begins …
- Adjusting the Flame… Thoughts will come up that you may like, but you say, “These are not skillful thoughts, so I’ve got to learn how to get rid of them.” And again, you have to make yourself want to get rid of things that in the past you may have liked. So there’s a certain amount of psyching yourself up to do this. Then, based …
- An End to Suffering… What pleasure does the mind get simply out of thinking thoughts of lust? What does it get out of thoughts of anger? Any sense of self-righteousness there may be in the anger or whatever: Notice that. Watch for it. And then look for the downside of all these things. When the mind feeds on lust, exactly what is it feeding on? What does …
- Toxic Environments… His first thought was to climb a tree. But as he started climbing, at the first step, something said inside him, “If you’re afraid to die, you’re going to keep on dying.” So he sat back down and radiated as much goodwill as he could to the elephant—and the elephant stopped. It seemed taken aback, and then very calmly walked away …
- Loss… The people you know and love pass away; your own body begins to deteriorate; institutions that you thought were solid, reliable, turn out to be corrupt—very unstable. There’s a lot of reason for grief. So it’s good to reflect on what the Buddha taught about grief. There was the time when King Pasenadi came to speak with the Buddha, and it …
- A Poker Mind… They may not fit quite together at first, which is why we have to do a lot of directed thought and evaluation: figuring out what’s wrong with the breath, what’s wrong with the mind. And when the breath does get comfortable, the next question is what you can do to maintain that sense of ease and then let it seep through the …
- A Path of Aggregates… If the mind is wandering away, you remind yourself, “Hey, come back!” That’s directed thought. Keep the mind coming back, coming back, coming back. While you’re here, evaluate how the breath feels. Is this a breath that’s easy on the body? Is it easy on the mind? As you adjust things, you’re engaged in the process of fabrication. You’re …
- Asalha Puja… First he thought of his two teachers who had taught him before he had gone off on his path of austerities. He realized that they had passed away and gone into the formless realms, where they couldn’t be contacted. So that was their loss. Then he thought of the five brethren who had attended to him during his austerities and had left him …
- Worldly Equanimity & Its Uses… The thoughts that would run rampant and go up and down the scales, you learn to keep them in check because they’re not going to do you any good. You want to keep things on one single tone, because then you’ll be in a better position to figure out what’s gone wrong and what can be done to fix it. And …
- The Big Picture… Verbal fabrication is the way you talk to yourself, what the Buddha calls directed thought and evaluation. You choose a topic to think about, and then you make comments, ask questions. Pay attention to that, too. Keep it focused on the breath. And there’s mental fabrication, perceptions—the labels you put on things—and then feelings: feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure …
- In Debt to Generosity… Spread thoughts of goodwill to all the beings who’ve helped you practice. If there was any meat in your meal today, dedicate your merit of your practice to the animals who died. Dedicate the merit of your practice to the people who gave the food, who gave the clothing, the shelter, the medicine, all the things we have here, because without their help …
- The Joy of Heedfulness… Think thoughts of goodwill for everybody. That should be a source of joy. Learn to behave in ways that avoid harm. That’s a source of joy. So there’s a joy in being heedful. And the more you appreciate that, the better your practice will go.
- Training Your Selves… You latch on to something—to form, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, fabrications, consciousness. In latching on to these things, you make yourself subject to things that you don’t want. So there is a way out that doesn’t involve just being accepting or resigning yourself to the way things are. We were talking today about the translation of dukkha sometimes as unsatisfactoriness. It …
- Breath Meditation: The First Tetrad… Is this something you would have thought up on your own? It’s good to remember that we owe these teachings to the exploration of other people, people like the Buddha, who put his life on the line trying to find a true happiness. He tried various paths, studying with other teachers, realizing that their teachings didn’t lead to anything deathless. That was …
- A Willingness to Learn… the side of the stillness or the side of the directed thought and evaluation. Because you’re not only treating your illness, you’re also training your doctor. And fortunately as a meditator, no matter what you do to the illness, the patient doesn’t die. He or she keeps coming back. Death here would be that you totally abandon meditation. But as long …
- Don’t Believe Everything You Think… When you’re with the breath, you can watch the thoughts coming into the mind and not get sucked into them—unless, of course, you leave the breath, in which case you’re going to need mindfulness to remind you to get out if it’s a bad place to be. So try to keep the breath as your anchor. Remember that this is …
- Stay… And you’ve got to learn how to stick with the breath, not only in terms of obvious distractions like thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future, but also in terms of things that come up in the meditation that are sometimes the result of the concentration. States of pleasure, states of rapture, can arise. Visions can arise. You can take these as …
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