Search results for: "Thought"
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- The Path to the Top… They thought they’d get the Buddha either way, because if he said that he would say something displeasing to others, then they could say, “What’s the difference between you and everyday normal people? What’s so enlightened about you?” If he claimed to not say anything displeasing to anybody, they’d say, “What about those comments you made about Devadatta, that he …
- A Touchstone at the Breath… How are you breathing right now? How do you feel the breath in your body? If it feels constricted, if your awareness of the body feels tight and limited, what thoughts are limiting it? What other concerns do you have? We’ve talked about using perception to reframe the issues in your mind. It’s not just an intellectual exercise. It’s also a …
- Fabricating Around Pain… As we chanted just now, in the first jhana there’s directed thought and evaluation. That’s what this internal chatter is. When you get to the higher levels of concentration, you can drop that. But to get the mind to settle down, you need to do some adjusting. So you’re learning to use verbal fabrication in a way that’s skillful, to …
- Timeless Practice… Any thoughts that relate to the world right now, just put them aside. If they come up again, you put them aside again. They come up again, you put them aside again. This is what the developing is all about. You’re changing your habits. You’re developing a new state of mind. If you think of the mind as a committee, you’re …
- Food for Consciousness… On the one hand, we’re trying to create a sense of inhabiting this world inside the body; but on the other, we can also see little thoughts running off and it’s easy to get sucked into their worlds and go running along with them. The Buddha has a long description of the various ways in which we create suffering within, called dependent …
- The Allure of Self… How old are you now?” The king’s eighty. “And when you were young, were you strong?” “Yes, sometimes,” the king says, “I thought I had the strength of two people.” “How about now?” “Oh no, now that I’m eighty, sometimes I mean to put my foot in one place, and it goes someplace else.” Aging, inconstancy. The next summary is: “The world …
- Of Essential Worth… Anybody who thought they had jhana— to say nothing of nibbana—was just deluded. If you believe that, then it really discourages you. You think that if you were to put in a lot of effort, it would all be in vain—a very discouraging idea. But then he met Ajaan Mun. And just seeing Ajaan Mun, he said he was convinced: There is …
- Hold on to Your Frame of Reference… Then you can strengthen it, he says, by developing thoughts of goodwill. Remind yourself that you really do want to be happy. You want a genuine happiness, and you wish genuine happiness for others. Whether the world will all find genuine happiness or not, that’s not the issue, but you want that desire to help other people find true happiness. You want that …
- The World Is Swept Away… How could he say he hadn’t accomplished anything? I thought I was a pretty good son, and he had two other good sons. That was an accomplishment. But it also made me reflect that if you look for your success in life in things outside, you’re looking in the wrong place, because it’s so easy for people to come along and …
- The Best News in the World… Keep your thoughts connected to the breath. Then evaluate the breath. How does it feel? You might try some long breathing for a while to see if long breathing feels good and energizing. If it does feel good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Try shorter breathing. Or in short, out long; in long, out short. Heavy, light; fast, slow; deep, shallow …
- Strength of Persistence… Just drop those thoughts. They’re not your friends. They get in the way of taking the hand that you’ve been dealt and playing it well. After all, all of us have good potentials from our past. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here meditating. So focus on those. Focus on the opportunities you do have and be happy that you …
- Goodwill for Safety… The kind of conversation that goes on in the mind has a huge effect on feelings, which is why we repeat the brahmaviharas every day, twice a day as a group—to get those thoughts embedded in your mind. And it’s why we don’t just chant them in Pali, we also put them in English. As an exercise, if your native language …
- Steal the Dhamma… Where were things placed? Where did they go? I started putting them in places where I thought they should go, and if I was wrong, he would just throw them someplace else. He wouldn’t tell me what the right spot would be. But I learned, well, that’s obviously not the right spot. I’d run into other issues as well. As he …
- Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!… Then he’s told that five murderers are following him right on his heels with the thought that whenever they can catch up with him, they’ll kill him. So he runs away even more. Then he’s told there’s a sixth murderer, someone who used to be an intimate companion but now has his sword raised and is ready to slice off …
- Doing Your Duty… All they thought about was the virus—and some people ended up getting dengue. So there will be this danger and then there will be other dangers. The important thing is to keep a calm attitude. Remember that aging, illness, and death are normal, so you have to make your mind normal toward them. Barry Lopez talks about being with the Inuit, and how …
- Dignity in the Face of Hardship… That’s a sobering thought. In a society where the emphasis is placed so much on material things, dignity gets swallowed up and disappears. But we can create a space for it by the way we act, by the choices we make. And the good causes—the causes that lead to good things—are things that we all have within our power to do …
- An Environment for Practice… It takes quite a while to learn how to drop those issues and to focus on how you’re creating suffering for yourself, as opposed to what you thought was important. You really need some major shift in where you stand, how you look at things. Right view is defined in terms of four noble truths. It’s basically framed by the question: What …
- Emulating the Truth… And the Buddha called him on this, saying, “I thought you were going to stand on the truth”—which means that being consistent is one way of standing on the truth. But also notice that passage where he says, “If there’s something you don’t understand, ask. Cross-question me about it, right then and there.” In other words, don’t simply jump …
- Friends with The Breath… If your thoughts wander off, just drop them, and you’ll find yourself back at the breath. You don’t have to pull yourself back. This is home base. If your thoughts wander off again, just drop them again. And as you return to the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels especially good. Think of what other parts of the body …
- In Training… If other thoughts do come into the range of your awareness, you get so that you’re just not interested in them. You train yourself to release yourself from them. Those are the basic steps. There’s more, but these are the ones that you work on to begin with. The fact that this is a training means that you play two roles. You …
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