Search results for: "Thought"
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- A Tradition of Ingenuity… There’s a whole body of thought around the idea that our thinking, even though we may use abstract terms, is never really abstract. There are hidden metaphors behind the way our language shapes things, even in the abstractions. You want to be sensitive about what metaphors you’re applying unconsciously to your practice. Are you applying the right metaphors? This is why the …
- Persuasion… The more that you can see that you are trapped by your unskillful thoughts and all you have to do is just drop them and you’re free, the better. If you have a losing streak, you can break it with one win. That’s all it takes. But the mind’s mathematics will say, “Well, you have to make up for all those …
- Pushing the Three Characteristics… One of Ajaan Fuang’s students once complained, “Why is it that yesterday my meditation was so good that I thought it would never change to anything bad, and today it’s as if I’ve never meditated ever before?” He told her, “The mind is like the body: It wears different sets of clothes from one day to the next. And just watch …
- Around in Circles… Helping your sense of the body in the present moment is important too, but ultimately you’ve learned a lot more about what it means to be attentive, what role of perception plays, what role your thought constructs play, the questions you ask. All of these things you learn just by going over the same old territory over and over and over again. After …
- A Sense of Humor… He thought, “Wellll, maybe I won’t meditate here today or stay here tonight.” So he closed the door and went back down to the monastery. That night, as he was meditating in the monastery, he had a vision. Some devas came and told him, “That wasn’t a real snake. We were just testing you.” That was it. A story of a test …
- Happiness – Yours & Others’… Let that thought encourage you in your own pursuit of happiness.
- Free Sources of Energy… They find that they thought they were going to be run into the ground but suddenly they find some energy as things pick up and they gain momentum. So where is your second wind as a meditator? Don’t rule out the possibility that it’s there. And this applies to the practice all throughout the day: the things we have to do, the …
- The Beginnings of Wisdom… If we follow his example and search for happiness in a way that’s responsible and well thought through, we’ll develop those qualities within ourselves. And that augments our happiness. So it’s not just a matter of switching partners whenever a certain pleasure falls away. It’s building qualities within yourself that you can rely on in the long term. The Buddha …
- May You Forever Be Well… So it’s important that you be able to express your goodwill not only with thoughts of goodwill or with blessings, but also through virtue. You resolve that you don’t want to harm anybody, and you follow the Buddha’s guidelines on the kinds of action you want to avoid regardless of what the situation is. But virtue’s not just a matter …
- Working Ourselves Free… A lot of insight is little things you see in the mind that you catch out of the corner of your mental eye as the mind is trying to play tricks on itself, or certain thoughts try to play tricks on the mind, to distract you. Once you’re distracted, they can sneak in, pull their sack over your head, stuff you in the …
- Mental Balance… But your actions, your words, your thoughts: These things you are responsible for, always. So if you take good care of these, it’s like the acrobat maintaining his balance. You don’t throw anybody else off balance and you yourself are safe. So value this practice. The more meticulous you are in looking after your own mind, that better the results are going …
- Other People… It’s through our own actions that we take what they did, what they said, or even what we think they thought, and turn it into our own private heaven or our own private hell. We have to watch out for that, because if our moods depend on other people’s actions, we’re in really bad shape. There’s nothing constant about what …
- Dhamma Opportunism… He said, “Well, I still have to work on my perfections.” I thought to myself, “If he has to work on his perfections, what about me?” So that changed my attitude. Fortunately, I didn’t have to get too involved in the construction. But it was hard for there not to be a lot of activity that infringed on my peace and quiet. I …
- Immediate Knowledge… Try not to let your thoughts wander too far away from here, because when they wander away, they wander into uncertainty. Try to familiarize yourself with this spot right here. This is where the mind and the body meet: right at the breath. This is where intention and feeling and attention and perception—all those factors of name and form—all meet. Even though …
- The Arrow in the Heart… So drop all your other thoughts. Come to find rest right here: the breath coming in, the breath going out. Even though there’s still clinging and craving in the process of staying with the breath, it’s the kind of clinging and craving that will lead you out. As we create a sense of concentration, a sense of being settled and established here …
- The Veils of Delusion… Whatever vagrant thoughts may come wandering into the mind, you don’t have to pay them any attention at all. Just let them pass. And don’t get involved in them, even to the point of trying to chase them away. They’ll go away on their own. You’ve got work to do here. Just try to keep your gaze as steady and …
- A Wealthy Memory… What this means is having memorized the teachings of the Buddha, having thought them through, and keeping them in your memory bank so that when a situation comes up, you can apply the right attitude. This is why, in the past, people memorized a lot, memorized the Dhammapada and a lot of the basic chants. There’s a story of a woman in the …
- The Best of a Bad Situation… You can’t imagine relating to your thoughts, your feelings, your perceptions, even your acts of consciousness in any other way aside from clinging to them. But the Buddha is saying there are other ways, to expand your imagination. One way of expanding your imagination is to start with something really simple: generosity. I used to read stories of explorers going to the Arctic …
- Progress & Regress… So keep these thoughts in mind. It’s not just the technique. It’s also the attitude. It comes down to your maturity, your ability to deal with difficulty, to work your way through the troughs, so you can get back up on the crests again and not be carried away either by the troughs or by the crests, keeping the mind on an …
- Self-Knowledge… seeing where you are and getting a sense of the possibilities of where you can go in causing less suffering, less harm, through your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. That’s a task you can tackle and actually get results.
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