Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Fear of Death
     … You think about this, think about that, you’re in this or that thought world. Tell yourself, “Wait a minute, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be back with the practice.” So you try to drop thought world and come back, and be prepared for the fact that other thought worlds are going to come. So be on the … 
  3. Stay
     … That’s because you’re interested in your thoughts. So learn to think about your thoughts in a way that makes them less interesting. That again will point you back to just the sensation of the body as you feel it in the body. Resist any temptation to want to go out, any temptation that tells you that you should go out. Because when … 
  4. Greed & Distress with Reference to the World
     … You think that certain thoughts have to be maintained in order to get justice done. Well, that’s wrong mindfulness. There is wrong concentration and there’s wrong mindfulness, too. Wrong concentration is when you get focused on sensual desire or ill will or sloth or anxiety or your doubts, and you just keep at those thoughts. You get obsessed with them. That is … 
  5. Looking in the Dhamma Mirror
    Sometimes after I’ve given a Dhamma talk, a person will come up and say, “I wish so and so had been here to hear this.” The thought that immediately comes up in my own mind is, “Well, did you hear this?” We’re here to train ourselves. The Dhamma is a mirror for us to use to look at ourselves. The Buddha uses … 
  6. Do Jhana
     … So with a thought, it’s not necessarily that a particular thought comes bubbling up full-blown; there’s a prior excuse for turning a little stirring into thought. You slap a few perceptions on it. You stitch a few fabrications on it and then you go. The contemplations the Buddha gave to Rahula are to remind you, “No, I don’t want to … 
  7. Right View Tells You What to Do
     … In other words, it’s not simply the fact that a thought has arisen in the mind: There’s something to spark it: either another thought or a sensation in the body. Something happening outside will spark a thought and we find ourselves going with it. But it doesn’t last forever. It’s going to stop, and sometimes it stops more quickly than … 
  8. The Role of the Observer
     … What comes together with that thought? What comes together with that mood? When the mood passes away, when the thought passes away, what else passes away in the mind? This requires some active observation, and not just passive observation. You have to ask questions. If a certain attitude comes into the mind that seems to be an enemy to your meditation, ask yourself, “Where … 
  9. The Skill of Patience
     … All of this is to help ground you in the present moment, to give you a place where you can look at your thoughts and not get carried away by them. But for the time being, don’t look much at your thoughts. Just let them go, let them go, let them go—aside from the thoughts that help you stay here. Sometimes the … 
  10. Restraint
     … times when you give in to thoughts of resentment, thoughts of nostalgia, thoughts of regret, thoughts of lust, aversion. These thoughts then go out looking for more food to strengthen their hold on the mind. And sometimes you’re willing to give in to them. That’s what you’ve got to watch out for. If you give in to them, they become more … 
  11. Developing Discernment
     … And the other, as he says, is to “put aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In other words, how to say No to any thoughts that would come by and pull you away from your focus. In learning how to make yourself want to be with the breath, and not want to be with those thoughts: That’s how you exercise … 
  12. Lessons from Stilling the Mind
     … When there are unskillful thoughts in the mind, you have to beat them back in the same way that a cowherd has to beat back the cows when they try to get into the rice during the rice-growing season. But when you’ve gained some control over your unskillful thoughts and you’re thinking only skillful thoughts, you’re like a cowherd who … 
  13. A Frame for the Day
     … Verbal fabrication is directed thought and evaluation. In other words, you focus on certain topics and you think about them, ask questions, make comments. So when you’re spreading thoughts of goodwill, you’re taking goodwill as your topic. That’s your directed thought. Then evaluating it means trying to figure out ways in which you can extend goodwill to everyone. It’s good … 
  14. Feeding on the Breath
     … Until then, you’re going to have to depend on your thoughts. Now the problem is if the thoughts about the breath are not interesting enough, the mind’s going to create other thoughts to feed on. In fact, it’s been spending most of its time since it learned how to think in words churning out thoughts, churning out words, sometimes randomly, sometimes … 
  15. Goodwill First & Last
    It’s traditional to begin and end each session of meditation with thoughts of goodwill for all beings without exception. The purpose in each case is different. In the beginning, you start the meditation with thoughts of goodwill as a way of putting the mind in the right frame, in the right context to meditate. You want to pull yourself out of your own … 
  16. The Buddha’s Rules of Order
     … Two factors of jhana, or right concentration, are directed thought and evaluation. Keep reminding yourself to stay with the breath: That’s directed thought. Then watch it, be sensitive to it, and ask yourself: Could it be better? What kind of breathing would feel better right now? That’s the beginning of evaluation. Then you can evaluate further: Explore the sensations of breathing in … 
  17. Working with Fabrication
     … There’s also directed thought and evaluation, which are called verbal fabrication. These are the things you say to yourself—all the different voices in the mind. Pick up a topic, and then make a comment on it. Directed thought is picking up the topic. Evaluation is the comment, which can either be a statement or a question. Finally, there’s mental fabrication: feelings … 
  18. Not-self, Not No Self
     … I’m not going to take that on as my thought.” After all, thoughts will appear in the mind. Sometimes it seems like the mind is a random thought-generator. It comes up with all kinds of things, some of which are relevant, some of which are not. You have to realize, you have the choice: You can identify with some of the thoughts … 
  19. Goodwill All Around
     … If you run across anyone who you have trouble thinking thoughts of goodwill for, ask yourself why? How would you benefit from their misery? How would there be any benefit from their misery at all? Why are you stingy with your thoughts of goodwill? In other words, the development of goodwill is not meant to be nonreflective, spreading thoughts of cotton candy out in … 
  20. Sticking with an Intention
     … If a thought doesn’t have anything to do with the breath, you don’t want to get involved. So as soon as you find yourself veering off, you don’t have to ask a lot of questions. If you’re getting pulled away from the breath, just drop that thought-formation and come back to the breath, no matter how interesting, intriguing, or … 
  21. Look after Yourself with Ease
     … As the Buddha points out, it starts out by having goodwill for yourself by looking at your thoughts in terms of what they do to you. Thoughts imbued with sensuality, with ill will, or with harmfulness: Those are bad for you. They’re like ruts in the mind. Each time you give in to a thought of this sort, it creates a deeper and … 
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