Search results for: "Thought"
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- Don’t Believe Everything You Feel… So just as we were saying not to believe your thoughts, remember - don’t believe your feelings either. Think of Ajaan Lee’s analogy about the thoughts going through your head. Who knows if they’re really your thoughts to begin with? Maybe they come from the creatures going through your head or your brain or some other part of your body. So learn …
- Thoughts with Fangs… He says, “If you reflect on the things you’ve done, the things you’ve said, the things you’ve thought and you see that you didn’t harm yourself, you didn’t harm other people, that in and of itself is reason enough to take joy.” Notice he doesn’t say that if you reflect and see that you did better than somebody …
- Goodwill… It’s the same way when you’re spreading thoughts of goodwill to other people. You don’t know whether they’re going to be able to benefit or how much they’re going to be able to benefit, but you assume that they will. After all, it doesn’t cost you anything to spread thoughts of goodwill. There may be a little bit …
- Breathing Easy… The more you can gain a sense of pleasure here, the greater ease you feel right here, then the easier it is to fend off other thoughts that come into the mind and insist that you have to think about them. To the thoughts that insist on going for immediate pleasure, you can say, “No, I’ve got pleasure right here.” Then there are …
- The Long-Distance Meditator… Even when your thoughts go far, far away, they’re thoughts that you’re thinking in the present moment, right here, right now. When you can make that switch from the content of the thought to the fact of the thought or the activity of the thought, then right next to the activity of the thought is the breath. So no matter how far …
- Taming the Elephant… Some people say that jhana is not absorption, that it’s simply learning how to think skillful thoughts consistently. Well, the Buddha says that’s how you start getting the mind into jhana, by thinking skillful thoughts consistently about the breath. But in the next step, as I said, you’re keeping track of the breath, yet you’re not thinking thoughts about the …
- A Rite of Passage… The Buddha talked about how he got on the path when he was able to divide his thoughts into two. On the one hand, there were thoughts of sensuality, ill will, harmfulness. On the other hand, there were thoughts of renunciation, non-ill will, harmlessness. What was special about this division was that he was looking at the thoughts not in terms of their …
- The Buddha Defines Wisdom… What’s going on? Where are the perceptions of the mind playing tricks on you? You want to come from understanding so that you have control over thinking the thoughts you want to think, and don’t have to think the thoughts you don’t want to think—in other words, thinking thoughts that are going to be for your long-term welfare and …
- How We Cling… You do that by holding certain perceptions in mind about how the breath moves through the body, together with thought constructs or fabrications: how you talk to yourself, directed thought and evaluation—directing your thoughts to the breath, evaluating how the breath is going, how the mind is staying with the breath. Even if you get to the higher levels of concentration where there …
- Two Types of Dukkha… Otherwise, we get into thought worlds, and thought worlds can take us far away into the past, far into the future, all around the world many times in the blink of an eye. When we get into those thought worlds, we can’t see how they’re constructed. We have to be able to step out of them a little bit and go back …
- Where the Brightness Is… When you can get the mind to stay with the breath, you’ll be finding that throughout the hour there will be distracting thoughts, saying that you’ve got to think about this, you’ve got to think about that. You have the choice either to go with those thoughts or to stay with the breath. These old thoughts are simply your old ways …
- Mindfulness: The Whole Formula… Then you might decide, “Well, as long as I’ve slipped off here, I might as well complete the thought.” That takes a while longer. Then you come back. That’s a case where your alertness and your ardency are still weak. Ideally, as soon as a distracting thought comes up, you want to be aware: “A distracting thought has come.” Then you remember …
- Well-being Despite It All… I didn’t check the current first before I touched this thing.” And then lots of thoughts came up: thoughts about how hard this would be for my father, regret about things I had done, regret about things I hadn’t done. And I realized I couldn’t let myself go with those thoughts. It was like watching little worlds come up: thoughts about …
- Practicing Your Scales… That’s directed thought and evaluation in action. Directed thought means just keeping your thoughts with the breath. In the process of strengthening those qualities in the mind, that’s when you develop the foundation for good concentration practice. So there are two ways of meditating. One is just sitting here hoping that you’ll hit the lottery, because there are times when things …
- Skillful Attachments… If a thought comes up, you can ask yourself, “Where is this going to lead me? If I were to jump in with this thought or to take it on, where would I end up? What would the results be?” That way, your tendency to latch on gets better and better informed, and actually serves a much better purpose. You can choose the thoughts …
- To Discern Suffering… As you develop more and more a sense of this center and can maintain it more continually, it gives you a place where you can step outside of your thoughts. Most of the time we’re buffeted by our thoughts like strong winds coming from all kinds of directions. Anger comes from one direction. Greed comes from another. Sadness. They blow us around. What …
- Adjusting the Flame… What kinds of thoughts come in from the day? Thoughts of work, thoughts of your family, thoughts of the world outside. What kind of thinking can you use to counteract those thoughts? You can’t just snuff out the thoughts, because they keep coming back. But when you give yourself good reasons not to be occupied with those concerns, then it’s easier to …
- Ripples Go Far… So if a thought that comes up isn’t just your favorite thought or your favorite attitude, it’s just a thought and attitude. Then you can watch it. Or if, while you’re meditating, you realize that a particular thought is not where you want to go, you can learn how to put it aside and not get so entangled in the content …
- Escape Routes in the Present… You have to admit that these thoughts are a problem. Only when you admit that they’re problems can you deal with them. Thoughts of ill will, thoughts of doing violence: These are the things the Buddha says not to tolerate at all. When you find them arising in the mind, do what you can to get rid of them. One way of getting …
- Recognizing Fools… Another deva thought of killing a monk one time. The monk had cut down her house, the tree she was living in, and injured some of her children. Her first thought was, “I’ll kill him.” But then she thought better of it. So she went to see the Buddha. He said, “It’s a good thing that you didn’t kill the monk …
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