Search results for: "Feelings"
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- The Range of Our Responsibility… First three times: “Anyone who wants to speak up can speak up.” The fourth time he said, “Maybe you feel embarrassed to speak up in front of the other people. In that case, just turn to a monk next to you and ask him.” That was to show that he was serious. He really wanted to clear up people’s doubts. And the kind …
- Strength of Mindfulness… Even though you may feel tempted, you know that you have the strength and restraint to just say No. That requires desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness, and alertness—all those qualities together. The same when you’re buffeted by the winds of good and bad news: You want to maintain your steadiness of mind, because you know how you’re going to react …
- Identifying Weeds… If you’re feeling irritated and want to find a good reason to get angry, be careful to look for the good side of whatever you’re focused on. In other words, try to be a person with two eyes, not just one. When you can begin to read your mind while your eyes are open, it gets a lot easier to read it …
- Observe Your Concentration… You can’t have it that your form will be a certain way, or your feelings will be a certain way. Perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness: If they were your self, he said, you could have them be just the way you wanted them to be. Now, we can have some control over these things, but the problem is that the control is not total …
- Free for the Time Being… Just this breath right here, and let it fill the whole body, however light or strong it’s going to be, whatever feels best right now. This gives the mind, which has been weighed down by its responsibilities, a chance to stand straight, to open up. Think of the coolies in Thailand who worked on the ships. Back in the old days, before they …
- An Inside Job… But they can’t feel the actual suffering. The pain of the suffering is something that’s strictly yours. It’s like that old issue when you were little kids: Your sense of blue, is it the same as anybody else’s sense of blue? Do we all each have a different sense of blue? We can point to one thing and say it …
- Goodwill as Right View… It feels like you’ve got twenty five aggregates when there are just two people. Then it goes up from there. We’d like good rules of thumb that would apply in all cases to give us some idea of what to do. There are not that many. We have to use our own discernment. But it’s an important insight to realize that …
- The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind… We feel that we’re going to need some straw. So we keep that big load of straw on our backs. The purpose of the concentration is to put us in a position where we can let it go. We don’t let it go forever, but for the time being, there are a lot of things you don’t need. As the ajaans …
- Using the Committee of the Mind… You feel virtuous about getting worried about things, that you really are concerned about realities. As for uncertainty, you can find all sorts of reasons to be cynical or to not believe. So it’s quite a step to say, “I don’t have to believe these voices in the mind. I can step out of them and just look at where they’re …
- Heedfulness Is Auspicious… There was really a good sense of family feeling around the people who worked together on the project: people coming from all kinds of backgrounds, including a Western monk. But we were all part of the same family because we were working on something good together. Now there’s one less person who can remember. This is one of the things you get struck …
- It’s All in What You’re Doing… You’ve got the feeling of ease that you’re creating by the way you pay attention to the breath. You’ve got the perception that’s holding you with the breath. You’ve got the thought fabrications that are directing your thoughts and evaluating to get the breath and the mind to settle down together. And then you’ve got the awareness, the …
- A True Man of No Rank… Luang Lung was a young monk at the time and he didn’t feel he was up to making that vow. So, the father who had a lot of respect for his spells, said, “Well, in that case, I can’t teach them to you.” That was a characteristic of the old generations. They really respected the knowledge passed down to them. And they …
- From Anxiety to Confidence… So each time you feel tempted to do something you know is going to lead to bad consequences, you’ve *got *to fight it. You can’t be apathetic, because again, who knows how many more days you have to practice the Dhamma? You do have today, so make it an exemplary day. Based on shame and compunction, you practice virtue. You develop the …
- The Lotus in the Mud… How could you take such disgusting stuff inside you? And it turns out that the husband was beginning to feel the same way about food. So they came to a point where they really couldn’t eat. They mentioned this to Ajaan Fuang, and he said, “Well, being unable to eat is not the purpose of the contemplation. After all, what do you have …
- To Know the Unconditioned… The earth is the four other aggregates—form, feeling, perception, fabrication. The water is the water of passion and delight. When a seed lands on the earth and there’s water, then it grows. All of our experience of the senses comes out of that. The other image the Buddha gives us is of light. There’s a house with a window on the …
- Prevention… What are you going to do so that he can’t find your buttons? Or if he pushes them, what can you do so that they’re not there—you don’t respond the old way? How can you manage that? Or if he says something that you feel that you’ve got to fight off but then you realize, okay, afterwards you’re …
- A Path for a Noble Desire… And even though he’s king, when he has a serious disease and suffers from the pain, he can’t order his courtiers to share out the pain so that he feels less. So he’s subject to aging, illness. And then, of course, death. Even though he’s wealthy, he can’t take his wealth with him. So, the young monk is making …
- Seven Facets of Discernment… The media try to make us feel that we lack whatever they’re trying to sell. They teach us values that are not really in our own best interest. So it’s good to have a fund of knowledge and values that really does take your own best interest to heart and shows you what it is. So having a sense of the Dhamma …
- Impossible Things… We may not feel up to comparing ourselves to the Buddha, but there are lots of noble disciples who must have felt at some point that true happiness must be an impossibility, that for them to change must be an impossible thing. But then one day they decided to do the impossible. That’s how they ended up being members of the noble Sangha …
- It’s What You Give… fabrication, name and form, intentions, acts of attention, perceptions, feelings, even the way you breathe. This is what you bring to sensory contact, and what you bring is going to make the difference between whether it’s going to be a cause for suffering or part of the path to the end of suffering. So this principle of the mind comes first goes from …
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