Search results for: "Thought"

  1. Page 142
  2. Relationships
     … So where is the clinging in your relationship? Where is your clinging in your thoughts about the relationship? That’s what you’ve got to look into. Now, we’ve got a problem here that in English we talk about feeling attachment for someone, and we tend to equate the attachment with the clinging. But that’s not necessarily the case. When you feel … 
  3. The Path to Stream Entry
     … You begin to see a thought form that could pull you away, but if your mindfulness and alertness are good, you realize you don’t have to go there. But you can see the steps by which it happens. Then you turn around and reflect on the concentration itself. It’s the same sort of thing: This is how fabrication happens, this is how … 
  4. The Buddha’s Last Word
     … I’ve been thinking about it for three days and can’t make heads or tails of it.” Ajaan Mun would smile a little bit and say, “Oh, so there’s someone actually thinking about what I say?” And Ajaan Maha Boowa would say, “Yes, not with any intelligence, but doing my best.” And then he’d tell Ajaan Mun what he thought the … 
  5. The Meaning of the Body
     … It also shows you the power of your perceptions, that what you thought was a given was actually something you had glued together yourself. This makes you want to turn around and look at the whole process of labeling things in the mind in other areas as well. So in all these cases you’re using the body as an aid in the practice … 
  6. The Dhamma Wheel Shakes Up the World
     … It’s a question of making sure that twisting the horn and doing nothing don’t get presented as the Dhamma, because otherwise people will get confused—and will feel cheated if they spend their lives twisting the horn because they thought that that was what the Buddha taught. We get different results from different actions, which is why some actions are right in … 
  7. Respect, Confidence, & Patience
     … You can be more realistic about what you’re undertaking here, which is the total re-training of the mind, learning radically new habits in how you relate to the body, how you relate to your feelings, how you relate to your perceptions, your thought- constructs, even how you relate to consciousness. The Buddha points out that we tend to relate to these things … 
  8. Effective Self-Discipline
     … worlds, and an important part of meditation is learning to step back from our worlds and not believe them. Just stay with the sensation of the breath coming in going out. Thought worlds come along and they can tell you all kinds of things, using all kinds of voices—shouting voices, whispering voices, seductive voices, harsh voices—that in normal circumstances gets you running … 
  9. A Private Matter
     … Simply being with the sensation of breathing helps pull you out of a lot of your thoughts, that ongoing committee discussion in the mind. If you’re with the breath, you’re like an outside observer on the committee meeting. You’re not necessarily pushed around by the voices in the committee. In that way, you’re in a better position to see, “Is … 
  10. Inconstant, Stressful, Not-self
     … When I was young I thought I had the strength of two men. But now, when I think to put my foot in one place, it goes someplace else.” This is the teaching on inconstancy. Aging is the big illustration for inconstancy. You can get things really, really ideal in terms of a good relationship, a good family, but then everybody grows old and … 
  11. Self View & Conceit
     … Ajaan Fuang once told me that when he was a little kid he thought nibbana was up in the Himalayan Mountains. And you can imagine what the people in the Himalayan Mountains think: someplace else. Actually, nibbana is something we can attain through our efforts right here. Someone once asked me, “Where’s the best place to practice?” And I said, “Right where you … 
  12. Interdependence & Death
     … So if you catch yourself identifying with your thoughts or your perceptions, try to be very careful about which perceptions you hold on to, like the perceptions that tell you that you don’t want to create a sense of identity, and you don’t want to inhabit any of the worlds that can appear to you. In other words, you don’t want … 
  13. Proving the Teachings
     … Wherever you see it, whether it’s in your thoughts, in your words, or in your deeds, that you’re causing harm, causing any stress that’s unnecessary, just drop it. When you can do that, you’re mature. Life takes a huge turn for the better. And you begin to see how many problems in your life were caused by the fact that … 
  14. Putting Out the Fires
     … You find all kinds of thoughts will come in. There’s boredom, impatience: “What’s next? Why can’t I think of something else?” “No, don’t think of anything else. Just stay right there with the breath. And allow it to do its work. If you’re going to feed the mind, it takes a while for this nourishment to soak in.” When … 
  15. Pleasure on the Path
     … So if you’re doing work that requires thought, let the breath spread around behind the eyes, around the eyes, deep into the brain. If you’re doing heavy physical work and you’ve hurt yourself, okay, figure out some way to focus on the breath and use the breath energy so that it can heal the wound. Sometimes that will require focusing directly … 
  16. Body Contemplation Is Compassionate
     … So if you have any thoughts that somehow the contemplation of the body is an act of violence, remember, the violence is toward your own lust, and your lust is probably what’s complaining. When there are these complaints about body contemplation, on the one hand, that comes from the lust itself, and secondly, from wanting to have a good body image. The two … 
  17. Off the Continuum
     … how thoughts or perceptions have a fabricating influence on the mind, how the breath has a fabricating influence on your sense of the body. You learn this not by just sitting there and watching things arising and passing away, but steering them or training them in particular direction. It’s like learning to be a cook. If you want to cook an egg, you … 
  18. Motivation
     … Do you really love yourself if that’s the way you act? That thought is meant to develop a sense of the danger of slacking off. The second governing principle is the appreciation of the Dhamma. This is a wonderful Dhamma we’ve got here, taught by someone totally free from greed, aversion, and delusion. It’s timeless. That points to the positive aspect … 
  19. Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength
     … Keep that thought as your motivation and then, based on that, develop the five strengths. The first is conviction—conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, the three knowledges he gained on the night of his awakening, and most importantly the knowledge he gained about kamma: that actions have results, and that the results depend on the intentions inspiring the action and the skill with … 
  20. Hold on for All You’re Worth
     … Your thoughts, your words, your deeds: They’re all produced here. So you want to get some control over it. We do that first by focusing on the breath, taking a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body, because that’s what we’re going to be focusing on: the sensation of energy … 
  21. Accepting the Way Out
     … We’re not necessarily talking about past lifetimes here, but more the thoughts that went through your mind 10 minutes ago, or half an hour ago, or half a day ago, that got those hormones churning to begin with. Some hormones are going to stay in your bloodstream for quite a while before they get washed out. That’s an example of past karma … 
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