Search results for: "Thought"

  1. Page 143
  2. A Pleasure Without Stories
     … The Buddha, after all those of years of self torment, after realizing that self torment was not the way—he had been running away from pleasure of all kinds— asked himself, “Is there another way?” And he thought of a time when he was young and his mind became concentrated, almost spontaneously. He had gotten into a deep absorption, with a sense of pleasure … 
  3. Right View Comes First
     … You’ve got feelings, you’ve got perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness—and you cling to these things. That’s the suffering. Suffering is not something that you’re passively receiving. You’re actually doing the action that constitutes suffering. Think about that. And why do you do that? Because of craving: either craving for sensuality, craving for a state of becoming, or craving to … 
  4. The Unity of the Path
     … The mindfulness develops into directed thought. This is how right mindfulness flows smoothly into concentration. As the Buddha said, the four establishings of mindfulness are the themes of right concentration. Here we have another kernel within a kernel. Right effort is the kernel within right mindfulness, and right mindfulness is the kernel within right concentration. You might think of it as a pearl. You … 
  5. The Dhamma Eye
     … Two, you have to be really willing to observe what’s actually going on in your mind, in your thoughts, your words, your deeds, so that you can catch any mistakes. Then you look at what you’re doing. If you see that what you’re going to do is going to lead to suffering, you don’t do it. If while you’re … 
  6. The Second Noble Truth
     … She thought about how little they had seen of life, and how sad it was in one sense. But then she started thinking about bird-dom as a whole, and she said it was like skin. The skin keeps creating new layers. The old layers slough off, but new layers keep coming. She ended up with saying that empathy is what makes it possible … 
  7. Friends & Enemies
     … What does this person really need? In what way would this person really appreciate receiving help? Sometimes you want to do it in ways that that person might not expect, to show that you really are really giving some thought to that person’s feelings and needs. That kind of help really goes to the heart. If it’s just help for show, it … 
  8. The Lightning Bolt
     … If unskillful thoughts come up, you’ve got to find ways to sidestep them. If you can’t deal with them directly right now, allow them to go off to the side. Don’t put yourself right in the line of fire. Whatever the techniques required, you try to master them. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you’re getting to the … 
  9. Recollection of the Buddha
     … So when you think of the Buddha, make sure your thoughts then come back to your practice, and have them energize your practice. That’s the whole purpose of his teaching, which is to help us see that we have these potentials within us, and that we can develop them. If you have any gratitude to the Buddha at all—which is the proper … 
  10. The Graduated Discourse
     … Yet if you’re wise, you’ll follow the line of thought in the graduated discourse all the way through, until your mind is ready for the four noble truths. As the Buddha said, when you’re ready to see that renunciation of sensuality would be a good thing, then it’s as if your mind is like a piece of cloth that’s … 
  11. Victory over Death
     … The things we take to be really solid in the world, when you look at them carefully, are just instances of form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness. And when you look carefully at these aggregates, seeing how ephemeral they are, you begin to realize: How could you construct anything really reliable out of them? The one reliable thing you can construct out of … 
  12. Don’t Worry, Be Focused
     … The body feels weak, and thoughts are just wandering all over the place with no specific purpose. It’s not that you feel a real need to think about these other things, it’s just that your energy is so low that whatever comes popping up through the nervous system pops right into the mind and you don’t have any defense against it … 
  13. To Stay the Course
     … And you’ll find the things you never thought you could do, you can do. You can maintain your direction. Otherwise, the Buddha said, the mind is so quick to reverse itself at the least little thing. And if you’re lacking in endurance, lacking in equanimity, you’re like those dust motes: They go to the right, then they go to the left … 
  14. The Pursuit of True Happiness
     … When you learn how to drop those thoughts, how to stay centered while you’re with others, you find that life is lighter both for yourself and for the people around you. You work step by step to try to maintain this same steady sense of center whatever the context, whatever the situation, so that even when you’re not in physical seclusion, the … 
  15. The Right Piece in the Right Puzzle
     … Fabrication consists of your directed thought and evaluation as you adjust the breath to fit with the mind, adjust the mind to fit with the breath, and then keep them there together. Then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. You have to see that these things, too, once you’ve mastered the concentration, are stressful, and inconstant—and they’re … 
  16. Choosing Your Allies
     … Purity in terms of your thoughts, words, and deeds: That comes from your desire for true happiness as well, because you have to look to see, when you’re doing something, does it actually harm yourself? Does it harm others? We can’t just go on good intentions. We have to try to train them to be skillful intentions. Before you do something, ask … 
  17. The World Does Not Endure
     … It does not endure.” Something you thought was so solid, so reliable, starts failing you. “The world offers no shelter. There’s no one in charge.” Here again, he asked the king, “Do you have a recurring illness?” And the king had what was called a wind illness: shooting pains in his body. Sometimes he was so wracked with pain that all he could … 
  18. The Dhamma Eye
     … When you detect any stress in that state of concentration, you ask yourself, “What am I doing to cause that?” When you see the action—and it’s usually a perception, although sometimes it can also be directed thought and evaluation: any of the factors of right concentration that you have to let go of to get to higher levels—you just let the … 
  19. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … You stop the directed thought and evaluation when you realize that no matter how much more you talk to yourself about the breath, it’s not going to get any better. It’s good enough as it is, so you settle in. Then you find that the rapture that comes from settling in like that becomes oppressive. It’s too strong. You want something … 
  20. Right Effort
     … directed thought and evaluation. Instead of chattering on to yourself about how much you want something, how much you’re angry about something, you start chattering to yourself about the breath. Ask yourself, “How is the breath right now? How does it feel? What would feel better?” Once you’ve got something that feels good, how about spreading it around? And how do you … 
  21. Desires Have Their Reasons
     … a particular line of thought, a particular type of action. And it’s totally random that you’ve made that connection. So you want to see the randomness and the arbitrariness of that, because that weakens the sense that this is inevitable. Then you look at the desire passing away. Why? Sometimes the mind just loses interest. Something else comes in. You forget. As … 
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