Search results for: "Thought"
- Page 144
- Antidotes for Clinging… We feed on the form of the body, we feed on feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, and sensory consciousness. When these things are pleasant, they’re not too heavy. But they can turn around and turn unpleasant very quickly. They gobble us up, for we’ve opened the way for them to get to us. Once you start clinging to the good ones, you start …
- The Particulars of Your Suffering… Fabrications of different kinds fall silent as your directed thought and evaluation drop away, as the motion of the breathing drops away. It’s in this way that the different aggregates separate out. You isolate them as you get the mind into concentration in the same way that someone who has to develop a physical skill has to learn how to isolate different muscles …
- Long-Term Welfare… Then when the actual pleasure comes, it’s not nearly as satisfying as you thought it might be, but then you hold on to the idea that it was, just to convince yourself that it was all worth it. You’ve invested so much. You don’t want to see your investment vanish away like that. So there’s a basic dishonesty in the …
- A Path of Skills… Start with thoughts of goodwill for all those who contributed with their work, their money, their time, their energy. May they all find happiness. Then focus on your breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breath in the body. Wherever there are sensations that enable you to know, “Now the breath is coming in …
- You Can’t Relax Your Way to Awakening… There’ll be thoughts coming up in your mind that you would really like to think but you’ve got to say, “No, I can’t go there.” There will be discomfort of all kinds. We had that question this afternoon about dealing with mosquitoes: What way of thinking about the mosquitoes would make them go away? It’s good to think about some …
- All Four Tetrads at Once… the act of letting go of sensuality or sensual thoughts for the time being; letting go of any other unskillful qualities for the time being; or letting go of the factors of a lower state of concentration as you’re trying to get into a higher one. It can also, though, go on to total release, which is what you want in the area …
- Skillfully Shaping Your Life… One is called directed thought, as when you pick up a topic to think about. Then there’s evaluation: You think about it, make comments on it, ask questions about it, and make changes. So when you’re dealing with the breath, you’re thinking about the breath and you’re evaluating it. Again, the way you think sometimes depends on your picture of …
- Choosing Freedom… You could think thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity. Extend those to everybody you can think of—whatever you find calms the mind, gives a sense of well-being inside. Once there’s that sense of well-being, then turn and look. See how your breath is at that point. Has the breath changed? If it has, see if you can then focus …
- Permission to Play… i.e., through the breath, through directed thought and evaluation, and through feeling and perception. But to will skillfully, you have to bring these fabrications together in a way that makes the path pleasant to follow. Otherwise you can’t stick with it. This is why right concentration is such an important part of the path. It gives you a good place to stay …
- Acceptance… There’s a greater sense of rapture, a greater sense of refreshment and ease that come when you’re ready to put aside the directed thought and evaluation. And so on down through the levels of concentration. This becomes possible because you become more and more sensitive to what’s actually here, what’s actually going on. Things have been going on all the …
- Cutting the Fetters… Then there’s the intention to stay here, and the directed thought and evaluation as you try to adjust the breath, adjust the mind, so that they fit together snugly. That’s all the aggregate of fabrication. Then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. As you contemplate these things, you see that concentration is the best thing that the aggregates …
- Avoidance… When you’re bombarded with thoughts that “This has to be done now,” if you don’t stop and ask, “Well, is this really important?” your life gets frittered away with urgent things. If, when you come to meditate, you run into an urgent demand of your defilements, you have to keep asking yourself, “Is this really important?” When you learn to make the …
- Undomesticated Happiness… We tend to assume that our thoughts and our awareness are ours more than anything else. They’re what we really are. So we need to get deeper in the mind. Take the approach that we use to the senses outside, to let them go, and then apply it to the mind. Ask the same questions and look at it from the same point …
- The Duties of Happiness… You learn to recognize a mistake, you make up your mind not to repeat it, and then the Buddha says, you extend thoughts of goodwill to yourself and all beings. Extend goodwill to all beings so that you don’t mistreat them again. Extend goodwill to yourself to remind yourself that, okay, you’re doing this for your own well-being. The fact that …
- The Third Noble Truth… If you find that you’ve let go of something because you thought you should, yet there’s still some nostalgia for it, that’s something you have to look into, because that nostalgia is the seed for the next bout of craving again. Only when you’re totally free of the nostalgia for these things, when you’ve had enough, you never want …
- Alighting on the Dhamma… What’s the perception here? What’s the thought construct? What’s the feeling here? And then seeing these activities as things worthy of dispassion. Now, you don’t want to jump to dispassion too quickly. If you do it too quickly, you lose the foundation in concentration you need in order help pry away your attachments to other things. In fact, while you …
- Adbusting the Mind… Then things just got worse and worse and worse until he finally got to the point where he thought, “Boy, I wish I hadn’t disrobed.” Then he realized, “I haven’t disrobed. Here I am, still a monk.” That’s one way: Just let the fantasy get really bad. You’ll find that part of the mind resists that. In that way, you …
- Dhamma Warrior… Ajaan Lee talks about how our thoughts of goodness sometimes become Maras, obstacles in the path, because we get fixated on lesser aspects of the practice, or externals at the expense of the internals. The word wat in Thai means both monastery and your duties in the course of the day. And the duties here can be either internal or external. Ajaan Fuang would …
- Insight into Pain… There’s a principle in postmodern thought that every attempt to teach people anything is an act of aggression, because you’re trying to make them submit to your view of things, but the Buddha’s teachings are a huge exception to that. He didn’t force anyone to accept his teachings. He offered his teachings as therapy. You can take them and use …
- How to Be Alone… We tend not to trust our thoughts because we know we’ve picked up a lot of ideas from the media and other people around us, but our moods and emotions seem to be genuinely ours, who we are in the present moment. This is where the Buddha’s teachings on understanding yourself are important. You don’t have to identify with your mood …
- Load next page...
