Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Appreciating the State of Peace
     … You have thoughts of goodwill whether you’re “sitting, standing, walking or lying down,” as the sutta says. And your behavior has to be in harmony with thoughts of goodwill. This is where your metta is true. As for generosity, you think thoughts of goodwill toward other beings not because you think they deserve it, but because it’s part of your following the … 
  3. Choose Your Actions Wisely
     … Why are you feeding on this? What nourishment is the mind trying to get out of it? And does the thought really offer that nourishment? You engage in this contemplation to give rise to dispassion, to get to the point where you don’t really need that thought anymore. It doesn’t hold any allure, and you’re ready to let it go. Then … 
  4. To Practice Dying
     … You have an intention to stay with the breath, and other thought worlds pop up. If you’re not careful, you go with them. The popping up of a thought world is like the process of what they call bhava in dependent co-arising; going into the thought world is like birth. So that’s what you’ve got to watch out for. Where … 
  5. The Cool Fire of Jhana
     … But you can actually allow other thoughts to come in—not that you’re going to go with them, but you’re beginning to see the process of how a thought forms. There’s room for that. At the same time, while you’re maintaining it, you find that you can actually get into deeper states. Ajaan Fuang gives the analogy of setting something … 
  6. The Heightened Mind
    The Thai word for directed thought, witok, rhymes with the word for lift: yok. So the Thai ajaans will often define directed thought as lifting your mind to the object of meditation; bringing it up to a higher level than its ordinary everyday level. Ajaan Suwat would often begin his talks by saying, “Here we are doing a high level job, coming to high … 
  7. Restlessness & Anxiety
     … Take any unskillful thought apart in terms of these fabrications and fabricate new thoughts in a much more skillful way to take its place. That way, you can induce more concentration and more discernment in the mind. These hindrances are obstacles not only to concentration but also to discernment. To deal with them, you’ve got to first borrow the Buddha’s discernment. Then … 
  8. Goodwill for All Beings
     … When you get very sensitive to the impact of thoughts on the breath and the body, then when an unskillful thought comes up, you notice it: “Okay, this really hurts.” Just thinking it, hurts. You look at the content of the thought, and there’s really nothing worth following through there: It just creates more suffering, more trouble. So when you’re coming from … 
  9. Perfecting the Mind in an Imperfect World
     … It started with looking at his actions—thoughts, words, and deeds—on an ordinary everyday level, seeing what kind of impact they had. And looking for the thoughts, words, and deeds that had a good impact: “What kind of mindstates do they come from?” The same with the ones that had a bad impact: “What kind of mindstates do they come from?” In fact … 
  10. The Dead Snake Around Your Neck
     … Most of us don’t think of lustful thoughts as a dead snake or a dead dog, but that’s a good image to hold in mind not only with thoughts of lust, but also with thoughts of anger or anxiety. Perceive them as something disgusting that you really do want to get rid of. Once you can get your mind on the side … 
  11. Right Inner Speech
     … This is a good principle to use not only with your external speech but also with internal speech, the thoughts that come into your mind, the perceptions you use to label things. Just because a thought comes into your head doesn’t mean that you should continue to think it. Look at it: One, is it true? Two, is it beneficial? Does it really … 
  12. A Rite of Passage
     … whatever helps give you a perspective on your thoughts and allows you to put them aside so that you can settle in here and have a real sense of feeling at home. Then, when you can stay here, you get to the second step in the rite of passage which is to allow some of those thoughts back in. What’s different is that … 
  13. Disposable Worlds
     … One thought leads to the next, leads to the next, and you start obsessing over things you did in the past or worrying about things that are going to happen in the future. All this comes from what in the beginning seems like a very innocent process, “Let’s entertain the mind with a few thoughts.” Or you see a thought forming and you … 
  14. Be Decisive
     … You have to make sure that this trap is okay and that one is okay and that’s taken care of and “I’ve thought about that” and “I’ve thought about this.” Then maybe think about the breath little bit, then, “Oops, I’ve got to think about that over there.” Or as you settle down, you find there’s some hidden thought … 
  15. Respect for Concentration
     … We’re more interested in the thoughts in the mind—what we can think about this, what we can think about that—and the few moments when the mind seems to rest between its thoughts don’t seem to hold much interest at all. The beginning skill of meditation lies in learning how to notice them. As you let go of a particular thought … 
  16. Unattractive
     … You can think thoughts of goodwill to put the mind in a good nice warm state, and then the breath flows more easily. Sometimes you have to deal with thoughts of lust, which is why we have the contemplation of the body, or as the Buddha says, the contemplation of the unattractive. It’s good to realize it’s not just the body that … 
  17. Stick to Your Duties
     … We’re attached to our thoughts, we’re attached to our defilements, because we think they’re worth holding on to. The effort needed to hold on to them, we think, is more than repaid by the pleasure we get as a result. When the mind is obsessed with sensual thoughts, we think that the pleasure we get out of those thoughts is worth … 
  18. Commit, Reflect, Discern
     … Or you can switch to another topic, such as spreading thoughts of goodwill. When you spread thoughts of goodwill, you may run into thoughts of somebody you don’t feel goodwill for. There may be an issue that came up during the day. That may be part of the problem. So you think your way around the problem until you can actually extend thoughts … 
  19. The Regularity of the Dhamma
    The Regularity of the Dhamma May 22, 2006 There’s a school of thought that says each present moment is so new and so unpredictable that you shouldn’t bring any preconceived notions from the past to apply to it. Any conditions you pick up from the past obscure the freshness of the present moment, so your duty as a meditator is to be … 
  20. Analyzing Results
     … But other thoughts eat right into the center of the mind, or the mind goes out to eat them. Then you’re off someplace else. So try to notice what’s the difference between the thoughts. Is it in the difference in the content of the thought? Thoughts about certain topics really do dig into the mind more than others. Other times, it’s … 
  21. Training Your Minds
     … One is just going back to a skillful thought, and then two, thinking about the drawbacks of the unskillful thinking that’s got you enmeshed. Now, there are times when, no matter how much you think about the drawbacks, the mind still goes for it. That’s when you can tell yourself, “Okay, it can think those thoughts, but I don’t have to … 
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