Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Goodwill Starts with Gratitude
     … And it’s often useful to combine the practice of goodwill with thoughts about gratitude. When the Buddha talked about kamma, gratitude was one of the first topics he mentioned as being relevant to the fact of kamma. He said that there are people for whom we should be grateful because they had the choice to help us or not to help us, but … 
  3. For What It’s Worth
     … And the way to do that is, as soon as you’ve noticed that you’ve wandered off, you drop whatever the thought is. You don’t have to finish it. You can leave the ends dangling. But make up your mind you’re not going to try to peer into it and see, “Well, how far can this thought go?” before you go … 
  4. The Possibility of Letting Go
     … How is it going to bear up under it? Try to see your thoughts of the past as things that are happening right now. “This is a thought of the past happening right now.” Don’t get into the thought. Step back from it. The same with thoughts of the future. Learn to question those narratives. Even if the narratives are true, the question … 
  5. Some Assembly Required
     … It’s hard to say that he’s a champion of free thought at all. The Buddha, though, was the champion for free thought: You change the way you approach things, you change the way you look at things, and it’s going to make a difference inside and out. And you have the power to change. So keep that in mind as you … 
  6. Bases for Success
     … This is where you bring in citta, or intentness, which is basically the same thing as directed thought. You don’t think randomly. Your thoughts are directed, and you keep the mind on one topic. You give your full attention to this one topic. Then finally, you bring in vīmamsā, which refers to the mind’s discursive, discerning faculties. Ajaan Lee translates it as … 
  7. Collecting Your Tools
     … And all too often we think that the things it says are our thoughts and we lay claim to them. The problem is that we’re not really skillful about doing it. Sometimes the thoughts in the mind are useful and sometimes they’re not. Think of it as many voices up there. Some of them are intelligent; some of them are not. They … 
  8. Stay
     … The potential for thoughts will come up, and if you recognize them in time, they don’t have to bloom into full-blown thoughts. It’s just a potential, and then you relax it. Another potential and you relax it. Part of the mind will be curious as to what that thought might be about—and what about this thought over there? You have … 
  9. The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind
    When people hear that the factors of jhana include directed thought and evaluation, the question sometimes arises, “How do we start doing directed thought and evaluation?” And the answer is, “You’re doing it all the time.” It’s the Buddha’s way of describing how we talk to ourselves. The mind spends a lot of its time talking to itself. It just chatters … 
  10. Desert Island Meditation
     … As the Buddha said, you’re supposed to “Make yourself an island.” And what are you going to have on this desert island? What companionship? What treasures? As thoughts come up while you’re trying to stay with the breath, you have to ask yourself, “Is this a desert island thought or is it just a garbage thought?—a thought that I could entertain … 
  11. Mental Movements
     … You want to develop an awareness that’s separate from the thoughts, that doesn’t get pulled in with them. In other words, the thought can move, but you don’t move with it. All too often, you’re like a person standing by the side of the road. Cars come pulling up and the drivers say, “Come on in! Come on in!” And … 
  12. Dissolving Narratives
     … In fact, the less involved you are with your thoughts, the better. It’s inevitable that things will come up, but you have to learn how to deal with them quickly. So whenever a thought comes up, if it’s a painful thought, just think of goodwill for everybody involved: yourself, the other people: “May we all find a way out of that unskillful … 
  13. Staying Power
     … No thoughts about the exam, no thoughts about what you’re studying at all.” So in addition to your regular daily ritual, you might take little meditation breaks whenever you need them. Again, be really strict with yourself that those periods of time are your periods of time—at the very least to give yourself some new energy, to give yourself something to revive … 
  14. Mindful & Discerning 24/7
     … Think of Ajaan Mun standing next to your bed, or Ajaan Lee, someone who you’d be embarrassed to have see your thoughts. This way, you use all of your fabrications—bodily, verbal, mental—to deal with the defilements as they come. This is how you recognize the defilements as opposed to the Dhamma. A thought of laziness may be clever, but it’s … 
  15. Encouragement
     … in my actions, in my relationships with other people, in my own practice, in terms of the goal that I’ve set, which is for total freedom?” But you can also apply those principles to your own thoughts, because as you’re meditating, directed thought and evaluation are part of the practice. Once you’ve made up your mind to direct your thoughts to … 
  16. An Island of Certainty
     … At first it’s hard to say whether it’s a thought or physical sensation. It’s right on the boundary line between the two. Then there comes a point where the mind decides, “This is a physical sensation,” and you deal with it that way. Other times, it decides, “This is a thought, a thought about x.” The mind is very opportunistic. As … 
  17. Expert’s Mind
     … that he actually got on the right path when he started dividing his thoughts into two types—those that were harmful and those that weren’t. He looked at his thoughts not in terms of their content, but in terms of what they did through a pattern of cause and effect. And he found that thoughts imbued with sensuality, with ill-will, or with … 
  18. Perceptions of Earth & Space
     … You learn to see the thoughts going through your mind as actions that have results, like any other karma. Your thoughts, your emotions: They’re actions. So take them apart. See what perceptions make them. Whatever acts of directed thought and evaluation, whatever you’re focusing on, howeve you frame the issue, the questions you ask: See how those things shape your experience of … 
  19. No Foolproofing
     … But we found out that when you actually listened to the talk, he was saying, “If thoughts come up, if they’re directed to the breath and they’re helpful in evaluating the breath, think them,” because that gets you even more firmly involved with the breath—which means that some thoughts are thoughts to be abandoned, and some thoughts are thoughts to be … 
  20. Take Down Your Sails
     … It’s good to apply the same principles to your thoughts. When something comes up in the mind, first question, is it true? Two, is it beneficial? There are a lot of true things out there that are not beneficial at all, especially for the training of the mind. And then three, is this the right time and place for that? If you can … 
  21. Respect for the Breath
     … Any other thoughts that come into the range of your awareness, you just let them go. This is one of the advantages of whole-body awareness. If you try to be one-pointed, then if you sense any other thought coming into the mind, it means your point has changed. But if you have a large range of awareness, the thoughts can come in … 
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