Search results for: "Thought"
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- Strength of Mind… You realize that even though that thought is there in the mind, you don’t have to run with it. You’re not committed to it. After all, it’s not committed to you. That way you learn how to think the thoughts you want to think and not think the thoughts you don’t want to think, and you get a better idea …
- The Path of Giving… You have feelings and perceptions, you have directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath. Then there’s the consciousness of all these things. So you’re taking those raw materials that you use to make into a self and now you turn them into the path. That’s how you give yourself to the Dhamma. You …
- Directing & Not Directing the Mind… So when you find yourself thinking about something, ask yourself: “When that thought arose, what tensed up? What happens if you un-tense that spot in the body?” Or you can use the method of clenching your teeth, pressing your tongue against the roof of the mouth and deciding, “I’m not going to think that thought.” And as you do whatever you can …
- To Comprehend Suffering… So again, see that the perception and the thought-constructs are optional. You don’t have to believe them; you don’t have to feed off them. This is where our emotions around pain, both physical and mental, get formed, in this area of thought-constructs. We put all these things together into stories of “Why is this happening to me?” And on and …
- The Solvent for Sticky Narratives… That changes the narrative and heads it toward the only point of genuine closure—nibbana—which no longer involves ill will, thoughts of getting back, or thoughts of settling scores. You get to a point where the scores don’t matter. And you realize that you really can’t tally up the scores, because how do you know when the period of the game …
- Look after Your Mind with Ease… But those thoughts are never beneficial. Those are the times when you have to talk to yourself in a comforting way. Part of the mind will object, saying that comforting thoughts are just Pollyanna-ish ideas. But remember, Pollyanna did well. She wasn’t that stupid. You look at all the great ajaans. They were really good at encouraging themselves. They recognized their faults …
- Light Merit… This is a really good practice, cutting off thoughts of past, cutting off thoughts of future. Because there will come times when thoughts of past, thoughts of future really cause a lot of suffering. You may notice when someone is getting really old and they know that if they think about the future, there’s just death. So they don’t want to think …
- Intense Stillness… As I said, when a thought comes, you’re going to see a stirring. You’re going to see the thought go through various steps before the stirring turns into a coherent thought, and you run with it. The more quickly you can disperse it, the more you’re going to see those steps. Say there are three or four steps. Sometimes you miss …
- The Wisdom of Wising Up… Even when people behave unjustly, you have to learn how to set aside thoughts of revenge, because they accomplish nothing good. Remind yourself that what other people do is their kamma; what you do is your kamma. You can’t ultimately be responsible for their kamma; however, you can be responsible for your own actions. So, you spread thoughts of goodwill: thoughts that they …
- Questions of Skill… Or if you notice that disturbing thoughts actually require energy to maintain them, just relax around those thoughts. This is especially effective when you’ve learned how to become sensitive to the breath energy in the body and you begin to see where a thought has begun to form in the breath energy. It’s like a little knot, a little entanglement. You notice …
- Concentration Isn’t Dumb… To keep it there, you have to protect it, because other thoughts will come up, and it’s so easy for the mind to jump onto those other thoughts. You’ve got to figure out some strategies to keep it interested in staying still and in being able to zap the new thoughts as they arise. And learn to see that you’re actually …
- Virtues & Values… You can’t say to yourself, “Well, this is my thought, this is my preference, and I’m going to hold on to it.” You have to think about the long term, where your likes don’t matter, and the actual results of your actions do matter. So if a thought is unskillful, you try to develop the wisdom to recognize it as unskillful …
- Fear of Mistakes… the way you talk to yourself—what the Buddha calls “directed thought and evaluation.” And finally, three: perceptions and feelings. You’re doing all of these things right now. As you focus on the breath, you have the breath as your topic. You direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath, evaluate the mind in relationship to the breath: Is the breath …
- A Mirror for the Mind… It’s when a particular thought starts to hijack the breath: That’s when the emotion digs in and becomes more than just a thought. This is one of the ways to protect the mind from unskillful mental states, by getting the breath really comfortable and using your powers of directed thought and evaluation to keep it that way, to allow the sense of …
- Learning from Sensual Desire… Which falls in line with the principle that there’s no such thing as a pure thought without desire. After all, the Buddha said, “All things—all dhammas—are rooted in desire.” All dhammas: That would exclude nibbana—taking it as the end of dhammas—but everything else, skillful and unskillful, comes from desire. We have this mass of desires and thoughts and intentions …
- Anxiety… We’re directing our thoughts and we’re evaluating the breath. The breath in and of itself is called bodily fabrication because it influences the other functions of the body and your experience of the body. Directed thought and evaluation are called verbal fabrication: you intentionally direct your thoughts to a topic and then you comment on it or ask questions about it. As …
- Judgmental vs. Judicious… A simple example is the element of directed thought and evaluation in meditation. Directed thought and evaluation are things you’re doing all the time. People sometimes come and ask, “What is this directed thought and evaluation? How do I start doing it?” You’ve been doing it ever since you learned language. You direct your thoughts to something and then you judge it …
- When You’re Discouraged… Sometimes I thought I’d just give up. But then I realized: If I gave up, who would there be to look after him? And why would I do a duty only when I thought that I was doing it very well? If I had some duties that had to be done, I’d have to do them as best I could, knowing that …
- Sending Happiness… When you think about spreading thoughts of goodwill to everybody, you want to make sure it’s not just thoughts, but that it’s expressed also in your words and your actions. In Thailand, in adopting the Western New Year for January 1st, the Western tradition they’ve adopted is sending a New Year’s card. They call it saw khaw saw, which is …
- An Island of Concentration… What’s interesting is when the Buddha talked about the establishing of mindfulness to this monk, he said that when you’re focused on the breath this way, being mindful of the breath this way, you develop the concentration with rapture, with pleasure, without rapture, without pleasure, with directed thought, without directed thought. In other words he was talking about right concentration. There’s …
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