Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. The Return of Chickens from Hell
     … Any thoughts of who did what to you, and whether it was right or wrong, or what other people think of you—whatever the thoughts that come into the mind that are not related to the breath right now, you just let them go. Those potentials are there, but you don’t touch them. Focus on the potentials that are good as the mind … 
  3. The Power of Intention
     … directed thought and evaluation. In meditation, you direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath: How’s it going right now? Does it feel comfortable? Do you have a sense of the breath in different parts of the body and how those breaths can all be connected? When there’s a sense of comfort, how do you maintain it? How do you … 
  4. Committed to the Breath
     … Whatever other little worlds of thought may come through the mind, just let them go, let them go. Try to keep everything anchored right here. Really commit yourself to staying here—because it’s only when you stay here for long periods that you really see and observe things, both in the breath and in the mind. This is a skill, a topic that … 
  5. Go Out of Your Way
     … He thought, “Okay, this is somebody you can teach.” Part of that was a willingness to help, part of it was a volunteer attitude: that with the good things that need to be done, if you have to be told to do them, you’re a pretty sad case. This is one of the reasons why so much of the forest tradition training has … 
  6. Overcoming Delusion
     … As we sit here meditating, there’s no question about what we’re doing or saying, it’s mostly about what we’re thinking, trying to train the mind to develop good qualities, so that its thoughts are skillful, i.e. appropriate: thinking when it’s appropriate to think and not thinking when you don’t have to. And a large part of the … 
  7. New Feeding Habits for the Mind
     … You begin to look back upon thoughts of lust, thoughts of anger, thoughts of greed, and you begin to wonder: “Why did I ever want to feed on those? What kind of nourishment did they provide?” Nothing really solid, nothing really substantial, nothing really healthful at all. Once you learn how to let go of those things, you learn to stop feeding on things … 
  8. Bodies & Minds Outside
     … The fact that someone has set an example like this opens your mind to possibilities that you wouldn’t have thought of before. As the Buddha said, without him as our admirable friend, we wouldn’t have thought of the path. But the fact that he’s there as an example, and the noble disciples are there as examples, opens our minds to the … 
  9. Head & Heart
     … Just because a thought happens to come into your mind doesn’t mean that it’s your thought. You don’t have to lay claim to it. You don’t have to believe it. This is one of the most important lessons you need in gaining powers of concentration. You’ve made up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath, stay … 
  10. Concentration as Wilderness
     … So when you look at your thoughts and see them come passing through, you just let them pass by. They’re like clouds. Sometimes some committee members will say, “Well, ordinary thoughts are no longer of interest,” and they’ll try to come up with all kinds of other things, either telling you how, given that you’ve got so little free time in … 
  11. Self Determination
     … Then he came to realize, “I can choose to think one thought rather than another thought.” He saw that free will is not something that’s given to you, it’s something you have to assert. The potential is there, but you have to assert it. So his first assertion of free will was, “I’m going to assume free will, and I’m … 
  12. Secluded from Sensuality
     … If you have any thoughts like that, just put them aside. Unskillful qualities are defined as anything beginning with wrong view up through wrong mindfulness. So, if you’re mindful of things that are not relevant to staying focused on the body in and out itself, if you’re not mindful to put aside greed and distress with reference to the world, try to … 
  13. A Culture of Restraint
     … So think about the environment you’re creating in your mind, the environment that allows the mind to settle down, the values that allow it to settle down, so that when disturbing thoughts arise you don’t immediately go with them. You can look at them and say, “That’s not a thought I want to follow.” When you’re used to saying No … 
  14. Do, Maintain, Use
     … You zap the potential thought and then you return to your center. That’s how you maintain the concentration. At the same time, you’re beginning to gain some understanding about that step of origination, when you see that if you don’t go with the thoughts that would give rise to further thought worlds, they just pass away. So those are the first … 
  15. Samsara
     … The same with thought-constructs: The Buddha said that there are basically three kinds that you want to learn about, the three kinds you need to know in order to let go: meritorious, i.e., good or skillful thought-constructs; unskillful ones; and ones that are neither skillful nor unskillful. Focus on thinking in skillful ways. If the mind has trouble settling down, you … 
  16. How to Be an Admirable Friend
    We start the meditation every evening with thoughts of metta, or goodwill. “May I be happy. May all living beings be happy, free from animosity, free from trouble, free from oppression. May each of us look after him or herself with ease.” This quality of metta is very close to mitta, the word for friend. With the words, we’re offering friendship, realizing that … 
  17. Defeatism? - Anything But
     … For instance, you can use thoughts of heedfulness, in other words, thoughts of the dangers that come when you don’t master the skill, along with thoughts of the benefits that come when you do. They’ve done studies of people who are especially skilled in their areas of expertise. And they found that the ones who are excellent, as opposed to those who … 
  18. The Four Frames of Reference
     … It’s the same with thought patterns in the mind. A thought pattern gets started, you start getting involved in it, and you feel you’ve got to see it all the way through. Well, you don’t have to. After all, it’s your choice. They’re just constructs of the mind, so you can take them apart as you like. Get back … 
  19. Metta Meditation
     … We’re advised to think thoughts of goodwill like that at the end of the meditation, too. We chant them beforehand for two reasons. One is to remind ourselves of why we’re meditating. The chant on happiness is accompanied by the chant on equanimity: All living beings are the owners of their actions. That’s to remind us that happiness is not simply … 
  20. Farming Your Body & Mind
     … He calls this directed thought and evaluation. You choose a topic—in this case you choose the breath—and then you evaluate it. And here the evaluating can deal with: What kind of breathing is comfortable? What way of perceiving the breath is comfortable? When it’s comfortable, how do you maintain it? Then, when you maintain it, how can you let that sense … 
  21. The Grass at the Gate
     … It’s simply a matter of applying our directed thought and evaluation. What that means is that we locate these potentials and then work with them for a while. The “working” here many times is simply a matter of protecting them. The word Ajaan Fuang used is “prakhawng,” which means you hover around something to make sure that it’s okay, that nothing happens … 
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