Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. Alone Together
     … This means you have to put thought into your words. When you put thought into your words, other people will be willing to think about them. The third principle is that when you help other people, you genuinely help them. You don’t do things simply to make points that then you will then collect as return payment. Always looking into: “What does this … 
  7. Working from the Inside
     … directed thought, evaluation, singleness of preoccupation, pleasure, and rapture. As he pointed out, the pleasure and rapture are the results. You want to focus on the other factors first, because those are the ones you do. Directed thought relates to your mindfulness. You’re remembering to stay right with one thing. Evaluation deals with your ardency. Try to make this a good, comfortable place … 
  8. Cleaning up Your Personal Environment
     … You can stop and look through those and clean those out, realizing that your past is now just a thought in your mind. Its influence in your mind is made up of the thoughts that are still there in the mind, but you’re in a position now where you can sort through them and decide which influences from the past will continue to … 
  9. Calm & Insight
     … Verbal fabrication is what’s called directed thought and evaluation. Very simply put, it’s how you talk to yourself. You focus on a topic—that’s the directed thought—and then you make comments on it, ask questions about it, try to come up with answers: That’s the evaluation. Then, there are mental fabrications, which are perceptions and feelings. We try to … 
  10. Something to Stand On
     … Can you sense that? Can you see the connection? Can you take advantage of that connection? That pattern of tension is your little marker that keeps that thought in mind. If it’s an unskillful thought, just let it go. Try to dissolve it away as you breathe the breath energy through it. This is how breath provides a mirror for the mind. And … 
  11. Dhammacentric
     … Think of the Buddha’s first step in getting on the path, when he divided his thoughts into two sorts: motivated by sensuality, ill will, and harmfulness on one side; and renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness on the other side. He made the division based on two things: one, where these thoughts came from; and two, where they were going to lead, looking … 
  12. The Duties of Compassion
     … So when you’re spreading those thoughts of goodwill, that’s the thought you’re spreading: “May all beings act on skillful intentions.” And skillful intentions are informed by right views, so: “May all beings have right views.” This is why, when the Buddha taught the four noble truths, it was an act of compassion: to help beings—anyone who was willing to listen … 
  13. Issues of Control
     … The Buddha calls it directed thought and evaluation. You bring your thoughts to the breath, you notice how it’s going, you try different ways of breathing, and then you decide which ones feel best. Then consciousness is aware of all these things. So there they are: all five aggregates. If you cling to them in the wrong way, they’re going to cause … 
  14. Choosing to Believe in Your Choices
     … You can either stay with that someplace else and follow whatever the thought is or you can come back to the breath. They’re both here: the thought and the breath. And you can tell yourself, if you follow the thought, it’s nothing different from what happens when you sit around thinking anyhow. Try seeing what happens if you come back to the … 
  15. Fear & Insecurity
     … You can take your form, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, consciousness, and turn them into a path—like you’re doing right now as you meditate. You’re focused on the breath, that’s form. You’re creating a feeling of well-being. You use perceptions to stay with the breath, and directed thought and evaluation, which are fabrications, to adjust the breath and the … 
  16. Body as Sensuality, Body as Form
     … So whatever thoughts would go in the direction of sensuality, you have to learn how to cut them off. The body is a good place to cut them off because your pleasures of the world outside come through your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, the contact with the body. This is sensuality central. You want to realize that if you relate to … 
  17. Streams of Anger
     … That means learning to be skillful in our thoughts, in our words, in our deeds. And part of skill, especially in words and thoughts, is thinking in ways that lead to harmony. We’ve heard many, many times that the antidote for anger and irritation is goodwill combined with equanimity. But just thinking thoughts of goodwill and equanimity won’t be enough. You have … 
  18. The Power of Intention
    We begin our meditation with thoughts of goodwill because we want to be clear about our intention in being here. We want to find a happiness that’s harmless, that takes into account the fact that other beings want to be happy, too, and that it is possible to find happiness in a way that doesn’t cause any harm to anyone at all … 
  19. Equanimity & More
     … That thought should give rise to a feeling of samvega. Where are you going go to find a true, unadulterated happiness? There’s only one place, and that’s nibbāna—and it’s not even a place. It’s another dimension entirely outside of space and time. You think about that and you realize that that would be the only way to find true … 
  20. Off to a Good Start
     … As for the thought, you don’t have to do anything with the thought that’s wandered off. You don’t have to tie up any loose ends. Just let it go, however ragged it may be. Just keep coming back to the breath, coming back to the breath. It’s always here to come back to. Each time you come back, reward yourself … 
  21. Lessons in Fabrication
     … This is how we go from one thought world to another in the course of the day. It’s also how we go from one life to another. So if you want to understand the process of what happens at rebirth, look at what the mind is doing right now as it moves from one state to another, to another. You realize that you … 
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