Search results for: "Thought"

  1. Page 41
  2. Goodwill as Restraint
     … You’re not going to go into thoughts of ill will. Or if thoughts of ill will do come up, you’re going to deal with them, try to root them out—because if you let any ill will linger in your mind, it might come out in ways that you might not anticipate. It comes out in times of weakness, times when you … 
  3. Heedful of Death
     … the ability to step back from a thought and not go jumping into it. So you can take a step back and say, “I don’t have to go there”—especially if it’s a thought of regret, a thought of remorse, fear, surprise. It’s good not to be surprised by death when it comes, because if you’re too surprised, there’s … 
  4. Training the Mind to Train the Mind
     … As for any thoughts that may come up while you’re working with the breath, thoughts that are not related to the breath, you can just let them go. It’s very common that all kinds of random things will come up. Especially as there’s less and less surface activity in the mind, things will come bubbling up from within. This is another … 
  5. Noble Happiness
     … As you begin to notice how your thoughts, words, and deeds affect yourself and affect other people, and you make up your mind to act only on the things that really do cause happiness and to try to avoid anything you notice that causes harm: That, he says, is how you develop purity in your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. So all the … 
  6. Allies
    Often the evening chants before we meditate have some pretty sobering thoughts. We’re subject to aging, illness, death, and separation. Our actions are important for our happiness and sorrow. This body we have here is filled with all kinds of stuff. We have to look after it. And what does it do? It just grows old and dies. But the chants don’t … 
  7. The Need for Stillness
     … You’ve got to turn around and look at that and recognize: “Oh, there’s this movement here.” Everything else seemed to be still, you thought that everything was nice and still, but there’s still this happening. Discernment lies in seeing both sides: seeing whatever movements of thought, or feeling, or perception are going on, and also the part of the mind that … 
  8. Passion for Nostalgia
     … You end up going back and you find out that it’s not the place you thought it was. Part of this of course has to do with the fact that your nostalgic memory is like every memory of sensual pleasure—it’s very selective. When you were back at that spot, in that time, there were uncertainties, there were fears, disappointments, but the … 
  9. Feeding your Attack Dogs
     … Passion for becoming, the desire to think about this little world of thought, that little world of thought: We keep these thought worlds, these attack dogs, either for the purposes of using them against other people or for our own entertainment. Because part of us feels if we didn’t have these forms of passion, we wouldn’t have the impulse or the ability … 
  10. Gladden, Steady, Release
     … Does it keep slipping out after other things? Thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future? How can you let go of those things and keep the mind right here? The third step is to see if the mind needs to be released from anything, if there’s any burden that’s weighing it down, preventing it from settling in, any way that it … 
  11. In the Mood to Meditate
     … I would have thought that, being so busy with the computer, he wouldn’t have time to talk to me. But he actually wanted to talk to me to get himself in a good mood so that he could continue with the work. This principle applies in all kinds of areas. Work that’s difficult is a lot easier when you’re in the … 
  12. An Enduring Cheerfulness
     … When I came back after all those years in Thailand, people would ask, “What was the most difficult thing you had to endure over there?” I thought and I thought and I thought, but I couldn’t think of any one thing in particular. There were difficulties, there were hardships, but there wasn’t any one thing that stood out. I began to realize … 
  13. Meditation Prep
     … Or if you build the other kind of “I am” around the unskillful thought, that “I’m miserable,” that really shoots you down, saps your ability to counteract the thought. This is the problem with “I am”: It starts getting to issues of innate nature. If you have a bad innate nature, you can’t change it. If you have a good innate good … 
  14. Choiceful Awareness
     … no thoughts, no thoughts. When little eddies of breath energy threaten to turn into nodules, allow them to dissolve away. You don’t want to explore their content because first you want to get really, really skilled at knowing what the mind is like when a very minimal level of fabrication or choice is going on. That’s so you get more and more … 
  15. Shame Yes, Guilt No
     … So if you find that the effort required to turn a thought into actual speech is too quick for you to catch, what about the thoughts just on their own? Take this as a warning, that you’ve got to be more careful, you’ve got to be more alert. This is why the precepts are a good preparation for concentration practice. You need … 
  16. Emotion
    We have a tendency to see our emotions as being especially real, as more real than our thoughts. And many people come to meditation as a way of getting back in touch with their emotions. But from the Buddha’s perspective, emotions are just as fabricated as everything else. They’re not your real nature; they’re not your real truth. You fabricate them … 
  17. Like a River Full of Water
     … They’re not just nice thoughts or restful places to put the mind. As you’re developing these attitudes, you want to develop the discernment that’s realistic, clear eyed, so that these attitudes really can apply to your day-to-day life. Otherwise, you find yourself sitting there thinking thoughts of goodwill and then you get on the road and somebody cuts in … 
  18. Be Observant
     … You don’t identify with the thoughts. Just because a thought comes into your mind doesn’t means it has to be your thought or that you have to run with it. You have your choice to take it or not. The same with the body: You have your choice of doing something or not doing it, particularly in connection to how you relate … 
  19. Freedom from Beliefs
     … So if a thought comes up saying, “Stay with the breath right now,” you follow that thought. Any thought that would come up and give you any reason for leaving the breath right now, it’s not the time, it’s not the place for that thought. It’s not Dhamma, because for the Dhamma to be Dhamma it has to be not only … 
  20. Strategic Friends
     … But if you’re really mindful, you catch these things quickly, so you realize: “I could go with that thought if I wanted to, but I don’t. So I’m not going to do that.” In that way, you’ve strengthened your mindfulness. Each time a little thought comes up like that, maintain your determination to stay here with the breath, to keep … 
  21. Guarding Against Trouble
     … The things you don’t tolerate—the things you destroy—are thoughts of sensuality, thoughts of ill-will, and thoughts of harmfulness as they come up in the mind. In other words, you don’t just let them sit there, and you don’t say, “Hey, let’s look into this sensual desire here—this looks like it’s fun!” You have to say … 
  22. Load next page...