Search results for: "Form"

  1. Page 43
  2. Responsible for Your Actions
     … this, if I do this, where’s it going to take me in the long-term? Then when your concentration is solid, it not only gives you strength but it also forms a good basis for discernment so that you can see things clearly as to what will be skillful and what will not. You clear things away in the mind as much as … 
  3. For Your Good the Good of Others
     … See if you can learn how to sense the body as you feel it from the inside as a form of energy—because actually when you get down to it, that’s what it is to begin with. We place a shape on it, and we have to notice other things about it, and we add that to our sense of the body. But … 
  4. Concentration Work
     … However, when the time came to settle on the true path, he started with a form of concentration that was very much with the body: focusing on the breath, giving rise to a sense of ease and wellbeing, refreshment, and rapture. Then he worked the pleasure and rapture through the body in the same way that you knead moisture through dough. It’s when … 
  5. Taking Charge
     … As the Buddha often said, the things you keep thinking about form the inclination of the mind. And so as with any new habit, it takes a while to get used to the new habit. But you can lay down these new patterns in your brain, you can lay down these new patterns in your actions. So you should ask yourself, what kind of … 
  6. A Message for the Universe
     … For the purpose of meditation, you’re trying to perceive pain in a way that it doesn’t impinge on you, that it doesn’t form a block. But sometimes even before you can settle down in concentration, you’ve got to change your perceptions about your daily life, the people you associate with. And you have to learn how to question those perceptions … 
  7. Mental Experiments
     … Generosity is one of the forms of noble wealth. It gives the mind a sense of contentment. You’re not constantly gobbling up your profits. You take part of the profits and share the rest. That provides a different kind of wealth inside. The same with virtue: You see the things you could do that might give you an immediate advantage over somebody else … 
  8. Respect for the Triple Training
     … When people engage in wrong speech, some of the forms of which don’t come under the precept against lying, but they certainly fall outside of the path—harsh speech, divisive speech, idle chatter—they create a lot of trouble all around. The Buddha was very particular about speech. If you look through the Jātaka tales, you’ll see that the Buddha-to-be … 
  9. The Mind’s Ostinato
     … But you can turn around and look at how these ideas get formed, and you see that they’re actions. That makes it a lot easier to let go of some ideas about yourself and about the world, and not feel threatened. You realize that they were put together to begin with, and they might not have been put together so well. Like even … 
  10. Lifting the Mind
     … But that sense of well-being, that sense of fullness inside, as you feel the body from inside, is a higher form of pleasure. So you’re lifting the level of the mind, and you’re strengthening the ability to pull yourself out of different thought worlds, to pull yourself out of different concerns that keep the mind weighed down, from the blatant level … 
  11. Preparing to Die Well
     … In one sense, this is a form of letting go. You let go of your desire to do and say unskillful things. But it’s also a form of developing. You have to develop a strong conviction that the sacrifices you might have to make in observing the precepts are really worth making, that there are some things of greater value to be gained … 
  12. A Seeker’s Habits
     … And it’s not just an idle sentiment It’s something that forms the basic motivation for our practice: May I be happy. And we’re not talking about just any old kind of happiness. We want true happiness. That’s why we’re here, having seen the kind of happiness that the world outside has to offer, and realizing that it just doesn … 
  13. Four Roles to Play
     … As I mentioned last night, when the Buddha described his awakening in the simplest, shortest form, it was a principle of causality: what causes what, and how the process of causation functions, whether it’s immediate or over the long term. That’s the sort of thing that can be found only by doing things and then judging the results. Commitment. Reflection. In the … 
  14. Cleansing the Mind
     … These are the three ways of cleansing the mind that form a good foundation for the meditation. They remind you of why we’re sitting here learning how to deal with pain, why we’re sitting here learning how to deal with pleasure, why we’re trying to find a happiness that’s blameless. Because a happiness that comes out of greed or ill … 
  15. Patience & Curiosity
     … So it’s more an active form of patience. It’s coupled with curiosity. This is where you, as a meditator, are different from a clod of dirt. A clod of dirt has no curiosity at all. It just sits there. If you want to meditate well, you’ve got to be curious. When the Buddha says to train yourself to breathe in and … 
  16. Elemental Energy
     … It worries about this, gets upset about that, all forms of feeding in the wrong places because it’s hungry. But if you got a good sense of satisfaction just breathing in, breathing out, a sense of fullness, a sense of ease that comes from the breath, then you’ve got a good place to feed right there, and you don’t need other … 
  17. Great Expectations
     … So you have to learn how to see all that narratives and any other embroidery that you place on your lust as a form of suffering. The same goes with anger. We may not like the object—the person who’s gotten us angry—but we certainly like our anger. People get very defensive when they’re told, as the Buddha said, to kill … 
  18. Saṃvega & Pasāda
     … The mind needs pleasure for its food, so learn how to feed inside, on the pleasure of the form of the body as you sense it from within, so that you’re not taking food from other people’s fields. Unfortunately, we can’t see the goal. We read all these exclamations throughout the Pali Canon about what a wonderful goal it is. Think … 
  19. Protect Your Energy
     … This is where the other forms of fabrication come in. First there’s verbal fabrication, which is the way you think about things and evaluate situations. Then there’s mental fabrication, the perceptions and feelings you have. Those are things you have some control over as well. Those are things that you use to shape your experience, too. If you do it with ignorance … 
  20. You Can Do Better
     … It has to do with the form of the body as you feel it from within. It’s a higher type of pleasure. And unlike sensual pleasures, it’s not intoxicating. It can be very addictive—but as Ajaan Fuang said, that’s all to the good. Get crazy about your meditation. Get really stuck on your meditation, because only when you’re really … 
  21. Dissolving Your Thoughts
     … And as for your commentary as to where you are or what you’re doing, think of it as another form of energy. Look for the breath aspect of that thinking. That way, you maintain your focus still with the breath, and the thoughts become less and less and less of a disturbance. This ability comes about by learning how to view your thoughts … 
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