Search results for: "Thought"
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- Start with Yourself… So when you combine that sense of well-being with the thought, “May all beings be happy,” you realize that that’s the kind of thought you want to act on, the kind of feeling you want to act on. When you act on those thoughts and feelings, you can trust yourself more, so that when you try to change the world to be …
- Three Recollections… With those thoughts in mind, you can think about your own behavior: You’ve been observing the precepts, you’ve been generous. You can settle down with a sense of confidence that this is a good path and you’re capable of following it. But as the Buddha said, there are times when the mind is not glad about settling down with the breath …
- A Light in the Darkness… There are other times when the mind has more energy to think, and in that case you’ve got to cut it off in other ways, partly by explaining things to it, partly by having values that will cut off the thoughts. All too often our values go in the other direction — encouraging thought — especially with the idea we have that if we figure …
- Second Wind… A thought may come that says, “This is boring,” or another thought may come in saying, “I’m running out of steam.” But then you have to remind yourself that these thoughts also require energy, so you want to take that energy and plow it back into the concentration. One way you can do that is to get interested in what’s going on …
- The Inner Monitor… Whatever comes up that’s not related to the breath, you say, “Not now, this is not the time or place for that.” You get used to being able to drop a thought wherever you are in the thought, so that you can get back to the breath. As the skills develop, you can start admitting the thoughts into the range of your awareness …
- Contemplating the World You Create… And as you’re taking a more proactive role in shaping concentration, you discover that you already are taking a proactive role in your life, much more than you might have thought. The simple fact that you’re aware of the contact at the six senses comes after a lot of other factors going on in the mind, factors that shape what you see …
- Attention to Your Potentials… In that case, you can tell yourself, “I’ll just get out of the way.” Those thoughts want to run, let them run, but you don’t have to run along with them. That’s an important realization in the meditation: realizing that your thoughts may go out, but you don’t have to run along with them. You can just stay right here …
- Grounded in the Elements… Or different parts of our awareness of the body get converted into thoughts about this, that, or the other thought world. When we go into a thought world, it’s like a control key on a computer. You press the control key, and “c” doesn’t mean “c” anymore—it means “copy”; “x” doesn’t mean “x”—it means “cut”; “s” doesn’t mean …
- Why the Breath… When you reflect on your thoughts, your words, and your deeds in this way, this is how you purify your thoughts, words, and deeds. We very rarely think of purity as being tied up to the quest for happiness. But as the Buddha said, that’s where you find purity, in really getting perceptive and intelligent about how you look for happiness, observing how …
- The Conditions for Goodwill… So you direct your thoughts in that way. And then you evaluate: To what extent can you really feel these feelings, have this attitude toward all beings, toward anybody out there you have trouble spreading these thoughts to. If you’re honest, you’ll find that there are some people out there. Okay, how do you change your attitude so that it’s possible …
- Antidotes to Craving… My first thought as I sat down was, “I hope I can come here again.” I hadn’t even been there for a minute and already I was thinking about the next time. That’s what you’ve got to watch out for: the thoughts that say, “I’d like to have that again.” Or, again, as I said, there are pleasures that you …
- Karma & Not-self… One of the things you begin to notice as you meditate is that thoughts come up in the mind totally unintended. It’s important to realize that you have the choice to get involved with them or not. That choice is the present intention. It takes a thought on and moves with it, or it chooses not to. An important lesson always to keep …
- Engaging the Whole Mind… Any thoughts that don’t have any relationship to this you can simply let go. Just be with the sensation of breathing in and of itself. That’s where you focus your attention. The second issue you have to pay attention to is how you focus your attention: the qualities of mind you bring to this. Actually there are lots of qualities. If you …
- Building Concentration… He says—when you’re trying to get the mind into concentration—directed thought, evaluation, and singleness of preoccupation are the causes. Directed thought is when you focus on a topic, as when you establish mindfulness. Evaluation is the next step. You’re trying to do this well, which is part of ardency, which is also in mindfulness practice. You’re trying to develop …
- Not What You Are, What You Do… You’re directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating the breath. You use certain perceptions, and certain feelings get involved. These are all elements in the factor of fabrication, which comes right after ignorance. We breathe ignorantly. We perceive things through ignorance. Our thoughts about things, the way we evaluate things, and our use of language generally are done with ignorance. As a …
- The Mind’s Song… This position of the observer is a very important part of the meditation — the observer that doesn’t go singing along with the different rhythms or thoughts coming through the mind, but watches them as events. When you’re watching things as events, you can decide which things are worth following through with and which ones are not. Of course, you sometimes find yourself …
- The Pain of Conviction… The Buddha said that simply making the determination that you want to be skillful, even before you act much on it, is, in and of itself, a skillful thought, and you want to encourage that. And the best way to encourage that is follow through with it. As for the thoughts that tend to be self-destructive, you have to ask yourself: Why you …
- Shame & Compunction… Your thoughts—you want to have skillful thoughts. Try to approach life the same way that you would approach a craft: You want to perfect your skills. And given that you’ve developed a certain level of skill already, you don’t want to be sloppy in your work. You care. This is a principle you see throughout Asia. I’ve been to Japan …
- Persistence… I could use another hour of sleep”? How do you get past that thought? How do you motivate yourself to want to get up in spite of that thought? When the meditation gets difficult, and there’s a voice in the mind that says, “Things are going poorly today; it’d be better to stop meditating”: How do you argue yourself out of that …
- Goodwill in Heart & Mind… We think of the example of Ajaan Mun, who would spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings at least three times a day. We give the practice a try. I’ve heard many people complain that they can think thoughts of goodwill, but they don’t get any warm feeling out of it. Well, it’s not necessary to have the warm feeling, as …
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