Search results for: "Thought"
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- For the Cessation of Dukkha… If you thought that thought, what would it accomplish? Where would it lead you? We have this tendency to be fascinated by all our thoughts, to side with whatever thought comes up in the mind. You have to change the alliances, change your allegiance. The whole mind is a complex thing. This is why our suffering bewilders us, because it’s coming out of …
- Control… Forms arise, but they have to pass away; the same for feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness. You can’t always say, “I want my body to be like this. I want my feelings to be like that,” and expect them to be that way. Simply telling them to do things doesn’t necessarily make them do it. You can tell the body not to …
- May I Look After Myself with Ease… Even though there are thoughts in the mind, the breath is still here. It’s not destroyed by the thoughts. Just make this your dwelling. This is where you’re going to take your stance. And make it a nice dwelling: Make the breath comfortable. After all, “breath” here doesn’t mean just the in-and-out breath but also the many levels of …
- Self-hatred… They’re there to act as checklists, as reminders of some of the alternatives you might not have thought of before, or that you knew before but have since forgotten. As when the Buddha talked about the five aggregates: He said there are people who manage to let go of form, feeling, perceptions, and thought constructs, but they don’t let go of consciousness …
- Creating a World of Concentration… If you see that your thoughts are going to a particular place or a particular issue, you’ve got to figure out how to cut that issue through. That’s one of the reasons why we have these contemplations at the beginning of the meditation—there’s the contemplation of aging, illness, death, and separation; there’s the contemplation that the world is swept …
- Tranquility & Insight in Tandem… You don’t have to tie up the loose ends of your thinking or work out the implications of that particular thought before you return. You’ve got to drop the thought. No matter what, come right back. Hopefully, you get quicker and quicker at this, to the point where you can actually sense when the mind is about to go. That’s when …
- Equanimity & Exertion… He’d been undergoing all sorts of self-torture for six years, but finally reached the point when he realized that “This is not working.” And he thought, “Is there another way?” He’d tried sensual pleasures and that didn’t work. He’d tried self-torment and that didn’t work. What was left? He realized he’d been thinking in terms of …
- Taking Responsibility… Then, all of a sudden, you find yourself in another thought world. The world is the process of becoming, and the going into that world is birth. So there’s this process right here. This is what you want to study: how the mind takes birth; how you start taking on an identity in one of these little thought worlds. Before you go into …
- Cosmic Scale, Human Scale… When you’ve thought of how large the universe is, think about all the beings in the universe – and wish them goodwill. This helps in several ways. When you think about all the beings in the universe, then when you’re sitting here meditating and the meditation’s not going well, you can remind yourself, “At least I’m meditating. There are a lot …
- Befriending the Breath… As soon as a thought gets uninteresting or unpleasant, or you just get tired of it, you jump. And as soon as you land on another thought, part of you has already tensed up to make the next jump. But tell yourself, “Here’s a place where you don’t have to jump up. You can stay here. Relax. You make this your home …
- Asalha Puja… First he thought of his two earlier teachers, the ones who had taught him formless attainments. But then he realized that they had died and gone to the formless heavens where they were out of touch. He couldn’t reach them. So then he thought of the five brethren, those who had assisted him when he was undergoing his austerities for six years. He …
- Stay with the Knowing… There’s that passage where the Buddha talks about people who touch something that seems really amazing in the meditation, and their first thought is, “I’ve made it. I got there.” And that thought, of course, keeps them from getting there. The proper thought is, “There’s this.” That holds you back from your normal reactions and puts you in a position where …
- Treasure Island… the perceptions that’ll give rise to thoughts of goodwill, perceptions to help give rise to thoughts of endurance—the ability to endure, how to talk to yourself when things are difficult. These are the Buddha’s gifts. And so as you take his gifts, you make yourself wealthier in terms of knowledge. Then finally there’s discernment. You start with the discernment that …
- Abandoning Effluents (3)… If a thought of sensuality comes up in the mind, a thought of ill will, a thought of harmfulness, or any unskillful quality, you put an end to it. You don’t just sit there and watch it. You may have to watch it for a while to understand it, but you’re watching it as a spy would watch an enemy. You watch …
- The Current News… And you begin to see the stages by which you get involved in the thought and how the thought goes out into a desire to do something. It’s something you want to see, because the mind plays a lot of tricks on itself as it goes from just a stirring to a decision to do something. All too often those stages are totally …
- Stretch Your Mind… What kind of thoughts does it tend to go toward? What thoughts are running through the mind that have some Velcro on them that pull you away? Try to think in a way that pulls you away from those thoughts, strips off the Velcro. Think of the Buddha on the night of his awakening. If you think you have narratives coming in from the …
- Sophisticated Dhamma… If you can learn to view your thoughts this way, to see how jerryrigged they are, how deceptive they are, that’s one way of pulling yourself out so that you don’t get so absorbed, you don’t get so fascinated with them. You don’t get carried away with the emotions. You learn to appreciate the sense of ease and solidity that …
- Seclusion Through Mindfulness… And whatever state that comes up in the present moment, you resist the tendency to identify with it, in the sense of going with the thought world, getting into the thought world, or just being your awareness here in the present moment. We’re not here to be the awareness, or to be the knowing—that’s a state of identification. You keep track …
- Virtue… by keeping on top of your thoughts and your words and your deeds throughout the day. When your thoughts, words, and deeds are within the precepts, it’s easy to get the mind to settle down and to stay with the breath in the midst of what you’re doing. After all, the things that destroy your meditation, the things that destroy you focus …
- Skilled in Leaving Concentration… The next step, of course, is to spread thoughts of goodwill. Ajaan Suwat used to talk about how in the beginning of the meditation, when we spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings, it’s primarily for ourselves, to clear away any resentments or grudges coming from the day—so that we can clear the decks before the mind can settle down. But then …
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