Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. New Eyes
     … What happens when a thought of boredom comes in? For most of us, as soon as the thought comes in, “I’m bored.” But how did that happen? How did the “I” get in there? And who’s demanding to be entertained? There are so many other things in life that we are patient with, so why can’t we be patient with this … 
  3. Facing Danger & Hardship
     … So you protect yourself with thoughts of the Buddha, thoughts of the Dhamma, thoughts of the Sangha so that you don’t forget and just go to your old instincts when you react to danger. Here we chant about taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the** S**angha every day. And it becomes something of a ceremony. But you have to remember … 
  4. Hunker Down
     … So you’ve got to learn through practice which of your thoughts are actually helpful, which ones are not, which thoughts you can deal with directly, which ones you simply have to sidestep. This is an important principle because all kinds of stuff can come up in the mind. After all, we all have past kamma, good and bad, and a lot of the … 
  5. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … You have to bring yourself in line with the Dhamma for that refuge to come inside, in your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. They said that Ajaan Mun’s most frequent Dhamma topic was practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma, not in accordance with your own preferences or with your old habits. You have to change your habits. This is because … 
  6. Practicing Meditation to Perform at Death
     … You’ve got to cut off thoughts of your family. If you’re not on good terms with your family, cut off thoughts of revenge around your family, because those, too, will pull you back, thinking about how somebody in your family wronged you. You don’t want that to be the craving that determines where you’re going to be reborn. The next … 
  7. More than Mindfulness
     … The same principle applies to your thoughts. There’s a little stirring, right on the border between the breath and your awareness. It could turn into just anything. It could turn into just a physical stirring or it could turn into a thought. As soon as you sense it, zap it, disperse it. Don’t just watch it come and go. Make it go … 
  8. Doing the Right Thing
     … learning to develop skillful qualities in the mind—which means learning to do skillful things in your thoughts, words and deeds, and learning how to abandon unskillful ones. In fact, he said that was one of his categorical teachings. There are only two categorical teachings in Buddhism. One is the skillful qualities should be developed, and unskillful ones abandoned. The other is the four … 
  9. The Dhamma Is in the Method
     … Leaning forward, of course, means leaning into thoughts of the future. Leaning back means leaning into thoughts of the past. Leaning left or right means leaning to things you like and don’t like. Just try to be balanced and aware. But the awareness itself isn’t enough. It’s just the beginning. You want to be able to watch your mind thoroughly, so … 
  10. Tranquility, Insight, & Concentration
     … As for any thoughts that come into the mind, you don’t have to pay them any attention. Just pay attention to the thoughts about the breath, because you *will *have to think about the breath as you’re investigating how it feels, and how it might feel better. Then, when you have a rhythm of breathing that feels good, maintain it as long … 
  11. The Dhamma Eye
     … The first people he thought of were the two teachers he had studied with way back when he first went into the wilderness. Then he realized that both of them had recently died and gone to the formless realms, where they couldn’t hear him teach. Next he thought about the five young monks who had stayed with him when he was practicing austerities … 
  12. Nourishing & Interesting
     … You also get to see the processes of how thoughts form. Thoughts will come that having nothing to do with the breath. In the beginning, it’s hard not to fall into them because that’s the way the mind has been acting all along. But if you decide that you’re not going to fall into them and you’re going to watch … 
  13. Your Intentions Come First
     … Something may come up—a pain or a particularly interesting thought. You have to keep reminding yourself: You’re here for the skill of dealing with the breath. You’re not here for those other things. You’ve had thoughts before; you’ve had pains before. You don’t have to get all excited about them. Even if it’s an amazing and original … 
  14. Ingenuity
     … You can see thoughts of irritation coming and going, and you don’t come down hard on yourself for having those thoughts. You realize, “Well, I do have some goodness to me. So these thoughts are just something that come and they go, and they don’t reflect on what kind of person I am. So I can watch them.” You learn a lot … 
  15. Your Breath, Your Territory
     … You learn how to observe the mind so that you’re not simply in the thoughts that come to the mind. You can step out of them a little bit and see the thoughts as processes. It’s one of the reasons why we focus on the body. It gives you a place to stay so that you can do this sort of work … 
  16. Take Good Aim
     … But if you get the person, things often don’t go the way you thought they would. “This is not the person I thought I was getting. This is not the story I was imagining.” So you have to look back again. What was it that you were actually desiring? What was your craving really aimed at? These things shift very quickly—the narrative … 
  17. Chanting Before Meditation
    Try to gather your thoughts, gather your attention, right here, right now. There’s just your awareness, your body, and the feeling of the breath coming in, going out. Notice where you feel the breath and notice how it feels. You can try some long breathing to start out with, and if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t, you … 
  18. One Foot in the Present
     … Two, develop thoughts of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity directed to the person you harmed, directed to yourself, and directed to all beings. These attitudes help to ensure that you’ll be more likely to work from skillful motivations, skillful intentions as you act. This way, having the proper attitude toward the present moment, toward what comes up in the present moment … 
  19. After-work Meditation
     … This is what directed thought and evaluation are about. To get the mind to settle down, you have to talk to it, to get it in the right mood. Talk to it in ways that will allow it to let go. So take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Make that your foundation. Then remind yourself of some of the … 
  20. No Mistakes Are Fatal
     … the breath, and the mental qualities that are called “directed thought” and “evaluation,” the ones that do all that chattering in your mind. You direct your thoughts to a particular topic and then you think about it, you evaluate it. You say, “This is this, and that’s that, and this is good, and that’s bad.” So you take those very basic building … 
  21. Developing the Heart
     … We usually translate citta as “mind,” which gives one sense of what the word means, but it’s only one sense, because the word citta can also mean “heart.” When we talk about a citta of metta—metta-cittena—it’s not just thinking thoughts of goodwill, it’s feeling thoughts of goodwill and willing thoughts of goodwill. So what we’re training here … 
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