Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Strategies for Happiness
     … The thought that “I am,” the thought of identification, is an act of putting things together. It’s a fabrication, an activity, aimed at happiness. And to some extent it works. People who have a very poorly formed sense of self have trouble managing their lives. A certain level of identification is needed, a certain sense of self is needed, just to function properly … 
  3. Undefeated Goodwill
     … Once we have thoughts of goodwill for ourselves and for others, we have to carry through with actions and words of goodwill. We don’t just sit here spinning cotton candy and sending nice pink thoughts out around the world. We have to think, when we act on an intention: Is it going to be for our true well-being or not? Is it … 
  4. Ending Suffering
    We begin each session with the chant spreading thoughts of goodwill because that’s the motivation that underlies the whole practice. Goodwill for ourselves, goodwill for other people: This is what underlies the practice for trying to put an end to suffering. If we didn’t feel goodwill for ourselves, why would we care whether there was suffering or not? It wouldn’t be … 
  5. Step Outside the World
     … Some of our thoughts really are worthwhile. There are things we have to do, things we have to say, things we have to plan for. But a lot of our thoughts are just random bubbles. Some of them are actually harmful. For the most part, people just let themselves get sucked into whatever comes up and attracts their attention. They go with it without … 
  6. A Total Training
    Start each meditation session with thoughts of goodwill. Goodwill is a wish for happiness, true happiness here. This is to remind you of why you’re meditating. You want to find true happiness and you want a happiness that doesn’t harm other people’s happiness. So you tell yourself, “May I find true happiness. May all living beings be happy,” as we chanted … 
  7. Ups & Downs
     … You ask yourself, “I thought I dealt with that before. Why is it coming back?” If the thought comes up, “Maybe this is something I can never give up,” don’t ever give in to that thought. It’s possible to give up any kind of unskillful activity. As the Buddha said, if it weren’t possible to do that, he wouldn’t have … 
  8. Concentration Work
     … directed thought, evaluation. You have the directed thought and evaluation in the first jhana. Then the reflective self hovers around all the levels of concentration when you’re contemplating them. That fifth factor the Buddha talks about—where the analogy is of a person sitting, looking at someone lying down, or of a person standing, looking at a person sitting—is an analogy for … 
  9. Meditation as Play
     … Where do you want to place the center? What happens when you place it further down in the body? Your directed thought and evaluation—that’s fabrication. How do you talk to yourself about the breath? How do you talk to yourself about the mind? How do you talk to yourself about what you’re doing? And there’s consciousness, which is aware of … 
  10. Looking after Yourself with Ease
     … bodily, through the way we breathe; verbally, through the way we talk to ourselves in what he calls directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to a topic and you make comments on it, ask questions (and) come to judgements. This is what a lot of what our internal chatter is. Then finally there’s mental fabrication, which consists of perceptions and feelings … 
  11. Be Observant
     … So if you’re not sure what’s happening, what the thoughts are going to do or where they’re going to go, remember that you want to look at your thoughts as actions with results. It’s not that you’re going to believe them or not believe them. You just want to look at them as actions. That means you’ve got … 
  12. Building a Home for the Mind
     … When the work is done—the directed thought and evaluation work—then you can rest in deeper levels of concentration because the whole body has been worked through, cleaned out. It’s as if with directed thought and evaluation you’re sweeping through the body—getting rid of all the cobwebs; getting rid of all the dust. When they’re gone, you can settle … 
  13. The Buddha’s Encouragement
     … Getting the mind calm, with as few thoughts as possible; getting very quiet, not much going on inside—that’s a good thing. Part of us will say, “Yes, that sounds pretty good.” But then when you get there, how many times have you found that it gets boring? Nothing’s happening. You want the insights to come really fast so that you can … 
  14. Don’t Leak Out Your Ears & Eyes
     … Or as Ajaan Lee says, don’t let it leak out of your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, thoughts of the past, or thoughts of the future because if you do, you feel depleted inside. You feel a sense of lack, a sense of hunger. And that makes you want to get more things out of your eyes and ears, nose, tongue, body, sights, sounds … 
  15. Safe Haven
     … Just pose that thought in the mind: What kind of breathing would feel good now? And give everything over to the breath. If you need a meditation word to help you stay with the breath, you can use the word buddho, which means awake. Think bud- with the in-breath, and dho with the out-, to help block out any other vagrant thoughts that … 
  16. Serenity
     … These thoughts are soothing to the mind. In the beginning, you have to work through them. Ask yourself, “Is there anybody out there for whom you cannot feel goodwill?” And certain faces will probably appear in your mind. You have to remind yourself: Nobody benefits from seeing those people suffer. Often, if they suffer, they come back and get more vengeful. So it’s … 
  17. Skills for Dying Well
     … Your awareness is one thing, your breath is something else, other thoughts coming into the mind are something else—and it’s good to be able to see those distinctions. In the beginning, though, as you work with the breath, you want to get the breath and your awareness together to the point where they seem to be one and the same thing. But … 
  18. The Ivory Intersection
     … As you’ve probably found, when you come here, even when there’s physical seclusion, thoughts about work, thoughts about family—what, in Thai, they call “108 different issues”—all come rushing in. Even if we were to put up seven fortress walls around the monastery, those thoughts could still come in and invade your mind, invade your meditation—even more so when you … 
  19. Endurance Training
    It’s always good to start with thoughts of goodwill. It cleans out the mind. There may be issues that come from the day. This person said this; that person did that. You did this or you did that—things you don’t like to think about. If you don’t do a little cleaning out beforehand, it’s going to be hard for … 
  20. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … If you’ve been holding on to a particular thought, just remind yourself, “This is not the time for that.” This is one of the reasons why, when we meditate at night, we have those chants that remind you of how much the world gets swept away, and all you have left that’s really your own are your actions. Your actions come from … 
  21. Wise Choices
     … There was one time when a monk said to the Buddha,” I do breath meditation.” The Buddha asked him, “What kind of breath meditation do you do?” The monk said, “I put aside thoughts of past and thoughts of the future, and I learn to develop equanimity around the present as I breathe in and breathe out.” As the Buddha said, there is that … 
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