Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Write It Down in Your Heart
     … Otherwise, the speaker is just a babysitter in the background, making sure that the babies in the room don’t go wandering off in their thoughts to places they shouldn’t go. Hopefully, the talk actually gives information that’s useful, that’s worth taking to heart, worth attending to well. Not only while you’re listening, but also after you’ve gotten up … 
  3. Instructions for a New Monk
     … So I thought I’d recap a few of the instructions. The first set of instructions had to do with the act of taking refuge. We take refuge in what’s called the Triple Gem. This is related to the fact that back in the time of the Buddha, they thought that gems had protective powers. In this case, though, the protective powers are … 
  4. True for What Purpose?
     … You have to ask yourself, why are you engaging in thoughts about them? If you’re engaging in thoughts about them for the sake of putting an end to suffering, okay, you focus on their drawbacks, at the right time. When you’re trying to get the mind into concentration, though, you focus on the ways in which you can, at least to some … 
  5. The Gift of Discernment
     … He provided us with admirable friendship so that we would be inspired to adopt what he thought was the most important internal factor, which was appropriate attention: applying discernment to the present moment. In his first sermon, he starts out with the important takeaway, which is right view—learning how to see things in terms of suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path … 
  6. A Pure Happiness
     … But if you realize you can break it down into little bits and pieces—just this particular thought right here, right now—you realize that that particular thought is not so difficult, not so hard to overcome. It’s the same when dealing with pain. If you think about how much pain you’ve been through or how much pain you’re going to … 
  7. Mindful & Grateful for Lessons in Freedom
     … There’s verbal fabrication, directed thought and evaluation. You’re free to direct your thoughts anywhere. Well, direct them to the breath, because it’s going to be a useful place to direct them. And evaluate the breath. What kind of breathing is comfortable? What kind of breathing is the mind willing to stay with for long periods of time? When you get a … 
  8. For Your Good the Good of Others
     … As for other thoughts that come in, use whatever discernment you have to deal with them. When I was staying with Ajaan Fuang, there was one point where he said, “Use your pañña.” That was back in the days when I thought pañña was best translated as wisdom. I said, “I don’t have any pañña, that’s why I’m here trying to … 
  9. Everybody Suffers
     … That’s what allows you to turn yourself, turn your thoughts, in another direction: What is it in the mind that keeps giving rise to this spark that desires birth? The Buddha said that that’s the cause of suffering: this drive for becoming. I was talking this evening to someone about the Buddha’s take on happiness: Normal happiness is based on feeding … 
  10. Push Yourself
     … The more thought you put into the gift, the more happiness you’re going to get out of it, because that’s what merit is. It’s the happiness that comes from something good. The same with the precepts: You’re sure to run up against some situations where it’ll be hard to hold by the precepts. If you simply say, “Well, this … 
  11. Concentration Work
     … Consider the issue of directed thought and evaluation. Ajaan Lee recommended that you go through the body in quite a lot of detail to settle things down and to clear things up to create a good place where you can feel at home. People complain that it’s not quieting to think about the breath and work with the breath energy in different parts … 
  12. Right Effort & Right Mindfulness
     … Any greed or distress with reference to the world, any desires you have for the world, or any thoughts where you’re upset with the world, you just put them aside. Now, to these two activities—keeping the right frame of reference and putting aside any thoughts that go into the reference to the world—you bring three qualities. One of them, of course … 
  13. To the Far Shore
     … So you want to be able to distinguish the thought of anger from its physical results. All too often when we sense those physical results, we think, “I must still be angry,” so we pick the anger up again and run with it some more. But if you can see the distinction—that the thought of anger and the physical results are two different … 
  14. Four Roles to Play
     … One of those activities is directed thought and evaluation. In plain terms, that’s how you talk to yourself. And you’re talking to yourself all the time. One problem is that you’re usually doing it in ignorance. Either you don’t know that you’re talking to yourself, or there are many layers of conversation going on inside. Another problem is that … 
  15. Cause & Effect Right Now
     … A thought comes up in the mind and we feel compelled to run with it, or to complete it, or to figure out exactly what it’s all about. But because there are a lot of thoughts that aren’t worth following that way, you have to learn how to sort them out. And when there’s a pain in the body, it’s … 
  16. Fires of the Mind
     … In other words, you protect the mind from all other thoughts aside from the one thought of the breath. That’s what you’re going to be burning into. Your focus usually starts off as a very tiny little flame. You’ve got one spot in the body where you’re focused. It’s like setting fire to something that you’ve got to … 
  17. A Mind Without Inertia
     … We’re attached to passion for sensual thoughts, our obsession with sensual thoughts. We love to think about sensual pleasures. If we can’t get one sensual pleasure, well, we’re happy to think about another one. But we’re really attached to the thinking, even though it makes us suffer. We think of passion as a good thing. A lot of people say … 
  18. A Strong Mind
     … The question is, what do you want to develop? You could sit here and develop all kinds of thoughts. But that’s not what the word means. The word really means developing good qualities in the mind. It’s like exercising the mind, in the same way that you exercise the body. If you want the body to be strong, you can’t simply … 
  19. Getting Back on Your Feet
     … If thoughts of lust come up, you say, “Okay, take your body apart first. Which part of the body, if you lay them out on the ground, would inspire lust?” Then remember that the other person’s body has that same type of thing. Hold that perception in mind. In other words, instead of allowing lust to do the looking, you have these thoughts … 
  20. Moving Between Thought Worlds
    Moving Between Thought Worlds December 27, 2008 We’ve all had the experience when we’re asleep of finding ourselves in a dream and, for a while, believing that what’s happening in the dream is real. Then something alerts us that something is wrong with the dream, and finally to the fact that we’re dreaming. Usually that’s enough for us to … 
  21. Truth Through Training
     … Our thoughts have to have a marker someplace in the body so that we can remember a particular thought, and if the thought’s complex, there are going to be markers all over the body. So the breath gets squeezed out of those spots. But now we’re allowing the breath to have full range. And as the breath has full range, the body … 
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