Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Expanding Your Awareness
     … Whatever they do, for good or for evil, to that will they fall heir.” We apply these thoughts to everybody, all living beings of all kinds. There’s also a chant that specifically directs you to think these thoughts in specific directions: first to the East, then West, North, South, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, above and below—all ten directions. Sometimes it’s a … 
  3. Generosity & Gratitude
    Every night we have the chant on developing thoughts of goodwill. We start with goodwill for ourselves, although it’s interesting that the discussions of this topic in the Canon never talk about what order you should do this in. It’s only in the later texts where they say that you should start with yourself, then go to people who’ve been kind … 
  4. The Buddha’s Standards or Yours?
     … Verbal fabrication is directed thought and evaluation—the way the mind talks to itself. Mental fabrication consists of perceptions and feelings—feelings here not so much as emotions, but rather as feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Now, the way these things are defined, you can see that they don’t happen only when you’re meditating. It’s not that … 
  5. The Uses of the Breath
     … Technically, this is directed thought and evaluation. When you’re focused on the breath, you’re directing your thoughts there and you evaluate the breath as it’s coming in, going out. You also evaluate the mind as it relates to the breath so that you get them to fit snugly together. Finally, there’s mental fabrication: feelings and perceptions. Perceptions are the labels … 
  6. Doing Meditation
     … Sometimes you notice when a thought appears. When you’re conscious of the whole body like this, you’ll also notice that there’s a pattern of tension that corresponds to the thought appearing in your sense of the body. If you try relaxing that pattern of tension, the thought goes away. That provides you with another interesting insight into the connection between mind … 
  7. Appropriate Attention
     … What you thought was your friend is not your friend; what you thought you could rely on, you can’t rely on. That’s when you let go. You can’t determine ahead of time which of the aggregates is going to be the trigger, or which of the perceptions that you apply. The clinging-aggregates, as the Buddha said, are the first noble … 
  8. Shifting Your Paradigm
     … You see how much there is to explore here, this territory that you thought you knew, but when you really look at it very carefully, you realize it contains a lot going on that you didn’t know before. This is what makes the meditation fascinating. There’s always a lot to learn about the breath, new ways of conceiving how it goes in … 
  9. Ignorance & Deception
     … That’s how it moves from one thought world into another one. That right there contains a lot of ignorance. It’s like when they put on a play: When they’re going to change the scenery, they close the curtains, because if you could see the old scenery being moved away and new scenery being put in place, it would destroy some of … 
  10. To Comprehend Suffering
     … These are the activities of form, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. But theimportant word there is the clinging, because there are places where he says that the aggregates on their own are experienced by arahants. Arahants have form, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, consciousness, but they don’t suffer, because they don’t have the clinging. So, the first noble truth: To comprehend dukkha … 
  11. When Aging Closes In
     … I was just struck by the thought.” So Sariputta explained. It’s a matter developing the mind to the point where you no longer have to identify with the body, with feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, or consciousness. That way, when these things change, as they inevitably will, the mind won’t be affected by the change. That’s a really healthy mind. This is … 
  12. Your Hair Is on Fire
     … Then the Buddha also taught Rahula to think about the theme of inconstancy, that these thoughts that appear in the mind are pretty unreliable. They come and they go. And they come again, and then they go again. Or they don’t come when you want them to. They’re pretty much the result of past karma, which means they could come at any … 
  13. Adult Dhamma
     … As the Buddha says, this is how you purify your thoughts, words, and deeds. Nobody else is going to come along and do the job for you. You’ve got to do it yourself. You have to learn how to be observant. You have to learn how to deal maturely with your mistakes. Don’t hide them from yourself. Don’t pretend they didn … 
  14. You’re Already Dead
     … So every time a thought comes up, remind yourself, ‘I’ve already died. I can’t go back.’” She took his instructions and was able to stay for a whole two weeks. Of course, that lesson is immediately relevant to our staying here, away from the responsibilities of our work and our family. It’s one good way of cutting through all the entanglements … 
  15. The Equanimity that Doesn’t Give Up
     … The Buddha thought a lot. He set down guidelines for how to think. He didn’t say not to think. He said to think in terms of appropriate attention, to think in terms of the four noble truths. Ask yourself questions as to what’s skillful and what’s not. Put things to the test, evaluate them. There’s a lot of thinking in … 
  16. Training Your Cynical Voices
     … You don’t have to think about directed thought and evaluation. You just do them. Evaluate your breath. If it’s not good, change it. Keep coming back to the breath again and again and again. Keep exploring how you can breathe in a way that really feels gratifying. As for the stages of concentration, they’ll come on their own when you’re … 
  17. The Buddha’s Eight Principles
     … Even though he was a noble warrior, and noble warriors live by the sword, he knew enough to not go for thoughts of revenge: to shed the pride that comes with being a noble warrior, to shed the thoughts for revenge. He teaches this story to monks who have gotten involved in a quarrel over something really minor. The purpose of the story is … 
  18. Specifically
     … But can you tell yourself, it is possible to be there with the pain but not let it invade your mind? What does it mean to invade your mind? That it’s going to take over your thoughts, it’s going to become the target of your thinking. Can you look off to the side a little bit to see what’s around the … 
  19. The Train Trestle
     … Sometimes it’s with the thoughts going on in the mind: things left over from the day. If you find a lot of left-over stuff, sort through it a bit. Imagine the Buddha’s point of view, and think of what he would have to say about the issues that are coming up in your mind right now, how he might advise you … 
  20. A Better Place to Feed
     … Fortunately, that’s not a selfish thought because your true happiness—if it’s going to be true and it’s going to last—can’t involve harming other people. Otherwise, they’re going to try to destroy it, which means it’s not going to last. You think about what would qualify as true happiness, and a lot of the qualifications have to … 
  21. The Middle Way
     … As for any thoughts that’d pull you away to something else, you say, “Not now. This is not the time.” And you bring three qualities to this. Ardency is the desire to do this well. Alertness is watching what you’re actually doing, both watching the breath and watching the mind. Mindfulness is remembering to keep something in mind. When you see something … 
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