Search results for: "Thought"

  1. Page 71
  2. The Duty to Understand
     … We’re holding on to the thought constructs: the directed thoughts that focus your attention on the breath, and the evaluation that looks at it to see where it might be improved, or where it’s already pleasant, and what can be done with that sense of pleasure. We can spread it around. And we try to maintain our awareness of these things. So … 
  3. Separate
     … As long as you feel that you have to depend on them, that’s going to be a scary thought. But when you realize that you don’t, that’s one less thing to cling to, one less thing to you have to fear. When you don’t have that fear, then people can’t take advantage of that fear. We see this all … 
  4. The Practice is Wherever There’s Mindfulness
     … This is where you perfect and develop your skill, where you get practice in being skillful, by noticing, when you carry through with what you thought was skillful, what are the results? If they’re as good as you thought they’d be, okay, remember that. If they aren’t, remember that, too, and try to figure out a way to do better next … 
  5. Feeding Off of Others
     … So when we’re feeding off of other people, often we’re feeding off of our imaginings about them, our thoughts about them, our feelings, our perceptions. No wonder it’s a very unstable situation. This is why the Buddha said you need to find better things to feed on. He offers you the path. There’s a social aspect of the path as … 
  6. Conviction & Focus
     … You’re not afraid of devoting your energies to one line of thought or one particular problem. Whereas when you’re older, you don’t see that you have much time left, so there’s the fear: “If I devote myself to this problem and it turns out to be a dead-end, that’s a waste of valuable time, of which there is … 
  7. Your Inner Teacher
     … If your mind wanders off the breath, if it wanders away from your body, here’s the sound of the talk to send you back, to remind you of why you’re meditating, and sometimes to point out things that you might not have thought of otherwise. But still, the talk is meant to be here in the background. If there’s anything in … 
  8. Equanimity & Action
     … Why should that thought give rise to equanimity? Because it’s useful to reflect on that when you encounter things that you would like to have a certain way and they’re not going to be that certain way: times when you’d like to help someone else, times when you’d like to help yourself, and yet it’s not working. At least … 
  9. The Open Committee
     … If you sit and watch the thoughts that go through the mind for a while, you begin to realize that a lot of them don’t come from you at all. They come from outside—ideas you’ve picked up from who knows where: your parents, your friends, TV, teachers, radio, magazines. You never can really be sure that the places where these voices … 
  10. Determined on Goodwill
     … Not, “May you be happy doing whatever you’re doing,” but, “May you act in skillful ways and avoid unskillful ways.” Try to keep that thought in mind. As you’re going through the day, don’t neglect the fact that you, say, chanted passages of goodwill or had a meditation of goodwill earlier in the day. It’s an attitude you have to … 
  11. A Well-thatched Roof
     … That’s what we do when we engage in directed thought and evaluation, particularly the evaluation. What’s going on when the mind is settling down? What’s working? What’s not working? If it’s not working, you try to figure it out so that it does. To understand that, you’re going to have to look at the mind in terms of … 
  12. Factors for Awakening
     … If you see that a certain way of breathing, a certain feeling, or a certain mind state is leading to unskillful thoughts, words, or deeds, change it. If any of these things lead to skillful thoughts, words, and deeds, you maintain them and try to develop them. It’s not that these tools we develop as part of right mindfulness are for use only … 
  13. Pleasures & Pains on the Middle Way
     … That’s a painful thought because it means there’s work you’ve got to do. The Buddha says to think about that, to encourage that thought. All too often you hear we shouldn’t have any goals because if you have goals then you start feeling bad about yourself. That may work on a weekend meditation retreat when they’re afraid that you … 
  14. Prepare to Die
     … If there are people we’ve harmed in the past, the Buddha says, develop thoughts of goodwill for them. Keep them in mind, keep that attitude in mind, so that you won’t want to harm other people. Because that’s the next step, of course: to develop thoughts of goodwill for everybody. You make up your mind that “Whatever harmful things I did … 
  15. The Heart of the Teachings
     … Don’t let any unskillful thoughts come into the mind, any thoughts that would pull you away from the breath. And then try to fully develop your skill in how you focus on the breath. One time, when the Buddha said that the monks should practice breath meditation, one monk said, “I already practice breath meditation.” And the Buddha asked him, “Well, how do … 
  16. Gladdening the Mind
     … Just that thought should inspire you to practice further on the path. The only problem is when the grief gets too heavy, the discouragement gets too heavy — that’s when you need to gladden the mind, by reflecting on all the good things you’ve done as part of the path. And the path is asking you to do only good things, things you … 
  17. Advice for a New Monk
     … If thoughts come into your head, remind yourself that they’re not destroying your breath. The sensations of breathing are still there. Try to maintain your focus on those sensations and just let the thoughts pass through. Think of body is being like a big window screen. The breeze flows through the screen because the screen doesn’t catch it. It goes right through … 
  18. Guardian Meditations, Right & Wrong
     … So we spread thoughts of goodwill, not so that we’ll stay around forever with everybody, but so that we’ll be motivated to act in the right way to get out of here with skill, and leave behind a good example for others. Recollection of the foulness of the body is another guardian meditation. And this, too, can be done in a right … 
  19. Forest Bathing
     … That can be a disturbing thought. You don’t know who they are. You don’t know their intentions. So the next step is to spread lots of goodwill. There’s a passage in the Canon where a monk has been bitten by a snake and he dies. Other monks go and report this to the Buddha, and the Buddha says, “That’s because … 
  20. The Desire to End All Desires
     … There may be thoughts running around through the mind on many different levels. But you make up your mind to stay with the breath regardless of those other thoughts and you pay them no attention. You don’t have to snuff them out. You don’t have to chase them down and kill them. You just don’t pay them any attention. It’s … 
  21. Little Decisions
     … A fantasy comes up and you have to decide whether or not to go with the fantasy—a thought about yesterday, a thought about tomorrow. And it’s here where the issue of complacency comes in. As the Buddha pointed out, complacency is often our big enemy as meditators. He said that his awakening depended on two attitudes, both of which tackle complacency head … 
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