Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. The Value of Concentration
     … As soon as the thought comes into the mind, you’re right there. The hard part is in staying there, and for that you need to have a strong sense of how valuable it is to have a peace of mind, to have the mind centered in one place. You need to be very protective of what you’ve got. In the beginning it … 
  3. How to Listen to the Dhamma
     … But if that were so, you wouldn’t be able to listen to the Dhamma talk, you wouldn’t be able to think thoughts of appropriate attention, because appropriate attention involves directed thought and evaluation, which are qualities of the first jhana. You let your thoughts flow along with the talk, and you evaluate what’s being said as it relates to what’s … 
  4. The Buddha’s Protection
     … The Buddha’s instructions on establishing mindfulness are to protect us from our thoughts that go out into the world and cause us trouble. At the same time, those instructions give us a good, solid place to stay within the mind itself, so that our happiness has a source coming from within. It doesn’t depend on things outside—the word outside here meaning … 
  5. A Foundation for Restraint
     … You can start by just being aware of the breath here in the present moment, so that when the thoughts go out, you notice they’re going out. This is a theme you hear from the forest ajaans a lot: There are currents that flows out of the mind. And the currents cause all the trouble. They go out your eyes, your ears, nose … 
  6. Keeping Your Values Alive
     … The first person thought, “Well, this is my property. I can do what I want.” The second person said, “Well, that was my view first.” Of course, they’re both wrong. The property doesn’t really belong to the first person; the view doesn’t belong to the second. But when sensuality is uppermost in your mind, uppermost in your life, you start laying … 
  7. The No Common Sense Zone
     … Years back, I was reading a book where the author made the point that, regardless of what the religion or denomination of religious thought in America, it all came down to Methodism: the belief that if your heart was good, that’s all that mattered. You don’t have to think much. You don’t have to study or understand anything much. When your … 
  8. Borrowed Goods
     … the verbal fabrication of directed thought and evaluation, and just the underlying intention even in the higher levels of concentration—the intention to stay here, to stick with one object. And then there’s consciousness: the awareness of all these things. In this way, you’re using all five aggregates to make them into a path, to turn them into concentration. You use them … 
  9. Why It’s Good to Know Why
     … Remember that when you’re extending thoughts of goodwill, you’re not saying, “May you be happy just as you are.” The thought is, “May you understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them.” And see that as a real possibility. We tend to dismiss other people: “So and so is like this, so and so is … 
  10. Talking to Yourself
     … Two of the factors of getting the mind to settle down are what he called vitakka and vicāra, directed thought and evaluation. Directed thought is when you focus the mind on a topic, decide that you’re going to focus on one thing, and you keep thinking about it, reminding yourself to stay here, stay here, stay here. For instance, you want to stay … 
  11. Mindfulness Gets Intimate
     … When the mindfulness is really established in that framework, then he says you keep track of the body in and of itself, but don’t think thoughts of the body. Don’t think thoughts connected with feelings or mind. Just be present with the experience. As you drop those thoughts, that can get you into the second jhana. But then the Buddha says there … 
  12. Sensuality
     … It’s all too easy—as you’re sitting here putting aside your duties of the day, your various responsibilities, and you create an empty space here in the present moment—that these are the thoughts that come flooding in: the sensual pleasures you’d like to fantasize about. When the Buddha talks about sensuality, it’s not so much the pretty things out … 
  13. Appreciating Dispassion
     … Sariputta talks about how, when you get into the second jhana, you see that directed thought and evaluation are a disturbance. You’d rather drop them. You get the breath feeling so good throughout the body that you don’t need to adjust it anymore. Ajaan Fuang’s image is of a jar of water. Once you get it full, it doesn’t matter … 
  14. Start Out Small
     … And as for what’s going to happen when you focus on the breath, put that thought aside. And where the meditation is going to take you and how it’s going to take you there: Put those thoughts aside as well. Be careful not to anticipate too much, because when you know too much in advance, it’s not really knowing. A lot … 
  15. Give Before You Get
     … You’re going to have to give up all the thoughts that you could have entertained yourself with when allowing your mind to wander around as it likes. You’re going to focus on one thing, and the rewards of that one thing may not appear right away. You have to give some time to it; you have to give some energy to it … 
  16. The Real World
     … You spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings. These are happy actions and there’s merit in doing them. They train the mind in the right direction. And there’s happiness at the same time. When you dedicate merit, you’re hoping to share that happiness with others. Of course, happiness isn’t something you can take out of your heart and put into … 
  17. A Gentle Touch
     … So pay attention to the feelings and perceptions and the thoughts that hover around right here, right now. Meditation is not a process of stopping thought right away. Just bring your thoughts to bear on what’s happening right here, right now. To some people this is threatening. They’re afraid of what’s going on right here, right now, which is why we … 
  18. A Heart & Mind of Goodwill
     … That’ll make it a lot easier to think these thoughts when you’re miserable and hungry and in pain. Sometimes there’s a mind state that thinks, “As long as I’m suffering maybe everybody else should, too.” That’s the wrong way to think. The Buddha set a good example. One time he was attacked. Someone wanted to kill him and so … 
  19. Deep Understanding
     … On the level of listening and thinking, you can hear about mindfulness, you can hear about alertness, you can hear about concentration and discernment, but it’s when you actually try to develop these things in the mind you come up against issues you might not have thought of before, things that weren’t in the plan. And you find that as you develop … 
  20. Making the Dhamma Your Own
     … There’s a great passage in the Canon where a king says that when he was young he thought he had the strength of two men, but now that he’s 80, he thinks of putting his foot somewhere, and it won’t even go there. It goes someplace else. The body gets less and less good a repairing itself, so actions that used … 
  21. Achieving Balance
     … Sometimes that thought will help stir you up. Then look at what you need to do to energize the mind even further to keep it awake. You might decide that you need to go through the parts of the body. Think about the different bones in your skeleton. What have you got? Imagine all the bones starting from the toes coming on up: Where … 
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