Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Free Like a Wild Deer
    Start with thoughts of goodwill for all beings. Goodwill is our protection. Sometimes you hear people saying that as meditators we should let ourselves be vulnerable. What that means—or what it should mean—is that we have to think of our old defenses, realize how poorly they work, and try the Buddha’s defenses instead. In the beginning we may feel vulnerable because … 
  3. Full, Focused Attention
    Try to let go of all other thoughts and focus on thinking about the breath. Pose a few questions in the mind: Where do you feel the breath? Where do you feel the process of breathing? Pay attention right there. Try to develop a quality of intentness in what you’re doing, giving it your full attention. Be very careful to keep this in … 
  4. The Burning House
     … Get to know how thoughts arise in the present moment, how they take shape, how they get nourished by your attention, and how you can starve some thoughts if you find that they’re unhealthy or unhelpful. There are lots of things to learn here. But even though this is our home, we won’t be spending all of our time at home. There … 
  5. Feed the Hungry Mind
     … Someone raised his hand: “I thought Buddhism had no ‘shoulds.’” It took the poor teacher a whole morning to explain how there could be “shoulds” in Buddhism. But it’s full of “shoulds.” Kicca, “duty”—that’s what the Buddha talked about with his four noble truths. The big teaching has duties. Karaṇīya, “what should be done.” There’s a verb form that ends … 
  6. Pride, Good & Bad
     … Is this beneficial? Does it really help other people that this particular thought or this particular idea is getting out into the world? And then checkpoint number three: Is this the right time and place? Even though this is less efficient than the fast lane, it does mean that your speech takes on more value, and it’s speech you can be proud of … 
  7. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … So you have to learn how to dissociate from any thoughts of boredom or thoughts of impatience. You’ve got to learn how to be here, not just because it’s a really pleasant place to stay, but because the more pleasure you have, the more stillness you’ll experience. The two go together. And the more stillness, the more clearly you can see … 
  8. Patience & Hope
     … In his own case, in his awakening he thought back many, many lifetimes, thousands and thousands of eons—thousands and thousands of universes, actually, forming and then falling away—back so far that he said that the beginning point is not only unknowable, it’s also inconceivable. In the course of that long, long time, you’ve probably done lots of things, you’ve … 
  9. Worry vs. Heedfulness
     … What often happens, though, is that you stay with the breath a couple of times, and then another thought comes in and it seems more interesting, more important, and you go with that. It’s called a hindrance. It’s the normal way of the mind, and in everyday life it doesn’t seem like much is being hindered. But when you’re trying … 
  10. Friends
     … Of the things that you’ve internalized, which thoughts are your friends, which thoughts are your enemies? You have to be clear on that: Meditation is not an issue of just learning how to accept everything, good and bad. You have to have a very strongly developed sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s helpful, what’s not. The places … 
  11. Don’t Clap Hands with Pain
     … The fact that you’re breathing involves some fabrication, and there are perceptions, and there are thoughts, and there are intentions: All of these things are types of fabrication. So hold the perception in mind that there is space permeating the body. That will help fabricate the present moment in a useful way. It’ll loosen up any tightness or heaviness in the body … 
  12. Sensuality
     … Could there be another way? He thought of a time when as a child. He was sitting under a tree while his father was plowing, and his mind spontaneously entered the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born of seclusion accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. That’s the standard description. So he said to himself, “Here’s a pleasure that’s not sensual.” It … 
  13. Right Action
     … As the Buddha pointed out, when a hindrance is particularly strong—as when there’s the desire to get engaged in sensual passion, or you’re feeling thoughts of ill will, restlessness, and anxiety—you don’t recognize the fact that those thoughts are unskillful. That’s one of the main problems with the hindrances: They blind you; they get you to see things … 
  14. Rooted in Desire
     … the way you talk to yourself—what the Buddha calls directed thought and evaluation*—*as you focus your thoughts on a topic and then make comments about it, ask questions, answer the questions. Then there’s mental fabrication: perceptions and feelings. Perceptions are the labels you put on things, the images you use to identify what they are and what their meaning is. Then … 
  15. Patience
     … Don’t allow yourself to be patient or tolerant about vagrant thoughts that will pull you away from the breath. Patience relates to the process of causality in the sense that you can’t push the results to appear unless the causes are right. Sometimes the causes take a while to come together. But you can rest assured that when they do they’ll … 
  16. Putting Aside the World
     … Any vagrant thoughts that may come through, just let them pass by, pass by. You don’t have to get involved. Even though they may say, “Hey, we’re thoughts about the world. The world is big, the world is important,” remember the world is just thoughts at this moment. Try to keep things simple. Break big problems down into little problems so that … 
  17. The Buddha’s Shoulds
     … Someone in the class said, “I thought there weren’t any shoulds in Buddhism.” And I watched as the teacher spent the whole rest of the morning, trying to figure out some way of presenting the fact that, yes, the Buddha did teach some shoulds. It’s strange, though, that that idea has gotten out that the Buddha taught no shoulds. From his point … 
  18. Trust in the Power of the Mind
     … That’s a thought that can sustain you. Here the Buddha is calling on your sense of honor, that you’re willing to do good even without a reward. But then again, he says, it’s not going to be without a reward. So you place some trust in him. After all, are you going to place your trust in people who teach otherwise … 
  19. A Unified Committee
     … There may be scattered thoughts that flicker across the screen every now and then, but try to keep the sense of the wide-open screen predominant, so that the thoughts have as little impact as possible. Then learn how to stay One for as long as possible. This is a very important skill. Often when the mind settles down, you say, “Okay, what’s … 
  20. Contentment vs. Initiative
     … In the same way, as you’re practicing concentration, you need to have the attitude that no matter what thought comes up that’s not related to the breath, you have to pull out of it. You’re not going to go running with it. Even if it’s an interesting thought about some issue in daily life, some job you’ve got going … 
  21. Signs Along the Road
     … A little knot of tension develops, and then you slap a perception on to it as being a thought. Then there’s the question, “A thought of what?” and then you embroider it, string it out, move into it. You can see this most clearly as you’re fully inhabiting the body: your awareness fills the body, still breath energy fills the body. So … 
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