Search results for: "Thought"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Breath Meditation: Four Sets of Tools… That realization can help release you from those thoughts. Whatever the problems facing you in the future, they’re uncertain enough that you can’t really plan in much detail what you’re going to do. But you do know that when something unexpected comes up, you’re going to need mindfulness, you’re going to need alertness, you’re going to need your …
- The Buddha’s Revolution… There was also a case of shedding thoughts of revenge: realizing that an injustice had been done, and wanting to punish the people who had acted unjustly. The story goes that there was once a young prince whose parents had been killed by a king, and the prince plots revenge very carefully. But then when the time finally arrives that he can get his …
- Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge… As the Buddha said, the feeding is related to suffering, because suffering is clinging, and the term for “feeding” or “taking sustenance” is also the same as the word for “clinging.” But the Buddha thought strategically. He realized that you couldn’t just stop feeding off of form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness. If you forced yourself to stop, parts of the mind would …
- Complexities of the Mind… The chant itself doesn’t do all the work, but it provides some fuel for your practice, it gives you food for thought: When you’re feeling lust, exactly what is this object you’re lusting after? You start taking it apart, and you see that in order to lust after it you’ve got ignore all kinds of things. Then you realize, the …
- Everything You Need… You don’t have to identify with your feelings, your perceptions, your thoughts, even your awareness at the senses, your consciousness. You don’t have to identify with these things if identifying with them leads to suffering. You have that choice. We talk about the committee of the mind and that’s only part of the range of what you can latch onto here …
- The Good Fight… This is how the mind creates a thought. This is how it creates an identity. This is how it creates a world of becoming, as they say. In other words, a desire arises in the mind and then you create a world around that desire. The world is made up of the things that will help you gain what you want and of things …
- The Lessons of Equanimity… This is why the Buddha says that the factors of the first jhana include directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to the breath and then you evaluate: Are you staying well with the breath? Does the breath feel good? How might it feel better? This way you bring the body and the mind together with the glue of a comfortable feeling inside …
- Training Your Inner Critic… You’re trying to find your nourishment, you need a sense of form, and feelings, and perceptions, and thought constructs, and consciousness to get your nourishment. When the Buddha talks about three, he divides fabrications into bodily, verbal, and mental. You get those on two levels. On the large level, bodily fabrication is any intentional act you do with the body. Verbal fabrication is …
- Patience & Tenacity… As for the thoughts, you’re no longer feeding them. The thoughts keep coming back again and again and again like stray cats and dogs because you feed them i.e., you pay attention to them. Even getting upset about them when you’re trying to chase them away, they’ve got you. You’ve given them food. So let them be there, but …
- Keep Things Simple… And put out of your mind all thoughts about how the last meditation went or yesterday’s meditation went or how it was last week. Just focus on what you’ve got right here, right now. This is an important element in the practice: that you drop any concerns about how good or bad things have been in the past. Those concerns get in …
- The Analytical Mind… But then she thought of the space element, so she went there, keeping the perception of “space, space, space” in mind, without paying any attention to any sensation of the body. When she came out of that meditation, everything in the body had gone back to normal. She didn’t die—that’s why we know the story—but she learned an important lesson …
- A Healthy Body Image… When that thought takes over, you waste an awful lot of time on the appearance of the body. And then what does it do? It gets old. Maybe not so quickly that you feel an immediate sense of danger around it, but it’s quick enough. No one ever ages too slowly. It’s always a surprise, that this is what the body does …
- Where You Set Your Heart… Then two, you put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. **In other words, any thoughts that come up with regard to the world, about what you want about the world, about how you’re upset about what’s going on in the world—you have to put those aside. ** **You’re very definitely making a choice of where you’re going …
- The Power of Your Actions… Then you have the directed thought and evaluation—that’s fabrication, as you direct your thoughts to the breath, adjust the breath, and read the results of your adjustments, deciding what you like and don’t like, and deciding what would be a better way to get the mind even more concentrated. Finally, there’s consciousness: the act of being aware of all these …
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