Search results for: "Thought"
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- A Good Example for the WorldWe spread thoughts of goodwill every morning, every evening, making it our resolve that we want to act in a way that’s conducive to everyone’s true happiness. If there’s anybody out there who’s suffering, whom we can help, we’d be happy to help; anyone who’s already happy or acting on the causes of happiness, we’re happy for …
- Sensitivity & Skill… One of the brahmas, out of wantonness, thought, “What’s that?” He tasted it with his finger. It tasted like wild honey. So he ate more and more. The other brahmas saw this, so they started eating, too. They fell on the flavor-earth, consuming it, and as they did they lost their self-luminosity. The sun and the moon appeared. The stars appeared …
- In the Mood to Meditate… Those thoughts can gladden the mind. Of course, there’s the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. You’ve got this teaching that was discovered by someone who was really wise, very principled. He’d attained true happiness and didn’t need anything more for the sake of his own happiness. So after his awakening, he gave his life to helping other people find …
- For Goodness’ Sake… But actually, the first jhana contains directed thought and evaluation: These are things you do. You direct your thoughts to the breath and then you evaluate it. How does it feel? Does it feel good enough to stay with for a while? If it doesn’t, how could it be made to feel that good? You experiment. You try things out. You ask questions …
- Giving Meaning to Life… As you work on the path, you begin to see how the mind creates a thought world and you realize that you have the choice to go into that thought world or not. As you develop more and more mindfulness, more and more alertness, you understand these processes of the mind. Through understanding them, you can free yourself from them. You don’t have …
- Help Others, Help Your Mind… Apparently he thought that discernment had to mean seeing things in terms of the three characteristics. But the Buddha’s categorical teachings don’t include the three characteristics. They include the principle that skillful actions should be developed, and unskillful actions should be abandoned, and then the four noble truths, which are basically the application of that first principle to the problem of suffering …
- Sorting Yourselves Out… So you try to remind yourself of the good things that that person has done or thought or said for you. Even though you may feel a resistance, as if that person doesn’t deserve it, or, “I’m going to be trapped in that person’s net if I think nice things about the person,” you have to remind yourself: “No, you’re …
- Chewed Up by Your Food… And our thoughts, as we’ve seen many times, can eat us up. Especially when we think about the stupid and thoughtless things we’ve done in the past, or ways in which we’ve suffered in the past. It’s funny how the mind can feed off of these things, even though they’re unpleasant. Yet it goes back to them. It gets …
- Nobility Through Inner Strength… When unskillful thoughts come up in the mind, you know you don’t want them to get out into your words or deeds, so you try to stop them before they have that kind of influence. One way of preventing them is to give the mind a good place to stay. All too often, the reason we do things that aren’t in our …
- Adult Education… As you get really sensitive to the actions of the mind, you begin to see how they come out in terms of your thoughts, words, and deeds, and how these things shape your life. This is all an important education. It’s a large part of our standard education that’s missing. More and more, you see people calling for an education that trains …
- Training like an Adult… What thoughts does the mind like to feed on? What nourishment does it get out of them? Even the thoughts we don’t like to think keep coming back, coming back, which means that there is part of the mind that really likes the process, finds some satisfaction, finds some gratification in that thinking. You’ve got to look into why, what is this …
- Ways to Think… It’s going to come back and get me!” That’s our normal first thought about the teaching on kamma. But that’s not what the Buddha emphasizes when he teaches kamma. He emphasizes the positive side of karma: The fact that we can do a lot of good with our actions. He starts with reflecting on the gratitude we owe to people who …
- Creativity & Play… Think, “Comfortable breath.” Think, “Full breath.” You don’t have to do anything else — just think that thought, maintain that thought, and see what happens to the process of breathing in the body. Or, if you want, you can play with your focus. Instead of focusing on just one spot, try to focus on two spots at once. I personally always find that riveting …
- Play with the Breath… You want to stay with the breath, other thoughts come in, and you run with those thoughts, and then you get upset because you ran away, and you yank yourself back to the breath. Sometimes you set up a bad relationship with the breath when you do that. It seems as if the breath is the hardest thing to stay with. But you don …
- A Self Rightly Directed… So when thoughts come up in the mind that get in the way of the practice, you have to remember: They’re not the direction you want to go in. You want to go in the direction of mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, and not let yourself get waylaid by petty affairs. That’s when you can say that you have some real appreciation for …
- Location, Location… It’s a scary thought. So he gives you a checklist of the various places where craving might be focused: any of the six senses; any of the objects of the six senses; and then contact at the senses; consciousness at the contact; feeling born of the contact; perceptions for sights, sounds, smells, taste, tactile sensations, ideas; intentions for those things; directed thoughts; evaluation …
- A Sucker for Random Memories… You want to see things in terms of either the body in and of itself, feelings, mind states, mental qualities, and if you go into a thought, into a memory, you’re going into a state of becoming. That’s wrong mindfulness. If you can stand out of it and watch it simply as a process, then you maintain right mindfulness—and there’s …
- Isolating the Aggregates… In particular, you get more sensitive to that little process where there’s a stirring somewhere in the body—which could either be physical or mental to begin with—but then you decide it’s going to be a thought, so you place the label of “this is a thought about x” and then you allow it to grow in that particular direction. When …
- A Special Time… No matter what other things will come up—thoughts, memories, anticipations—you have to keep reminding yourself: No, don’t go there. Stay with the breath. Then there’s alertness, the ability to watch what you’re doing, to see your intentions, to see how you act on your intentions, and then to see the results of those actions and intentions. Ardency is what …
- Survival Tactics… You can deal with whatever thoughts come up. And all kinds of thoughts are going to come thronging in to your awareness at that point: this regret, that disappointment, this complaint. There’s going to be a lot of negative stuff. But if you’ve got good solid mindfulness and good clear awareness in the present moment, you can just watch these things come …
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