Search results for: "Thought"
- Page 98
- Barriers in the Heart… Try to keep these thoughts as unlimited as possible. Let them stretch your mind, and then try to live within those attitudes. They’re called brahma-viharas. “Vihara” means dwelling. It’s not just something that you visit for a few minutes and then forget about. Ajaan Mun would practice these three times a day. Everyday when he’d wake up he’d spread …
- What Are You Doing Right Now?… That’s important, because this is how your mind moves around from thought world to thought world. The same process happens when you die. As you leave this life and go on to the next life, it’s this seed of consciousness. That seed, as the Buddha says, gets watered by craving, by desire. Now, for many of us, our desires are unskillful, which …
- No Extra Arrows… It’s focused on form — the form of the body — feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, acts of consciousness. And it comes from craving. Craving, too, is desire and passion. The relationship between the two is like this: The word for craving in Pali is “thirst.” The word for clinging — upādāna — is “to feed.” So the desire and passion that’s looking for something: That’s …
- Heedfulness… Years back I heard someone complain that this focus on being careful in your thoughts and your words and deeds was distracting you from the wonderful deathless that was all around you, the unconditioned that was all around you. If you focus on conditioned things, you’re missing out. But that’s trying to clone awakening, to adopt the viewpoint of an awakened person …
- Guardian Meditations… Verbal fabrication consists of the way you direct your thoughts to things and then comment on them. If this is done in ignorance, it’s going to lead to suffering. Mental fabrication consists of perceptions and feelings: If you fabricate these things out of ignorance, they’re going to lead to suffering as well. This is why a large part of the practice is …
- Sensitive to the Mind… If distracting thoughts then came up, you’d see right through them because you’d already contemplated the issues. Then where does the body lead? It leads to death. And then where will you be? You’ll be totally dependent on the qualities you’ve developed in the mind. This thought gets the mind more and more willing to want to stay with the …
- Honesty & Integrity… See how quickly you can catch the whole process before it even becomes a thought. Then again, learn how to use the breath to deal with this. Sometimes there’s a little stirring that’s even hard to classify as to whether it’s physical or mental. When it’s in that in-between state, you can breathe right through it, and that zaps …
- Games the Mind Plays… I’ve got other goals right now.” And it’s a mistake to think that this resistance is somehow the deepest thought in your mind, or the most reliable thought in your mind, just because it’s coming up when things have cleared up a bit. Remember that image of the committee. And there’s not just the committee that’s operating on the …
- The Same for Everyone… And so as we sit here trying to practice his Dhamma, we should keep that thought in mind. We’re here because we want to be here. We’re here voluntarily. Most of us come here with a divided will. Part of us wants to be here, and part of us wants to be someplace else. Part of us says, “I’d like faster …
- Passion for Dispassion… We enjoy feeling and perception, and we enjoy fabricating our thoughts. We enjoy consciousness at the senses. The idea that we could find happiness by not being passionate for these things, not clinging to these things, goes against the grain, because we’ve been clinging for who knows how long? So there’s a lot in the message of the Buddha that goes against …
- The Power of Choice… Verbal fabrication is directed thought and evaluation, like we’re doing right now: We’re directing our thoughts to the breath and we’re evaluating the breath. Then there’s mental fabrication: feelings and perceptions. As you’re meditating, you’ve got all these forms of fabrication right here. And you’re creating this state of form-becoming, the best becoming for seeing the …
- Into Position… The mind in position starts first with thoughts of goodwill. You’re establishing your motivation—goodwill for yourself, goodwill for those around you. You’re going to look for happiness in a way that doesn’t harm you, doesn’t harm anybody else. So you want your thoughts of goodwill to spread in all directions to all beings without any hypocrisy, without any conflict …
- Loss… Especially when we suffer loss of someone or something we thought we had—something we did have for a while but wasn’t really as much ours as we thought it was: It’s not just the loss of that thing or that relationship. There’s a strong sense that we’ve lost part of ourself, one of our selves. This is very central …
- How to Leave Meditation… Spread thoughts of goodwill, reminding yourself that you’re coming from a good place and you see no need for anybody to suffer. What would you get out of their suffering, especially if you’re coming from a position of well-being? Most of the time, if we want to see other people suffer, it’s because we’re suffering. “As long as I …
- Perceptions & Potentials… The whole point of the path is that you can take your sense of the form of the body, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness, and you can turn them into something else. They don’t have to be a weight on the mind. They can be a path. You’re making something different out of them. Now, the suffering comes from wanting the potentials …
- Sensitive to Fabrication… But the Buddha says, no, comprehend it as clinging-aggregates, which is not the first thought that usually comes to our mind. But ask yourself, “Where’s the clinging? What are you feeding on here? Is it a form? Is it an image you’re holding in mind? Is it a feeling? Is it a perception? Is it a fabrication? Is it just the …
- Cut, Cut, Cut… Any other filaments of distracting thoughts: Can you just drop them, drop them, drop them away? I know one ajaan who had an image of a knife in his mind. Any strand of thought that would begin to connect in his mind, he would think of the knife cutting it. Even dealing with the body: All the sensations and assumptions that kept his sense …
- The Patience of a Hunter… What particular defilement is there in the mind? Which of the voices of the committee of the mind is running things without your realizing it? Just keep those thoughts in the back of your mind. That’s what you’re looking for. Otherwise, the signs can go right past you and you don’t see anything because they are going right past you all …
- Wisdom as a Tool… When she was told by one of her teachers to go to listen to Ajaan Lee, her first thought was: “What does he know that I don’t know? He’s been living all of his life out in the woods. And here I’ve been in Bangkok and have listened to all the great sermon-givers.” But she went and listened anyhow. And …
- Dispassion Isn’t Depression… In the beginning, there has to be a fair amount of thought: Think of the image of the bathman or the bathman’s apprentice mixing water with soap powder to make a soap dough, as they used to do in those days. You have to take care to make the mixture just right, so that none of the soap powder is left unmoistened, and …
- Load next page...
