In Charge of Your World
October 19, 2008
There’s a story in the Canon, where King Pasenadi comes to see the Buddha in the middle of the day. And the Buddha asks him, where are you coming from in the middle of the day? The King says, “Oh, I’ve been meeting with my ministers and talking about the sorts of things that …
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk; he explains the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end; he expounds the holy life both in its particulars & in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure. It is good to see such a …
… Citta Hatthisārīputta interrupted in the middle of their talk. Then Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita said to him, “Don’t interrupt in the middle of the talk while the elder monks are discussing higher Dhamma. Wait until the end of the talk.”
When this was said, the monks who were Ven. Citta Hatthisārīputta’s companions said to Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita, “May Ven. Mahā Koṭṭhita not rebuke …
… the middle
of the head, the middle of the chest, the stomach, in your hands, in
your feet. Keep moving around. Stir up the juices of the mind. Stir up
the blood with whatever you find wakes you up, whatever you find
energizes you. That way, you’ve got the energizing qualities, which
are analysis of qualities, persistence, and rapture. When they’ve done …
… It’s the strength that allows you to deal with the sufferings of life
and at the same time to find a way out—to be up for the challenge in
such a way that you’re not creating more trouble for yourself but
you’re actually finding a way out of the trouble.
Because a lot of the practice is a practice of …
… the body that are most sensitive to
the breath energy?
For some people, they’re in the middle of the chest. For other people,
in the stomach. For some people, around the eyes. They could be
anywhere in the body where you feel that a particular way of breathing
is especially gratifying. You want to find those sensitive spots,
because otherwise the breath can …
… You have to give rise to them, and you do that partly by the way
you breathe and also by the way you perceive the breath. When you
breathe in, what’s the image of the breath that you have in mind? Some
people talk of the breath as if it were a tactile sensation—in other
words, simply the touch of the air …
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will?
As with so many other issues, the Buddha took a middle path between the two extremes of determinism and total free will. If all your experience were predetermined from the past—through impersonal fate, the design of a creator god, or your own past actions—the whole idea of a path of practice to the end of suffering …
… The way you work with the breath will
have to depend on where you are, what you need in order to, say, give
yourself a sense of relaxation when you feel tense in different parts
the body, or to energize yourself when you’re feeling tired, or to
work with a pain that may be caused by poor blood flow in some part of …
… You realize that, to be
kind, you have to go out of your way. It isn’t the easiest thing in
the world to be kind. Your parents didn’t throw you away the first
time you started crying non-stop and making a terror of yourself. They
got up in the middle of the night. They looked after you. Night after
night after …
… Anger & disgruntlement are both a blemish.
“It’s possible, friend, that there’s the case where this sort of wish might arise in a certain monk: ‘O, should I have fallen into an offense, may the monks accuse me in private, and not in the middle of the Saṅgha.’ But it’s possible that the monks would accuse him in the middle of the …
… Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathāgata teaches the Dhamma via the middle:
From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.
From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness.
From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.
From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media.
From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact.
From contact as a …
… Breath energy coming in right in the middle of the chest and
going down through the liver and the abdomen. Do it in a way that
feels refreshing. Think of the breath energy going all the way down to
your toes, so that your legs sitting here are not just dead lumps.
There’s a flow of energy that keeps them alert, keeps them …
… That was how he found the middle way.
Now it’s up to us to find the middle way, too. Most of us tend to
indulge either in pleasure or are afraid of the pleasure that comes
from a concentrated mind, that comes from allowing the breath to be
comfortable, and to develop that state. The Buddha said that once
there’s that sense …
… We can’t say we’ll just do a
middling effort. The effort has to be appropriate for the occasion. We
also have to make our words appropriate for the occasion. We have to
be very careful about what we do, say, and think to make sure that
it’s just right.
He liked to make the comment that “The Buddha says a lot …
No Mistakes Are Fatal
January, 2003
Our minds are pretty chaotic systems, which is why following the middle way is difficult. It’s so easy for a chaotic system to get knocked out of equilibrium, to veer off to the left, to veer off to the right. Staying in the middle is difficult; it requires a lot of balance.
It’s no wonder that …
… The pilings on this bank and that bank aren’t hard to place, but the pilings in the middle are really hard. You’ve got to withstand the current of the river. You dig down and put a few stones on the bottom of the river and you come back with your next load of stones only to discover that the first load of …
No Mistakes Are Fatal
January, 2003
Our minds are pretty chaotic systems, which is why following the middle way is so difficult. It’s so easy for a chaotic system to get knocked out of equilibrium, to veer off to the left, to veer off to the right. Staying in the middle is difficult; it requires a lot of balance.
So it’s no …
… Or
it might be right in the middle of the head in the area just above the
eyes. Whichever part of the body seems most sensitive to the energy
flow, focus there.
Try to maintain a rhythm of breathing that feels really good right
there so that it feels good all the way through the in-breath and all
the way through the out …
… Developing strength of mind is in some ways very much like developing
strength of body. To develop strength of body, you have to remember to
exercise it and to nourish it with rest and good food. In the same
way, the mind needs to be exercised. You need to remember to keep it
exercised and to nourish it well.
The remembering there is mindfulness …
AN 5:30 Nāgita Sutta | To Nāgita
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk; he explains the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end; he expounds the holy life both in its particulars & in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure. It is good to see such a …
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will? | First Things First
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will? As with so many other issues, the Buddha took a middle path between the two extremes of determinism and total free will. If all your experience were predetermined from the past—through impersonal fate, the design of a creator god, or your own past actions—the whole idea of a path of practice to the end of suffering …
