… Look at the way you think, look at the way you breathe, look at the way you hold your body. See if there’s anything you can change. Any ways of thinking that are keeping you down, learn to question them. Any ways of breathing that are stifling your energy, just drop them. Ask yourself: Which parts of the body are getting starved of …
… You make them at the end of the year, you make them at the beginning of the year, you make them in the middle of the year. So try to become timeless in the way you hold on to the path, so that regardless of which day of the year the question is asked—“What am I becoming right now?”—the answer is, “I …
… And to help sensitive
you to them, there are various ways of conceiving them.
Sometimes Ajaan Lee talks about breath channels in the body. There’s
one that goes down through the spine. Another breath channel goes
through the front of the body, right down the middle. There are breath
channels in your head, breath channels down your legs and your arms.
Some of …
… Think of it going up
and down a line drawn right down through the middle of your body from
the head down to the base of the spine—in front, in back, down the
legs, out the arms—in whatever way it’s going to flow. If you find
there’s a sense of blockage in any part of the body, think of the …
… This is one of the main ways that we develop discernment in the practice. If the practice were simply a matter of going to a far extreme, whatever that extreme may be, it wouldn’t require much thought or discernment. It would require just a lot of pushing. As the Buddha said, his path is a middle path, and it’s “middle” in lots …
… The way out was not to buy into it, to have a more sensible attitude toward the whole thing. Whatever ups or downs there may be, you don’t have to take them all that seriously. You just stick with your practice. You have to find the middle way between the extremes that the dramatic side of our personality likes to read into things …
… He discovered that the principles of causality work in such a way that you can bring yourself to the Uncaused by being as skillful as possible in what you do. And the discernment that shows you how to act in those ways, that detects what in your intentions is skillful and what’s unskillful, what in the results of your actions are satisfactory or …
… Say you’re focused in the middle of the chest. Keep that sense of the middle of the chest wide open all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and then think of that sense of openness spreading throughout the body, wherever it’s going to go. Get in touch with the awareness that already fills the body as …
… Learn to drop the thought right in the middle and come back to the
breath. When you come back, reward yourself with a really nice breath,
one that feels really refreshing. That way, the next time you wander
off, you’ll be more inclined to come back because you know when you
come back it feels good.
While you’re with the breath, try …
… It’s the way it’s been ever since I was born, so
it’s the way it’s going to be until I die.” But the Buddha didn’t
think in that way. As with so many other things, he saw a sense of
self as something we do. We want pleasure, we want to avoid pain,
and so we try to get …
… That way your practice becomes timeless.
Or as he would say, make your practice samma. The word means “right”
but it also means “just right,” and it also means you want to do it
all the time. “Just right” doesn’t mean a middling right. It means
whatever is appropriate for the task.
Sometimes if really strong anger comes up in the mind, you …
… Stay with it all the way in, all
the way out, and notice what feels comfortable. As the Buddha says,
you try to make yourself sensitive to the whole body and then try to
breathe in a way that gives rise to feelings of ease.
So that’s what you experiment with as you meditate—sometimes feelings
of ease, sometimes feelings of more energy …
… Then he went off and practiced austerities for six years,
until he was ready to admit that that, too, wasn’t the way out.
Eventually he found a way that worked: the middle way, which
essentially is composed of three things—virtue, concentration, and
discernment.
The symbolism of our circumambulation right now relates to that. The
incense relates to virtue. There’s a saying …
… Touched by contact in various ways,
he shouldn’t keep theorizing about self.
Stilled right within,
a monk shouldn’t seek peace from another,
from anything else.
For one stilled right within,
there’s nothing embraced,
so how rejected?2
As in the middle of the sea
it is still,
with no waves upwelling,
so the monk—unperturbed, still—
should not swell himself
anywhere …
… around the navel, the middle of the chest, the back of the neck, wherever. Here again the steadiness and quality of your awareness is the medicine. The breath is a solvent that allows the effects of the medicine to spread through different parts of the body.
This is an important skill—learning how to stay focused in a way that’s healing—because that …
… It adds, however, that the hut should be dismantled in such a way that the building materials can be used again. Those who dismantle it should then inform the offender to take his materials back. If he delays, and the materials get damaged for one reason or another, the bhikkhus who dismantled the hut are in no way to be held responsible.
During the …
… 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 …
… It becomes a way of occupying the whole
body with a sense of well-being. This is important because you need a
safe place. You want to be able to put wheels on this home and make it
mobile.
That way, it’s not only while you’re sitting here with your eyes
closed, but when you get up there’s still a sense …
… It is in this way that all fabricated dhammas are abandoned and unbinding can be fully realized. Other suttas discussing this level of right view include AN 7:58, AN 10:93, and Ud 1:10,
* * *
Staying near Sāvatthī … Then Ven. Kaccāna Gotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he …
… Otherwise, he’d drive you out, even in the middle of the Rains Retreat. Even then, you’d just have to take it and try to use your powers of observation.
‘In other matters, such as sitting and walking meditation, he trained me in every way, to my complete satisfaction. But I was able to keep up with him at best only about 60 …
Giving Rise to Discernment | Meditations1
… He discovered that the principles of causality work in such a way that you can bring yourself to the Uncaused by being as skillful as possible in what you do. And the discernment that shows you how to act in those ways, that detects what in your intentions is skillful and what’s unskillful, what in the results of your actions are satisfactory or …
Sn 4:14 Quickly
… Touched by contact in various ways, he shouldn’t keep theorizing about self. Stilled right within, a monk shouldn’t seek peace from another, from anything else. For one stilled right within, there’s nothing embraced, so how rejected?2 As in the middle of the sea it is still, with no waves upwelling, so the monk—unperturbed, still— should not swell himself anywhere …
