Search results for: middle way

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  2. Seclusion
     … There’s another passage in the texts where they talk about how once you settle down, you remind yourself that here you are out in the middle of a very quiet countryside, not quite wilderness here, but it’s quiet. All the issues related to back home, if they come up in your mind, aren’t really related to anything around you. Issues coming … 
  3. The First Noble Truth
     … You want sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations to be this way, and they’re not that way. Sometimes the pleasures and pains come from your desire to gain awakening. Those, the Buddha said, are actually useful. There’s the pain that comes when you realize, “Okay, there’s awakening out there and I haven’t gotten there yet.” He says not to try … 
  4. A Well-stocked Memory
     … People learned the Dhamma by listening to it and memorizing it, and there was a very systematic way of memorizing long passages of Dhamma. We’ve lost that ability now. Our memories get shorter and shorter because we get more and more dependent on gadgets to keep things in mind for us. Which is sad, because those gadgets are not going to be with … 
  5. Page search result icon Swept Downstream
     … This gives you an island that gets you out of the flood for a bit, but you’re still in the middle of the river. You haven’t made it all the way across. But it gives you something to hold on to in the meantime. So you want to be really good at this. As Ajaan Lee used to say, the people who … 
  6. Opting Out
     … This is another example in how the Buddha’s teaching is the middle way that steps outside of the either/or that so many people in society present us with. It steps out by framing the issue in a totally new way. The Buddha’s question is: Do you want to be free? That’s in line with the example he gives. He left … 
  7. A Slave to the Dhamma
     … As we say in the chant, it’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy, but it’s admirable all the way.
  8. Giving Meaning to Life
     … There is another passage where the Buddha talks about the way beings wander on in this world. It’s like throwing a stick up into the air. Sometimes it lands on this end, sometimes it lands on that end, sometimes it lands splat in the middle. No real pattern. No real direction. This doesn’t mean that life is hopeless. But it means simply … 
  9. The Power of Perception
     … There’s a passage where the Buddha calls concentration a “perception attainment.” The perception lies at the heart of what we’re doing here, maintaining the perception of breath all the way through the in- breath, all the way through the out-, and then learning how to augment that perception, because a perception on its own can’t withstand the force of a lot … 
  10. Stop & Think
     … We think in these ways as a way of getting the mind to finally settle down. Ajaan Maha Boowa’s image is of two different kinds of trees. Undirected meditation, he says, is like a tree out in the middle of a meadow. If you want to cut it down, it doesn’t involve much calculation as to which direction you should cut it … 
  11. Four Mountains Moving In
    There’s a passage where King Pasenadi comes to see the Buddha in the middle of the day, and the Buddha asks him, “What have you been doing?” The king in a remarkable display of frankness says, “Oh, the typical things that obsess a person who’s obsessed with power.” And the Buddha asks him, “Suppose a trustworthy person were to come from the … 
  12. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … It doesn’t involve doing anything demeaning, and it doesn’t involve anything less than honorable, which is why the Buddha said that it’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end. It’s good all the way through.
  13. A Position of Strength
     … If they are in good shape, try to maintain them that way. This way, you give yourself strength. Again, it’s the strength of having friends. In Thailand, one of the old ways of teaching the strength of harmony or of concord in a group would be to show a little kid a stick, and say, “Can you snap the stick in two?” The … 
  14. Concentration
     … to find some way around it. In Ajaan Lee’s image, the three main divisions of the path—virtue, concentration, and discernment—are like the posts for a bridge over a river. Virtue is the post on this side of the river, discernment is on the other side of the river, while the concentration post is right in the middle of the river, where … 
  15. An Island in the Flood
     … But for most of us, we’re not even walking on the water in an unstable way. We’re getting washed away, along with all the other debris in those rivers. The only really safe place is right here on the island. When you can stand here, the mind gains strength. And when the mind has the strength from concentration, it doesn’t have … 
  16. Don’t Believe Everything You Feel
    We’re in the middle of a heat wave. It seems that no matter what you do in the course of the day, you feel drained by evening. It takes a fair amount of effort simply to come here and meditate. And when you’re feeling weakened by the temperature and tired from your work, your defenses are down, and feelings become very prominent … 
  17. The Right Touch
     … But the brightness isn’t only in the third noble truth; it’s also in the fourth, that the way to put an end to suffering involves nothing but good activities. We chant that again and again and again: “admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end.” Think about the path: It speaks to our better natures. In the actual … 
  18. The Tricks of Denial
     … So in this case, you want to see, when something’s arising that pulls the mind in, what’s the allure? What do you think you’re gaining from thinking in those ways? And then try to balance that with looking at the drawbacks. Sometimes it seems to be working in a very perverse way, when things that you really don’t like about … 
  19. Getting into the Body
     … Or you can think of the breath energy being centered in a line that goes down the middle of the front of the body, radiating from there. It doesn’t have to be pulled at all. As you breathe in, it radiates. When you can do this, you find that it changes the way you relate to the body. It’s a lot easier … 
  20. Meticulous
     … And if you can’t do this with your words and deeds, there’s *no way *you’re going to be able to do it with the subtle movements of the mind. It’s in seeing cause and effect—and particularly the difference between a skillful way of speaking and an unskillful way of speaking, a skillful way of acting and an unskillful way … 
  21. Goodwill
     … Then you look out after me, and I’ll look out after you, and that way, we’ll come down safely.” His assistant says, “No, that’s not going to work. I have to look out after myself, you have to look out after yourself. In other words, I have to maintain my balance, you have to maintain your balance, and that way we … 
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