Search results for: middle way

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  2. Samvega First
     … But then you remind yourself that the Buddha found a way out that’s not just a sour-grapes way out. He says that there is an ultimate happiness that we can find through our own efforts. And, fortunately, there’s nobody to prevent us from trying to find it. Nobody in the cosmos has a bigger plan, saying, “This is where you’ve … 
  3. Skillful Attachments
     … Try to notice what way of breathing feels good, what way of breathing doesn’t feel good, and realize that you have the choice. If you want to breathe in a painful way, you can go ahead and do it, but it doesn’t really help anything. It’s much more productive to find a comfortable way of breathing, a way of breathing that … 
  4. Firm in Your Intent
     … We really want to be happy, and there is a way to find true happiness that doesn’t cause any harm at all. So he’s not the sort of person who says to forget about your desire for happiness, just accept things as they are, or try to submerge your desire for happiness in working for the happiness of others. After all, if … 
  5. Imagine Your Breath
     … Ajaan Fuang once recommended a perception where you have a cord of energy running down through the middle of the torso. As you breathe in, the breath comes into that cord from all directions, and it goes out from that cord in all directions. You just hold that perception in mind. You don’t have to do anything to force the breath that way … 
  6. Inquisitive
     … Other times, it feels like there’s a column of energy running down the middle of the torso, and the breath comes in to and out from that column in all directions. You wonder why it is that you can experience the breath energy in so many different ways. Well, look into that, because in some cases it’s because the breath is already … 
  7. Commit & Reflect All Around
     … What you need is what the Buddha calls, “penetrative” knowledge, in which you understand some activity of the mind, good or bad; notice what’s causing it; notice its diversity—as the Buddha calls it—which means seeing what ways it’s good, what ways it’s bad; what’s the range of suffering or happiness that this particular phenomenon—like feelings or perceptions … 
  8. Book search result icon Refuge Sangha
     … And you, monks, are very helpful to householders, as you teach them the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, and admirable in the end, as you expound the holy life both in its particulars and in its essence, entirely complete, surpassingly pure. In this way the holy life is lived in mutual dependence, for the purpose of crossing over the flood … 
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  9. The Noble Truth about Craving
     … a life that’s devoted to finding true happiness rather than just muddling around the way we’ve been doing in our wanton ways for who knows how long. You can make something noble out of yourself. That’s the message of the noble truths, all of them. So take that message to heart.
  10. Ingenuity
     … If something’s not working, can you think up another way of applying the principles that would work? In other words, you don’t throw out the principles, but you explore them, you probe them, think them through. As Ajaan Lee once said, “The ways of the mind are so many there’s no way any book could ever contain them all”—and that … 
  11. Deconstructing Anger
     … There’s a certain way of breathing that goes with the anger: Do you enjoy that? A certain way of thinking that goes with the anger: Do you enjoy that? Do you enjoy the perceptions? What kick do you get out of the perceptions or the feelings that go with the anger? These are the things about which you’ve got to be very … 
  12. Honest & Observant
     … We’re looking for patterns—patterns in our behavior that are unskillful—and for ways in which we can change our behavior so it’s more skillful. For that, you have to look at your actions over time and try to do them well, which is why there’s the ardency in there. There’s a strange passage in the Commentary, where it tries … 
  13. The Path Is and Isn’t the Goal
    As you practice, there’s a way in which you have to think that the path is the goal, and there’s a way in which you have to think the path is not the goal. The path leads to the goal, so they’re two separate things. The way in which the path is the goal is that you have to pay full … 
  14. Think of the Consequences
     … You have to be willing to look at ways in which you’ve been dishonest with yourself—ways in which you’ve been lying to yourself, ways in which you’ve been careless, heedless—and not get knocked over by them. You need to have the strength inside to admit the truth of these things so that you can actually deal with them. Because … 
  15. Emptiness
     … But the question is, where does the teaching actually make a difference? Where does it really help? Probably the most useful formulation of emptiness is one of the earliest ones, where the Buddha talks about emptiness being a way of perceiving in which you don’t add to or take anything away from what’s really right here, right now. We spend most of … 
  16. Energy Channels
     … It may take a while for the energy to start coming back down, but you’ve got to be strategic in this way. Otherwise, it’s like getting out in the middle of freeway and telling all the cars to turn back. What happens? You get run over. But if you figure out a way to route them through a neighborhood, turning here, turning … 
  17. Meaning & Becoming
     … But even then, we have to part ways. When we part ways, there’s a lot of sorrow. The tears you’ve shed over the loss of a mother, the Buddha said, are more than the water in the oceans. The tears you’ve shed over the loss of a father are more than the water of the oceans, and so on down with … 
  18. A Home for the Mind
     … From the skin all the way into the bones, it’s breath. You’re sitting here in the middle of it, allowing it to come in and go out like the waves at the edge of the ocean. There’ll be some variety. You notice with ocean waves that they don’t all come regularly; there’s an irregular rhythm to them. And the … 
  19. Lean into the Present
     … Even though the present moment may not be all that good, you can’t let that get in the way. In fact, that’s a lot of what it means to dig down into the present moment: getting past the things that are not good, and finding what potentials you have there that really are worthwhile. Think of the breath—who would have thought … 
  20. An Exercise in Freedom
     … He talks about the middle way, developing all the eight factors of the noble path from right view on through right concentration. Right view starts right in with the issue of suffering. There is stress, there is suffering, there is pain. He’s not saying life is suffering. He’s just saying simply that there is suffering. We can’t deny that. And from … 
  21. Control
     … I want my feelings to be like that,” and expect them to be that way. Simply telling them to do things doesn’t necessarily make them do it. You can tell the body not to grow old, but it doesn’t listen to you. If you gain a sense of peace in the concentration and you say, “I want this to last. I don … 
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