Search results for: middle way

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  2. Stay
     … See what different kinds of breathing there are, and which ways of breathing have the best effect on the body, best effect on the mind. This gives you something to explore, something to get interested in, something to get intrigued about. Something as simple as the breath can have such an impact on your health, your body, the mood of the mind. And as … 
  3. When Aging Closes In
     … You do it because this is the only way to escape the suffering that can come when aging and illness start closing in. When the results aren’t coming as fast as you’d like, you find ways of encouraging yourself. This is where the conviction comes in again. When the results do go well, you try to figure out ways of putting them … 
  4. Rhythms of the Mind
     … We’re not here to push our way through anything. We’re here to find the balance of the middle path, which is something very subtle. Again, it’s like the treatment of a disease. You need to learn how to balance your medicines, so that if some flushing needs to be done, you can compensate for it by strengthening the body, but at … 
  5. Strong Against Anger & Fear
     … There’s the way you breathe, there’s the way you talk to yourself, the images, the perceptions you hold in mind. You have to realize that you can breathe in different ways, you can talk to yourself in different ways, you can hold different perceptions in mind. I was listening to a “Dhamma talk” a while back where someone was saying that if … 
  6. Bursting Bubbles
     … I’d be embarrassed to die in the middle of this thought or this concern or this worry, whatever.” It helps you step outside. Then you can develop the alternative potentials. You can breathe in a soothing way. You can remind yourself of topics that calm you down. And those potentials are always there. That’s what you’ve got to remember. We tend … 
  7. The Lightened Mind
     … You’re strict in your observance of the precepts but, at the same time, you observe them in such a way that you don’t grasp at them. In other words, you don’t develop any pride around them. And you practice them in a way that’s conducive to concentration. This requires skill, because a lot of people, when they’re strict about … 
  8. Stretch Your Mind
     … Work your way up through the torso, the neck, the head. Then with the arms, start with the fingers, up the arms to the shoulders. See if your mind is willing to settle down with the sensation of the body as it relaxes here into the present moment. If it is, fine. If it’s not willing to settle down, you have to ask … 
  9. Hindrances Based on Delusion
     … And this is one way of analyzing things. Try to figure out what way of breathing is skillful right now, what way is not skillful. That’s the Buddha’s basic recommendation for how to analyze qualities: to ask that question of what’s skillful and what’s not. A couple of years back, I was talking to a group of people from up … 
  10. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … But the Buddha pointed out that neither way succeeds in finding true happiness. He said the true path was a middle way between these two extremes, starting with right view, all way through right concentration. Then he explained right view in terms of four noble truths: suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. His teaching was like a doctor’s … 
  11. Heedfulness
     … Often they had to go out of their way and face a lot of difficulties. For that they deserve your gratitude. If everything were predetermined, there’d be no need to be generous, because things would just happen on their own. You wouldn’t have to go out of your way to be generous. As for the people who helped you, they had to … 
  12. The Flowing Mind
     … The image the Buddha gives is, again, of a river flowing, and you’re creating an island in the middle of the river, an island above the flood, through your practice of mindfulness, being mindful in a way that leads to concentration. The flood can go by, but the island isn’t washed away. You can see these currents for what they are, but … 
  13. Tranquility & Insight with the Breath
     … down around the navel, the tip of the breastbone, the base of the throat, or right in the middle of the head at the palate. When the breath energy starts spreading in your body as the air starts coming in, where does the energy in the body start? And does it feel okay? Does it feel like it has to battle its way through … 
  14. Help Others, Help Yourself
     … There’s goodwill, kindness—those are two separate things, by the way, goodwill and kindness—and then patience and equanimity. Goodwill, of course, means you want them to be happy. Kindness means you go out of your way to do good things for them. In going out of your way, you learn how to develop right effort. You don’t just see somebody working … 
  15. Be Prepared
     … In this way, meditation is partly a preparation for the dangers of daily life, because the most dangerous people out there are the ones who are not prepared, the ones who live with a false sense of security. Things are going along okay, and all of a sudden something happens, and they thrash around. They feel like they’ve been violated, and they get … 
  16. Virtue Fosters Concentration
     … This is important, too, because the way we make our livelihood tends to blind us to the harm that we’re causing. If, in order to feed, we need to do this or do that that’s harming someone else, we usually find ways to justify the harm. In that way, we create a lot of bad karma along with a huge patch of … 
  17. Goodwill First & Last
     … So spreading thoughts of unlimited goodwill help in this direction is a way of preparing you to settle down with the breath. Then actually being with the breath is a very good way of showing goodwill for yourself right now. There’s enough suffering in life. You don’t have to compound it by breathing in a way that’s harsh, uncomfortable, or unhealthy … 
  18. On Human Nature
     … This is a path that’s good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end—good all the way through. As for yourself, remember that you’re not stuck with any particular innate nature. If you find yourself thinking any petty or unwise or selfish thoughts, that’s not necessarily your nature. Those are just habits you’ve picked up … 
  19. Feeding on the Breath
     … You’d start with a powder and then mix it with water, kneading the water through the powder in the same way you’d you knead water through dough for bread. In the same way, as you meditate, you get a sense of ease from staying focused on the breath and then you knead it through the body. So you have to figure out … 
  20. A Complete Training
     … You have to learn how to talk to yourself in ways that make you want to extend goodwill to people you don’t like or to those you feel have been really behaving in horrible ways. Yet you have to have goodwill for them. So you have to talk to yourself in terms of the principle of karma, say. If you have ill will … 
  21. The River Gauge
     … Ups and downs are normal.” When you find yourself in the middle of a down, you can remind yourself, “Okay, this is to be expected. It’s not the end of the world. Your meditation hasn’t crashed. It’s part of the normal cycle of meditation.” When you have that calm attitude, it makes it a lot easier to try to figure out … 
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