… One thought leads to another, leads to
another, and you end up who knows where in the middle of Siberia.
Other times, when the mind is settling down, there’s a part of the
mind that’s afraid of concentration so it tries to break things up.
That’s divisive speech. Harsh speech, of course, is when you tell
yourself you’re a miserable …
… The
suffering we create for ourselves is real, and the way we create it is
real. Even though we may be operating under illusions, the suffering
we create from our illusions is real. And the way we can solve that
problem is also real.
There’s a passage in the Canon where one of the Buddha’s disciples,
Ven. Gavampati, reports that he heard …
… This is how you put yourself onto the path of the middle way.
The fourth and final of the desires of determination is to train only for calm. Now, calm here functions in two ways. On the one hand, it’s the goal to which you aim; on the other hand, it’s a means to help give you stamina on the path to …
… can be ardent, alert, and mindful
all at once—in that way, you provide yourself with a safe haven. It’s
the little world you inhabit inside as you fend off the world outside.
As the Buddha said, when you have this refuge
inside, it’s like having an island in the middle of a flood, or like
having a lamp in a dark …
… Finally, he comes across a big bull elephant in the middle of a
clearing. That’s when he knows for sure he’s got the elephant he
wants.
In the same way, as we practice virtue, we practice concentration,
even the psychic powers that come with concentration: Those count as
footprints and scratch marks. They’re promising, but they don’t prove
things yet …
… Where is the stress? What are you doing
that’s putting extra stress on to the mind? And what could you do to
stop that and put an end to that stress?
You have to examine all the various issues in your life that you’re
concerned about, and you have to peel away the other ones that get in
the way of this …
… Along the way, Suppiya the wanderer spoke in many ways in dispraise of the Buddha, in dispraise of the Dhamma, in dispraise of the Saṅgha. But Suppiya the wanderer’s apprentice, Brahmadatta the young brāhman, spoke in many ways in praise of the Buddha, in praise of the Dhamma, in praise of the Saṅgha.
Itiha te ubho ācariy’antevāsī aññam-aññassa uju-vipaccanika-vācā …
… One way of cutting off those
little Velcro hooks is to keep reminding yourself: Where’s the stress
right now? The things that you latch on to as being especially true or
especially real: You have to remind yourself, are they really so real?
Are they really that true? You can think in terms of their
inconstancy, their stressfulness, the fact that they’re …
… Watch and then test the way you read the experiment, to
see if you really can trust it. Over time, your ability to read things
will get better and better. Your sense of balance will get better and
better. That’s why it’s called the middle way. The whole point of it
is to find true balance. And as with any balance, the …
… In other words, breathe in a way that helps to
dissolve the tension around the pains. As for any pains that don’t go
away that way, well, you just focus your attention in some other part
of the body. There’s got to be some place in the body that you can
make comfortable with the way you breathe. Then it’s simply …
… As for the guild, which is the Ssangha, I was reading recently about
Benvenuto Cellini and how he’d broken from the guild of goldsmiths in
the late middle ages because he thought he was way more talented than
everybody else. And he wanted to promote himself as the Michelangelo
of gold. He did some amazing things, but in the course of his career …
… But if you rubbed their heads in the middle of the road—no way! For sure.
It’s all a matter of willingness—accepting, giving up, letting go. When you can do this, things are light. Wherever you’re clinging, there’s becoming right there, birth right there, poison and danger right there. The Buddha taught about suppositions and he taught to undo suppositions …
The Pali word sukha can be translated in a lot of ways*.* Its range
covers everything from simple ease and pleasure to happiness,
well-being, and bliss. The whole purpose of the teaching is to find
true happiness—in other words, to take your desire for happiness
seriously. You have to ask yourself, are the ways you’re looking for
happiness giving you true …
… Avoiding both of
these extremes, the middle way realized by the
Tathāgata—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to
direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding.
“And what is the middle way realized by the Tathāgata
that—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to
direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding? Precisely this
noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech …
… A good bathman preparing the dough
would mix it in such a way that the entire ball of dough was moist,
with no dry spots, but the water didn’t leak out. That means that you
have to knead the water through the dough the same way that you’d
knead water into bread dough.
So there’s work to be done. This is …
… Even the Buddha himself made mistakes before his awakening,
going down the wrong path many, many times in many different lifetimes
before he discovered the Middle Way. It was through those points in
his practice when he realized, “What I’ve been doing, sometimes for
years, was a mistake,” and he was willing to look for other ways to do
things: That’s what …
… In that case it’s
goodwill, and goodwill expresses itself in different ways—in this
case, a wish for safety.
One of the chants, the Ratana Sutta, has a story to go with it in the
commentary: There was a plague in Vesālī, and the Buddha had Ven.
Ananda go around the city chanting this sutta as a way of driving the
plague out …
… What feels best? And what does the body need? If it’s
tired, can you breathe in a way that’s energizing? If you’re tense,
can you breathe in a way that’s more relaxing? If there are pains in
the body, can you breathe in a way that’s soothing for the pains?
This is something you have to evaluate for yourself …
… So it’s not a Catch-22,
it’s simply that these two faculties of the mind—the ability to watch
things and observe and come to reliable conclusions; and your
inventiveness in trying out different ways to experiment with the
breath and the way you focus on the breath—go hand-in-hand. They
develop together.
After all, a lot of things are …
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its rulers & 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 …
Conclusion | Good Heart, Good Mind
… This is how you put yourself onto the path of the middle way. The fourth and final of the desires of determination is to train only for calm. Now, calm here functions in two ways. On the one hand, it’s the goal to which you aim; on the other hand, it’s a means to help give you stamina on the path to …
AN 3:64 At Venāga Sutta | At Venāga
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its rulers & 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 …
