… What are you
doing? Why are you doing it? And is there an alternative, a way of
thinking and a way of going through the world that does not add
unnecessary suffering? Those are the big questions the Buddha has you
ask, because otherwise, if you can’t solve this problem inside, then
everything else in the world is going to be a problem …
… It’s shaped by the way you
breathe, shaped by the way you talk to yourself, shaped by your
perceptions and feelings. There’s a karma, there’s an intention that
keeps the present moment going, and there’s a subtle stress that goes
along with that.
Eventually, you want to get to see that too, but you have to see it as
something …
… You have a little fragment here, a little fragment there and it’s like
archaeologists coming across a site where only fragments remain and
they’re just trying to piece them together, filling in the big blank
spaces in the middle. But what is that filler if not just ignorance
dressed up as knowledge?
This is the way most of our knowledge is. We …
… the ways in which feelings in the body influence the mind,
and the ways the acts of the mind have an impact on the body. Try to
filter them through the breath.
The breath here can be long or short. It’s good to start with long
breathing for a while to energize the body. You’re going to be calming
it down, and …
… Simply by the way you think, you can create a good
energy. You can create something that’s a gift to others. Of course,
you benefit. If you have goodwill for all beings, you’re very unlikely
to do unskillful things. You’re very unlikely to harm them. In that
way, you protect yourself.
So this is a basic pattern of the path: Instead …
… He was always coming up with new ways of
conceiving the breath. And Ajaan Fuang would talk about other ways of
conceiving the breath, too. One was to imagine a line of energy
running down the middle of your body, and the breath comes in and out
of that line of energy. You try to keep that line of energy stoked. In
other words …
… So the middle course here is to stick with the breath. Remember that the pleasure is created by the flow of the breath, the stillness of the mind, working together. Both of these conditions depend on the focus of your mind on the breath, alert and mindful. You don’t want to drop your alertness; you don’t want to drop your mindfulness, because …
… You have to train it how to think in a way where it can think
itself into silence.
So how do you talk about the breath to get more quiet about the
breath? Well, to begin with trying to get yourself out of the way as
much as possible—particularly judgments about how good you are or how
bad you are. This is one …
… Simply by the way you think, you can create a good energy. You can create something that’s a gift to others. And of course, you benefit. If you have goodwill for all beings, you’re very unlikely to do unskillful things. You’re very unlikely to harm them. In that way, you protect yourself.
So this is a basic pattern of the path …
… Even though they had shown
disdain for him for abandoning his austerities and going for the
middle way, still he wanted to help them. So he searched them out and
taught them. After that, he went home and he taught his family, to
repay his debts to them.
In other words, the kind of happiness that comes from doing good is
something you naturally …
… And the
breath has a lot to offer because the way you breathe has an enormous
impact on the body, and it has a large impact on the mind as well.
There are ways of breathing that can cause illness; there are ways of
breathing that can cure illness. There are ways of breathing that can
aggravate emotions like anger or fear, and there …
… If
you learn to look at these things in the right way, you can work with
them in a productive way.
So regardless of what raw material your past karma keeps popping up in
the present moment, as long as you’re not in the hell of totally
unpleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, ideas,
and as long as you’re not in …
… As for the particular ways we do that—as Tolstoy once said, “Happy
families are all alike. Unhappy families are all unhappy in their own
way.” We all create suffering for ourselves in different ways based on
different assumptions, different ideas of what happiness would be and
how we can go about finding it. Meditation gives you a good
opportunity to look at exactly …
… No one can tell anyone else
what’s the right way or wrong way to think about and react to the
impermanence of things.
But the Buddha points out that it is possible through our actions to
put an end to suffering. That changes the equation. It’s no longer a
matter of personal preference. The question is: Here this opportunity
is there. Are …
… Let the breath at the base of the throat spread down the central nerve at the front of the body, past the lungs and liver, all the way down to the bladder and colon.
Inhale the breath right at the middle of the chest and let it go all the way down to your intestines.
Let all these breath sensations spread so that they …
… Death can come at
any time, zapping you right in the middle of a nice sleepy meditation.
Would you be prepared to go? No, especially not if you’re sleepy. So
try to put in some more energy, try to find some way of stirring your
energy up, so that if you were suddenly called upon to die right now,
you’d be prepared …
… That way, instead of fighting back-and-forth between indulgence
in pleasure and then self-affliction, you’ve got this other place to
go which is much better than either one. This is the Middle Way.
Having this sense of well-being that can come simply from being
centered changes the equation, changes the balance of power in the
mind. You get less tied …
… This is why reflecting on the eight ways of the world is a helpful practice. What does the world have to offer? Just those eight things: material gain, material loss, status, loss of status, praise, criticism, pleasure, pain. That’s it. And what is there of any lasting value in any of these things? The only value is if you find a way to …
… The ways of the world don’t offer any way out, but this
path of developing the mind does offer a way out. As the Buddha said,
it’s good in the beginning, good in the middle. It’s even better in
the end. So look at each opportunity to meditate as just that—an
opportunity, and not a task, not a chore. A …
… The question is, how
do you relate to the body in such a way, how do you relate to the
breath in such a way, that you can actually bring this out? You have
to look at the way you breathe. The problem is that you’re used to
your way of breathing, and it’s hard to think, “Maybe there might be
other …
Shoulds & Desires
… Simply by the way you think, you can create a good energy. You can create something that’s a gift to others. Of course, you benefit. If you have goodwill for all beings, you’re very unlikely to do unskillful things. You’re very unlikely to harm them. In that way, you protect yourself. So this is a basic pattern of the path: Instead …
Method 2 | Keeping the Breath in Mind & Lessons in Samādhi
… Let the breath at the base of the throat spread down the central nerve at the front of the body, past the lungs and liver, all the way down to the bladder and colon. Inhale the breath right at the middle of the chest and let it go all the way down to your intestines. Let all these breath sensations spread so that they …
