Search results for: middle way

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  2. Bewildered
     … For instance, when a feeling of pain appears in fabrication, it’s accompanied by the way you breathe and by your perceptions. So, you can ask yourself, “To what extent is the way I’m breathing aggravating this pain? Can I breathe in another way? And to what extent is the way I’m talking to myself about the pain getting in the way … 
  3. Skillful Thinking
     … A lot of the Buddha’s meditation instructions involve teaching us how to think in a way that’s useful, in a way that’s helpful. We may think, well, we know how to think perfectly well, thank you, but if your thinking causes suffering, if it causes harm, then no matter how clever it is, you still don’t know how to think … 
  4. Making a Difference
     … It can be the tip of the nose, the middle of the head, the base of the throat, the chest, the abdomen. When you find a spot that you like, then allow the breath at that spot to feel comfortable: comfortable coming in, comfortable going out, with no tension building up with the in-breath and no holding on to tension or pushing out … 
  5. The Source of Goodness
     … In that way, you develop a greater solidity. And the solidity is in and of itself a gift to the people around you. I recently saw an old New Yorker cartoon: a very chaotic office with one person in the middle of the office who seemed calm. The boss was talking to another of the workers, saying, “George over there: He’s a center … 
  6. Calming Mental Fabrication
     … It’s a good image to hold in mind, because once the way you breathe does develop a sense of ease, well-being, then you try to work that sense of ease and well-being through the body, leaving no dry patches. In the beginning, the body’s going to resist a little bit, because there will be patterns of tension here and there … 
  7. Yes & No
     … May the jhana factors be balanced.” But it doesn’t happen that way. You can’t just wish your way into these things. You have to learn your skills. And saying Yes to the breath is one skill. Learning how to say No to everything else is another skill. All too often, when we say No to a thought, we clamp down on the … 
  8. Chronic Pain
     … After all, the fact that there’s pain in the body is problem enough, but you don’t want to be adding to it by the way you breathe. And you want to see if the way you breathe can actually help. When I had malaria, I found that simply breathing became laborious. I realized that because I was using certain muscles in the … 
  9. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
     … Even good qualities of the mind are inconstant, but the more you invest in them, the longer their impact, the longer their ability to support you, all the way through the process of aging, all the way through the process of illness, all the way through the process of death. These things stay there. And they can help you. The body is something you … 
  10. The Image of the Raft
     … You talk to yourself about which ways of breathing are skillful, which ways of breathing are not, and how you might change things. Once the breath is comfortable, how do you maintain that sense of comfort? And when you can maintain it, how do you let it spread? All that talking to yourself is fabrication. Then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all … 
  11. W.W.B.R.
     … When Ajaan Lee is talking about the different ways of meditating in his book, Frames of Reference, he starts out with different ways of thinking. Think about the 32 parts of the body, think about the body in terms of the elements, think about how inconstant things are, to develop a sense of *samvega. *It’s the samvega that helps pull you away from … 
  12. Feeding on Open Wounds
     … If you can’t get your food in good ways, you’re going to start getting it in bad ways. You can’t really trust yourself.” But the Buddha isn’t telling you to just run away. If you’re going to leave the world, he says, you’ve first got to develop all the good qualities of the mind: your generosity, your virtue … 
  13. What We’re Here to See
     … That way, we can actually deal with those stupid things in an intelligent way, in an effective way, in a way in which we find something that’s more than we expected—that it really is possible to put an end to suffering and find a happiness that’s totally blameless, totally changeless. When the mind finds that, it’ll take on a new … 
  14. Three Virtues for the Mind
     … But if they see only one or two cases and then go out and say, “This is the way it is in every case,” they can develop all kinds of wrong views. Someone who sees the person who behaved in unskillful ways but goes to a good destination will say, “There are no results of good or bad actions.” Other people who see someone … 
  15. Delighting the Mind
     … way of approaching the step of gladdening the mind is to think of the six kinds of delight that the Buddha talks about as being conducive to the practice. The first is delight in the Dhamma. It’s similar to recollection of the Dhamma. You think about what a great Dhamma this is; how it’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle … 
  16. Discernment Through Right Effort
     … After all, it’s all about the middle way, right?” But the question about moderation in observing the precepts: The precepts themselves already describe a moderate way of life, a moderate path of practice, so you want to be strict in adhering to them. That’s how you stay right there in the moderate spot. When things start going overboard is when you start … 
  17. Strategic Friends
     … You might notice that sensation someplace in your hands or in your chest, at the point of the sternum, which is a little breastbone that sticks out between your ribs right in the middle of the chest. Anywhere you have that sense of fullness, allow it to stay there. Make sure that the way you breathe doesn’t disturb it. Then allow it to … 
  18. Purity
     … But when you put them together in a particular way, they lead someplace else. They lead to the end of karma. That’s why they require practices for getting them together just right. This element of just right, the middleness of the path, is something we’re working on all the time. The basic elements are pretty simple. As when we’re sitting here … 
  19. Trust Your Desire for Happiness
     … good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. The Buddha never asked you to do anything mean or spiteful or ignoble. The path builds on good qualities and it leads to good results. So even if you don’t go all the way to the end of the path, it’s a good path to be on.
  20. The Breath Soufflé
     … Notice what that does to your sense of what’s a comfortable way of breathing, because sometimes a way of breathing that feels comfortable when you’re focused on one spot doesn’t feel so comfortable when you’re aware of the body as a whole. Think of the breathing as a whole-body process. There are lots of different ways of approaching this … 
  21. Negotiating with the Committee
     … Now, there are several ways of doing this. One is to banish all the unskillful members. That’s what you have to do in the beginning: If any unskillful thought comes up, you just say, “No, no, no. I am not going there.” Sometimes you have to reinforce that determination with reasons. As the Buddha said, one of the ways of dealing with unskillful … 
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