… You see that you have a habitual way of thinking about the world, a
habitual way of thinking about yourself, a habitual way of looking for
pleasure in sensuality, and that reduces everything to kamma. And
there are better habits—the habits of the noble eightfold path, which
are things you do. You develop the habits of right action, right
speech, right livelihood, the …
… There was a period when he
actually thought the best way to find true well-being was to deny
yourself all kinds of pleasures He finally realized, however, that
that’s not the way. And he found the middle way because he was able to
realize there was more to life than just pain and sensual pleasure.
There were other kinds of pleasure, other …
… One of the other ways we suffer is, once we’ve got an
identity of that sort, we don’t like it. We want to destroy it or see
it destroyed. So we go back and forth, dropping one identity, taking
on another, not liking that, trying another, trying another. The
Buddha says, one of the ways to get out of this dilemma is …
… This is why a lot of people who say they have no sense of self as they practice, try to practice in a way that’s stress-free, confrontation-free. They don’t press themselves too hard. They say, “This is the middle path.” But remember the Buddha’s analogy for the path is victory: The practice is a battle, or the practice is …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… Yet you
can look at the rest of the world and try to straighten out the rest
of the world as much as you like, but, one, the world refuses to be
straightened out in a lot of ways; and two, you can develop a lot of
unskillful qualities that way. So you’ve got to turn around and look
at yourself.
Some people …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… Aging, illness, and death are its shadows or effects that show by way of the body. When we want to kill our enemy and so take a knife to stab his shadow, how is he going to die? In the same way, ignorant people try to destroy the shadows of stress and don’t get anywhere. As for the essence of stress in the …
… In the beginning we’re born, then in the middle we change, and in the end we fall apart and die. Death is something no one aspires to, and yet no one can escape it. We all have death at the end of our path.
Thinking about death gives rise both to benefits and to harm. For shortsighted people it’s harmful, because it …
… Years back there was a movie called The Devils, about a priest and a nun in the Middle Ages. In the first scene, the nun’s walking around with her head off to one side at a 90-degree angle because she’s so warped from not having given herself over to natural desires. You could tell where the movie was going, so I …
… 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 …
… Instead, he found the middle way that led to true happiness inside, a deathless happiness, a happiness that doesn’t depend on any conditions at all. And he was able to do it not because he was some special divine being, but because he took the issue of happiness really seriously and he developed whatever qualities of mind were needed. So you want to …
… 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 …
… The air can’t force its way in on its own.
Where does that energy originate? Ajaan Lee lists a couple of what he calls “resting spots” of the breath: above the navel, at the tip of the sternum, the base of the throat, the palate, the middle of the head, the top of the head. Experiment to see which of these centers is …
… Fine results are of high quality and are useful in all sorts of ways—like atomic radiation, which is so fine that it can penetrate even mountains. Crude things are of low quality and hard to use. Sometimes you can soak them in water all day long and they still don’t soften up. But as for fine things, all they need is a …
… 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 …
… It’s because we’re stupid in so many ways that we suffer so much. When craving arises, it damages people all around us. This is why we should develop the causes for happiness and ease, so as to prevent these kinds of dangers—for when difficulties arise, the mind will start spinning in all sorts ways that will cause us to suffer.
For …
III. Inner Release | Inner Strength & Parting Gifts: Talks by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
… Aging, illness, and death are its shadows or effects that show by way of the body. When we want to kill our enemy and so take a knife to stab his shadow, how is he going to die? In the same way, ignorant people try to destroy the shadows of stress and don’t get anywhere. As for the essence of stress in the …
