… This is the right effort that really constitutes the middle way: in other words, appropriate effort, appropriate for whatever the occasion, whatever the defilement coming up in the present, and whatever your state of mind. Sometimes this requires very delicate work, very refined, very easy. Sometimes it’s hard and takes a lot of effort. You have to sit through a good amount of …
… In this way, Sāvatthī provides the stage for a multi-faceted
glimpse into the middle period of the Buddha’s life, in his
role as teacher to devas and human beings at large and,
simultaneously, founder of and rule-giver for the Saṅgha.
At that time, Anāthapiṇḍika the householder was the
brother-in-law of the Rājagaha moneylender. Then he traveled to
Rājagaha on …
… There’s a certain way of
breathing that goes with the anger: Do you enjoy that? A certain way
of thinking that goes with the anger: Do you enjoy that? Do you enjoy
the perceptions? What kick do you get out of the perceptions or the
feelings that go with the anger? These are the things about which
you’ve got to be very …
As you practice, there’s a way in which you have to think that the
path is the goal, and there’s a way in which you have to think the
path is not the goal. The path leads to the goal, so they’re two
separate things. The way in which the path is the goal is that you
have to pay full …
… You have to be
willing to look at ways in which you’ve been dishonest with
yourself—ways in which you’ve been lying to yourself, ways in which
you’ve been careless, heedless—and not get knocked over by them. You
need to have the strength inside to admit the truth of these things so
that you can actually deal with them. Because …
… It may take a while for the energy to start coming back down,
but you’ve got to be strategic in this way. Otherwise, it’s like
getting out in the middle of freeway and telling all the cars to turn
back. What happens? You get run over. But if you figure out a way to
route them through a neighborhood, turning here, turning …
… So it’s pretty amazing that the body works, because each little cell in there is programmed to behave sometimes in a social way and sometimes in an antisocial way. It’s good to think about the body like this so that we don’t get heedless.
That’s a lot of what the body contemplation is for: to counteract our heedlessness. To begin …
… We’re looking for patterns—patterns in our behavior that
are unskillful—and for ways in which we can change our behavior so
it’s more skillful. For that, you have to look at your actions over
time and try to do them well, which is why there’s the ardency in
there.
There’s a strange passage in the Commentary, where it tries …
… But even then, we have to part ways.
When we part ways, there’s a lot of sorrow. The tears you’ve shed over
the loss of a mother, the Buddha said, are more than the water in the
oceans. The tears you’ve shed over the loss of a father are more than
the water of the oceans, and so on down with …
… This is why it’s called the middle way: the Dhamma always appropriate for curing every sort of defilement to the point where defilement no longer remains.
This is how you should understand the power of the middle way. Hold to this path in your practice, because release from suffering and stress is something with a value transcending all three levels of becoming. And …
… But the question is, where
does the teaching actually make a difference? Where does it really
help? Probably the most useful formulation of emptiness is one of the
earliest ones, where the Buddha talks about emptiness being a way of
perceiving in which you don’t add to or take anything away from what’s
really right here, right now.
We spend most of …
… Find some way to psych yourself up for this.
And one of the ways to do that, of course, is to think about the fact that the Buddha really was an admirable human being and there are so few admirable people in this world. You should treasure those who are. Think of the passage we chanted just now: “The Buddha is immeasurable.” The qualities …
… It’s in this way that you learn how to use your perceptions—and how to change your perceptions so that they actually are conducive to settling down.
As you work with the breath in this way, you’ll find that there are lots of different levels. It’s like the water table at Wat Asokaram. They dug their wells in a very unlikely …
… From the skin all the way into the bones, it’s
breath. You’re sitting here in the middle of it, allowing it to come
in and go out like the waves at the edge of the ocean. There’ll be
some variety. You notice with ocean waves that they don’t all come
regularly; there’s an irregular rhythm to them. And the …
… This way isn’t the path; that way isn’t the path—so we take the middle as our constant preoccupation.
If we can gain release from pleasure and pain, this will appear as the path. Our mind will step into it and know, but it can’t yet go all the way. So it withdraws to continue practicing.
When pleasure arises and we …
… He talks about the
middle way, developing all the eight factors of the noble path from
right view on through right concentration. Right view starts right in
with the issue of suffering. There is stress, there is suffering,
there is pain. He’s not saying life is suffering. He’s just saying
simply that there is suffering. We can’t deny that. And from …
… But there is a middle way between intending and telling yourself not to intend, and that’s the escape. What allows for the escape is dispassion. It’s the point where you lose interest in this mud house, and you make it unfit for play. In other words, you take the mind to where it’s not going to build mud houses anymore.
You …
… It’s a good way to get out of your head and down into the body. Give yourself a good comfortable place to stay and be aware of the breath coming in, aware of the breath going out. Notice how the breathing feels in different parts of the body, because the breathing is a whole-body process. If it’s not a whole-body …
… I want my feelings to be like that,” and expect them to be that way.
Simply telling them to do things doesn’t necessarily make them do it.
You can tell the body not to grow old, but it doesn’t listen to you.
If you gain a sense of peace in the concentration and you say, “I want
this to last. I don …
… Even though the present moment
may not be all that good, you can’t let that get in the way. In fact,
that’s a lot of what it means to dig down into the present moment:
getting past the things that are not good, and finding what potentials
you have there that really are worthwhile.
Think of the breath—who would have thought …