… I want to survive.’ This can also be a good reminder in the way of the Dhamma: To free yourself from death, you have to play dead. This is a good lesson in maranassati, keeping death in mind.
Another time, early one morning when I was staying in the middle of a large forest, I took my followers out for alms. As we were …
… wake up in the middle of one of your created worlds, and say, “Oh, this is suffering. It doesn’t have to be here.” And you look in the right place instead of placing the blame on other people in the past or in the present. The suffering doesn’t come from them. The suffering comes from the way the mind thinks about things …
… Any issues you may have had with people during the day, get them out of the way, because you’re trying to give the mind a place it can settle down in, right here, right now, and you don’t want those attitudes to be getting in the way.
If you’re worried about issues in the future, remind yourself: The best way to …
… Then you can turn back to look at the movies again., until you can see
through the way the mind deceives itself, the way it deludes itself.
In that way, you’re in control. Once you’re in control, it’s a lot
easier to live life the way you want it to be lived, to do with your
life what you really want …
… But it’s not the case that
you go straight to those things without having to muck around with
your defilements, because the defilements are going to get in the way
one way or another. Because our habit is to deal unskillfully with
whatever comes up, then when the results of skillful actions come and
are nice, we tend to get complacent—an unskillful …
… What kind of feeling are you fostering in the way that you’re being attentive? In this way, the fact that you’re paying careful attention to the breath moves you into the area of feelings as a frame of reference, which is the territory of the second tetrad.
The Buddha’s second tetrad has four steps. The first is to determine that you …
… ODD-NUMBERED SEKHIYAS 1-25.
“When entering a house compound (§) he should observe, ‘I will enter by this way and leave by this way.’ He shouldn’t enter quickly, shouldn’t leave quickly. He shouldn’t stand too far away, shouldn’t stand too near. He shouldn’t stand for too long a time, shouldn’t turn away too soon. While standing, he should …
… Death can come in that
way. And you want to be ready to go in a way where there are no
regrets, nothing you hang on to.
So these are all ways of generating desire to focus on the practice so
that you can take delight in seeing an unskillful quality slough away,
and seeing skillful qualities growing. No matter how slowly they may …
… Then move up to the middle of the chest, and the same way around the body in the chest area, then the base of the throat, and the head. You can go down the shoulders to the arms, and then start at the hips, going down the legs to the toes. Work through the body, section by section, making sure that whatever section you …
… Where does that start? How does
it spread through the body? What are the energy channels? What are the
energy centers? When the in-breath starts coming in, where does it
feel like it starts? Around the navel? The middle of the chest? Ask
yourself. Look. And when the energy starts to spread, is there
anything to get in the way? If there is …
… I discerned, as it had come to be, that ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress… These are effluents… This is the origination of effluents… This is the cessation of effluents… This is the way leading to the cessation of effluents.’ My heart, thus knowing, thus …
The Second Noble Truth
November 13, 2015
When we meditate, we’re creating an island for ourselves in the middle of a large, fast-flowing river. This island is our refuge. The Buddha says when you develop the establishings for mindfulness, you’re making yourself your island. You’re making the Dhamma your island. It’s your way station to get across the river …
… What’s interesting about the breath? Well, you can breathe in all
kinds of ways. You have all kinds of ways of visualizing the breath to
yourself, experiencing the flow of energy through the body. It can
actually deal with physical pains and help with some illnesses.
As I mentioned the other night, Ajaan Lee’s method of dealing with the
breath—thinking of …
… of temptation, that get in the way of our practice. It’s not the case that they always obstruct us. Sometimes they turn into our friends and companions; sometimes into our workers and supporters; sometimes into our slaves, helping us and caring for us. This is why, if you’re discerning, you have to walk a middle course. On one hand, you have to …
… But you could find others as well—the
middle of the head, right where the legs join the torso, or the base
of the spine. If you focus your attention there, just stay with that
sense of stillness as you breathe in and breathe out. You’ll find that
that’ll have a calming effect on the breath. That way, if the breath
has …
… It was only when he found the middle way that he was able to reach the end of suffering: going to something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die. And part of that way is right view. That’s what the four noble truths are: the terms of right view.
So these are the truths that guide us in that …
… Once you’ve gotten to the other side, that’s when you let it
go—but you don’t let go in the middle of the river. The ajaans have
their own way of making the same point. Ajaan Fuang’s image was of a
rocket booster. You want to send a capsule to the moon. The capsule
can’t go on its own …
Your practice doesn’t come together simply because causes and
conditions happen to be that way. There’s something inside you that
has to want it to happen and to make it happen.
You look at the images the Buddha gives for people who do the
practice: people who are searching for something; people who are
struggling, fighting in battles; people who are being …
… You were actually
going to figure out what kind of breathing would lead to rapture, what
kind of breathing would lead to pleasure, how to breathe in a way that
you’re conscious of the whole body, how you can calm bodily
fabrication, how you can breathe in a way that calms mental
fabrication, and how to breathe in a way that gladdens the …
… We have to look after the breath in this way, in the same way that we catch baby chicks to put in the coop. If we hold them too tight, they die. If we hold them too loosely, they run away. We have to gather them in our hands in a way that’s just right. That way they’ll all end up safely …
The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee
… I want to survive.’ This can also be a good reminder in the way of the Dhamma: To free yourself from death, you have to play dead. This is a good lesson in maranassati, keeping death in mind. Another time, early one morning when I was staying in the middle of a large forest, I took my followers out for alms. As we were …
