… So think your way to settling down. Take a couple of good, long, deep
in-and-out breaths and notice where you feel the breathing. Where it
seems to be most prominent, focus there. And allow your attention to
stay there all the way through the in-breath, all the way though the
out. This part of the meditation requires training because the mind …
… And in whatever way the Teacher or a fellow person leading the holy life teaches the Dhamma to the monk, in just that way the monk, with regard to that Dhamma, is sensitive to the meaning, is sensitive to the Dhamma. In him—sensitive to the meaning, sensitive to the Dhamma—joy is born. When he is joyful, rapture is born. In one who …
… If you’re a painter, a skier, and a miner, you will see the same mountain in different ways depending on what you want from it at any given moment—beauty, adventure, or wealth. Even if you stay focused on nothing but the desire to paint, the beauty you want from the mountain will change with time—sometimes over years, sometimes from one moment …
… Ānanda: “Master
Ānanda, is there any one monk endowed in each & every way with
the qualities with which Master Gotama—worthy & rightly
self-awakened—was endowed?”
“No, brahman, there isn’t any one monk endowed in each & every
way with the qualities with which the Blessed One—worthy &
rightly self-awakened—was endowed. For the Blessed One was the
arouser of the unarisen path …
… This is one of the ways in which the meditation gets up off the
cushion and actually helps with your life. Remember the word for
meditation in Pali is bhāvanā. It means to develop. Whatever good
qualities you can develop in the mind, it’s all part of meditation.
Whether you’re sitting here with your eyes closed, or in the middle of
an …
… Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathāgata—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding.
“And which is the middle way realized by the Tathāgata that—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding? Precisely this noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech …
… The Buddha was able to communicate the message to kings that they shouldn’t kill, but because kings in general were not the most promising students of the Dhamma, he had to bring them to this message in an indirect way.
It’s true that in the Pali Canon silence is sometimes interpreted as acquiescence, but this principle holds only in response to a …
… That’s the way it is. The donor does not go without reward.”
“Magnificent, Master Gotama! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to show the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has Master …
… It was rare for him to search out other people to refute in that way, but he saw the importance of emphasizing time and again that determinism is not the way things work. As he says, practice would be totally pointless if everything were predetermined by the past. So conviction also focuses on the principle that right now you can develop what’s skillful …
… There would be no way of knowing precisely where it was or what the markers were, so there would be no way of revoking it when authorizing a new territory in its place. If, as the Commentary says, a territory remains such until the disappearance of the Buddha’s teachings and any territory authorized so as to overlap it would be invalid—there being …
… That would be a lie, and the way around that situation would be to figure out some way to not give information about the fugitive to the police without, at the same time, lying. This sort of thing is going to be a challenge for each of us as we practice the precepts. My experience has been that the ways of not giving information …
… Where & however an aim is accomplished
through
eulogies, chants, good sayings,
donations, & family customs,
follow them diligently there & that way.
But if you discern that your own aim
or that of others is not gained in this way,
acquiesce [to the nature of things]
unsorrowing, with the thought:
‘What important work am I doing now?’
—AN 5:49
§89. [Sister Ubbiri:]
“‘Jiva, my daughter …
… extremes as to how people interpret the best way to express goodwill for a patient. One extreme is the idea that you have to extend life as long as possible. The other extreme is terminating life when the quality of life goes down.
The Buddha’s instructions avoid these two extremes and follow a middle course whose outside parameters are provided by the precepts …
… We’re caught in the middle.
Remember what we were saying last night about people who have an
intuitive response to a situation, sometimes very quick, and often the
situation requires a quick response. Something comes up in your life
and you can’t say, “noting, noting, noting.” You’ve got to do
something right away. The question is: How do you know when …
… The polar extremes of constant exertion to the point of exhaustion and its opposite, a knee-jerk fear of “efforting,” are both misguided here, as is the seemingly “middle” way of moderation in all things. The true middle way means tuning one’s efforts to one’s abilities and to the task at hand [§86]. In some cases, this entails an all-out effort …
… right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
“And when a disciple of the noble ones discerns the requisite condition in this way, discerns the origination of the requisite condition in this way, discerns the cessation of the requisite condition in this way, discerns the way of practice leading to the cessation of the condition in …
… Once you know the labels formulated by the Buddha, you can decipher yourself, in the same way that you learn how to read a book. Take a baby who doesn’t know anything: As soon as it’s born, it cries, “Wae!” That’s feeling. If it’s eating and comes across something it doesn’t like, it throws it away and goes for …
… But if you realize that they are actually getting in the way of your own progress, that’s half the battle right there.
The Buddha mentions four of these five hindrances explicitly in his discussion of what to guard against at the moment of death. The one he doesn’t mention explicitly, sloth and drowsiness, is implicit. To be drowsy gets in the way …
… The path to the cessation of suffering is also called the Middle Way because it avoids two extremes: (1) indulgence in the pleasures of sensuality and (2) devotion to the pain of self-torment. Yet this does not mean that the path pursues a course of middling pleasures and middling pains. Instead, it treats the pleasure of concentration, along with insight into the pain …
… I,
having killed the Blessed One, will become Buddha.”
Then Prince Ajātasattu, (thinking,) “Master Devadatta is
mighty & powerful; Master Devadatta should know,” strapping a
dagger to his thigh—afraid, apprehensive, alarmed, &
trembling—rushed into the inner palace in the middle of the
day.
The ministers guarding the inner palace saw him—afraid,
apprehensive, alarmed, & trembling—rushing into the inner palace
in the middle of …
DN 33 Saṅgīti Sutta | The Discourse for Reciting Together
… And in whatever way the Teacher or a fellow person leading the holy life teaches the Dhamma to the monk, in just that way the monk, with regard to that Dhamma, is sensitive to the meaning, is sensitive to the Dhamma. In him—sensitive to the meaning, sensitive to the Dhamma—joy is born. When he is joyful, rapture is born. In one who …
Introduction | The Paradox of Becoming
… If you’re a painter, a skier, and a miner, you will see the same mountain in different ways depending on what you want from it at any given moment—beauty, adventure, or wealth. Even if you stay focused on nothing but the desire to paint, the beauty you want from the mountain will change with time—sometimes over years, sometimes from one moment …
