… the middle of the chest to the large intestine, the rectum, and out into the air.
Once you’ve completed these five turns inside the body, let the breath flow along the outside of the body:
As you take an in-and-out breath, think of inhaling the breath at the base of the skull and letting it go all the way down the …
… The way it explains these has to do with kasina practice, but the terms have been adopted for other types of concentration as well. And because these terms are not explained in the Canon, different ajaans have come up with different ways of describing them.
One common explanation says that momentary concentration is your ordinary, everyday concentration where you listen to someone speak and …
… One way to work toward it is to move your focus around
deliberately, stay with, say, the center of the chest for a while and
then move down to the abdomen or start at the abdomen and move up the
centerline in front of the body: stomach, middle of the chest, the
base of the throat, middle of the head, and then down on …
… If there was no mistake, no harm, then take joy in the
practice—joy in the fact that you’ve acted in a harmless way, you’re
learning, you’re progressing in the path—and continue trying to
progress.
Now, obviously this applies to outside actions, but it also applies to
your meditation. As you settle down with the breath, this is what
directed …
… Think of a lit candle in the middle of an otherwise dark room. The flame of the candle is in one spot, but its light fills the entire room. You want your awareness to be centered but broad in just the same way. Your sense of awareness may have a tendency to shrink—especially as you breathe out—so remind yourself with every breath …
… Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering.”
“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 Gotama—through …
… Try to stay with the breath all
the way in, all the way out.
Allow it to be comfortable. Think of the whole body breathing: your
eyes, your brain, your neck, your lungs, your stomach, your legs, your
arms. Every part is letting the energy flow and is nourished by the
energy.
If your mind wanders off, just bring it right back. This is …
… The way you keep the breath in mind, that’s mindfulness. Then you’re
alert to how the breath is going, knowing when it comes in, knowing
when it goes out, sticking with it all away as it comes in, sticking
with it all the way as it goes out, making sure you stay with it as
consistently as possible. That’s the quality …
… Right
concentration is a skill showing that there is a way to find happiness
that doesn’t require sensuality.
When the Buddha talks about the Middle Way, he’s not saying it’s just
a feeling halfway between pleasure and pain. It’s a different kind of
devotion to pleasure. He says the devotion to sensual pleasure is one
extreme and the devotion to …
… Choose to breathe in a way or choose to focus in a way
that gives rise to a sense of well-being. Choose to maintain that
well-being. Keep your thoughts thinking in the terms of right
mindfulness: body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities.
As for the stories that would pull you away, learn to use the Buddha’s
teachings on time. When he …
… This was the middle way: a sense of well-being that had no bad
results at all. There was nothing blameworthy about it. It didn’t harm
anybody and it didn’t make the mind intoxicated. This is the kind of
pleasure the Buddha recommends.
When he talks about renunciation, it usually sounds like we’re going
to have to do without. But it …
… the middle of the forehead; the top of the head; base of the
throat; just above the navel. That relieved a lot of the tiredness, as
other muscles pitched in.
So, there’s a lot to explore here. This is one of the ways of
developing concentration: You develop it through interest. The Pali
term, citta, literally means mind, but it can also mean …
… your nose, the middle of your head, the middle of the chest, whichever point feels most comfortable. Focus on that point and shelter it from other influences. In other words, other thoughts may come to the mind but you don’t latch on to them, don’t let them cause that little flame to waver. Protect it, the same way you’d cup a …
… So you want to give the mind a place where it’s right there in the
middle, not spinning around with everything else. This is what the
breath provides.
You watch it coming in, going out, and you have the right to decide
what kind of breathing feels good. The breath is one of the bodily
processes you can have some control over, so …
… You can work with the
breath and get a sense of well-being that comes from the way you
breathe. That provides a really good support for the mental
fabrication.
In the middle, there’s verbal fabrication, where you’re thinking about
the breath, evaluating the breath. You’re also thinking about others
and evaluating what it is to have genuine goodwill. You realize …
… The way to find out which is which, of course, is by experimenting.
This approach applies to everything inside and out. When you’re dealing with other people, one extreme is that you’re responsible for their behavior, the other is that you’re not responsible for their behavior at all. The middle way is to say, “How about if I change the way …
… a sense of the dangers, but taking whatever fear you might have about the dangers and directing it in the right way. It’s combined with confidence, that there is a right way to find happiness here.
This is where heedfulness differs from anxiety. With anxiety, you don’t really know what to do. You have no confidence that you have any right way …
… One way or another, your family will have to learn to fend for themselves.”
§ On his first visit to Wat Dhammasathit, a middle-aged man was surprised to see an American monk. He asked Ajaan Fuang, “How is it that Westerners can ordain?”
Ajaan Fuang’s answer: “Don’t Westerners have hearts?”
§ A Bangkok magazine once carried the serialized autobiography of a lay meditator …
… The causal pattern actually goes the other way: First, through your own individual intentions, you develop a karmic profile. Then you’re born with people who have similar profiles in their individual backgrounds.
So, if a particular group—a family, a nation—suffers hardships, it’s not because the long departed members of that group created bad karma. It’s because the individuals currently …
… The pilings on this bank and the pilings on that bank
are not the problem, but the pilings right in the middle of the river
take a lot of work. Concentration’s right there in the middle, but the
work that’s put into coming back again, coming back again, trying to
be as sensitive as possible to what you’ve got here, is …
Appendix | Keeping the Breath in Mind & Lessons in Samādhi
… the middle of the chest to the large intestine, the rectum, and out into the air. Once you’ve completed these five turns inside the body, let the breath flow along the outside of the body: As you take an in-and-out breath, think of inhaling the breath at the base of the skull and letting it go all the way down the …
SN 12:48 Lokāyatika Sutta | The Cosmologist
… Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering.” “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 Gotama—through …
Karma Is Individual
… The causal pattern actually goes the other way: First, through your own individual intentions, you develop a karmic profile. Then you’re born with people who have similar profiles in their individual backgrounds. So, if a particular group—a family, a nation—suffers hardships, it’s not because the long departed members of that group created bad karma. It’s because the individuals currently …
