Search results for: middle way

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  2. Off to a Good Start
     … Or it might be right in the middle of the head in the area just above the eyes. Whichever part of the body seems most sensitive to the energy flow, focus there. Try to maintain a rhythm of breathing that feels really good right there so that it feels good all the way through the in-breath and all the way through the out … 
  3. Strengthening Your Goodness
     … Developing strength of mind is in some ways very much like developing strength of body. To develop strength of body, you have to remember to exercise it and to nourish it with rest and good food. In the same way, the mind needs to be exercised. You need to remember to keep it exercised and to nourish it well. The remembering there is mindfulness … 
  4. No Mistakes Are Fatal
    No Mistakes Are Fatal January, 2003 Our minds are pretty chaotic systems, which is why following the middle way is so difficult. It’s so easy for a chaotic system to get knocked out of equilibrium, to veer off to the left, to veer off to the right. Staying in the middle is difficult; it requires a lot of balance. So it’s no … 
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  5. Strength from Within
     … actions make a difference and you want to act in ways that are skillful, the precepts are a good test for your conviction—and also a good training in maintaining that conviction. But the precepts on their own are not enough. You’ve got to train the mind. That’s what the three middle strengths are about. Persistence basically means right effort. Anything unskillful … 
  6. Constant, Easeful, Self
     … And as they say in Thailand, many times when the middle-level management sends something up, they’ve already mixed it for you. In other words, they present it in terms that are pretty much going to force your decision one way or another. So if you don’t get the mind really clear, really still, really constant in its gaze, you’re not … 
  7. Page search result icon Attention & Intention
     … When you’re still in the middle of the river, don’t be too quick to let go of the raft or you’ll drown. Wait until you’ve gotten to the shore. Then you let go. But all the way across the river, from this shore to the far shore, it’s a matter of developing attention and intention. You let go of … 
  8. Working Hypotheses
    There are a lot of ways in which the Buddha compares the activities of the mind to fire. Greed, aversion, are delusion are fires that burn away in the mind, and as we chanted just now, they set fire to our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and to the things we know through the senses. It’s almost as if our minds … 
  9. What Are You Doing in the Present?
     … This way, when the mind and body are in harmony like this, both sides benefit. The mind has a good place to stay. The body has someone looking after it. One of Ajaan Lee’s images is of a parent looking after a child. The parent has to make sure the child doesn’t get sick, doesn’t do anything wrong. And as long … 
  10. The Skills of Merit
     … If you try to get in the middle of the road and stop the traffic, it runs over you. Here you’re stepping out. You’re not in the road. You’re in the present moment. This is one of the skills the Buddha taught. All of his teachings are basically skills. Even right view is a skillful way of thinking that leads you … 
  11. Directing Yourself Rightly
     … By the time we come to the Dhamma, we’re already in the middle of all this. What makes the Dhamma special is that it shows us a way out, because a lot of those muddling mistakes we make create a lot of suffering for ourselves or the people around us. An important part about choosing a life of the Dhamma is that you … 
  12. A Well-thatched Roof
     … When you begin to see, though, that the way you put things together is causing suffering, and you don’t have to put things together that way—there’s another way—this is how insight cuts through. You see it’s not necessary, that suffering. You have an alternative. Go for it. When you develop the mind in this way, you’re getting the … 
  13. Set Your Heart on the Breath
     … Think of it going up and down a line drawn right down through the middle of your body from the head down to the base of the spine—in front, in back, down the legs, out the arms—in whatever way it’s going to flow. If you find there’s a sense of blockage in any part of the body, think of the … 
  14. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … But the question is, do you do it skillfully? There’s a skillful way to breathe in, a skillful way to breathe out. There’s a skillful way to relate to the breath as you breathe in, breathe out. If it’s nourishing for the body, if it feels good inside, down to the more sensitive parts of your body, the mind will respond … 
  15. On Being Non-reactive
     … In the same way, when the breath energies in the body are very still, you can sense the movements of the mind very clearly, and that’s what we’re here for. The breath is like a thread that you follow through a maze to get to the mind in the middle. When the breath gets still, the mind becomes more and more clear … 
  16. Protect Your Inner Center
     … Learn to drop the thought right in the middle and come back to the breath. When you come back, reward yourself with a really nice breath, one that feels really refreshing. That way, the next time you wander off, you’ll be more inclined to come back because you know when you come back it feels good. While you’re with the breath, try … 
  17. Breath Energies
     … And to help sensitive you to them, there are various ways of conceiving them. Sometimes Ajaan Lee talks about breath channels in the body. There’s one that goes down through the spine. Another breath channel goes through the front of the body, right down the middle. There are breath channels in your head, breath channels down your legs and your arms. Some of … 
  18. Xtreme Drama
     … The way out was not to buy into it, to have a more sensible attitude toward the whole thing. Whatever ups or downs there may be, you don’t have to take them all that seriously. You just stick with your practice. You have to find the middle way between the extremes that the dramatic side of our personality likes to read into things … 
  19. Listen Well
     … At first they were disinclined to listen to him because he had given up on his austerities, and they thought austerities were the way. But he taught them, no, there was a middle way that doesn’t involve self-torture, and it doesn’t involve indulgence in sensuality. But to say that it’s between the two is not quite right. It’s off … 
  20. Our Sense of Self
     … It’s the way it’s been ever since I was born, so it’s the way it’s going to be until I die.” But the Buddha didn’t think in that way. As with so many other things, he saw a sense of self as something we do. We want pleasure, we want to avoid pain, and so we try to get … 
  21. Practicing All the Time
     … That way your practice becomes timeless. Or as he would say, make your practice samma. The word means “right” but it also means “just right,” and it also means you want to do it all the time. “Just right” doesn’t mean a middling right. It means whatever is appropriate for the task. Sometimes if really strong anger comes up in the mind, you … 
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