… You have to give rise to them, and you do that partly by the way
you breathe and also by the way you perceive the breath. When you
breathe in, what’s the image of the breath that you have in mind? Some
people talk of the breath as if it were a tactile sensation—in other
words, simply the touch of the air …
… You realize that, to be
kind, you have to go out of your way. It isn’t the easiest thing in
the world to be kind. Your parents didn’t throw you away the first
time you started crying non-stop and making a terror of yourself. They
got up in the middle of the night. They looked after you. Night after
night after …
… The way you work with the breath will
have to depend on where you are, what you need in order to, say, give
yourself a sense of relaxation when you feel tense in different parts
the body, or to energize yourself when you’re feeling tired, or to
work with a pain that may be caused by poor blood flow in some part of …
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will?
As with so many other issues, the Buddha took a middle path between the two extremes of determinism and total free will. If all your experience were predetermined from the past—through impersonal fate, the design of a creator god, or your own past actions—the whole idea of a path of practice to the end of suffering …
… Anger & disgruntlement are both a blemish.
“It’s possible, friend, that there’s the case where this sort of wish might arise in a certain monk: ‘O, should I have fallen into an offense, may the monks accuse me in private, and not in the middle of the Saṅgha.’ But it’s possible that the monks would accuse him in the middle of the …
… That was how he found the middle way.
Now it’s up to us to find the middle way, too. Most of us tend to
indulge either in pleasure or are afraid of the pleasure that comes
from a concentrated mind, that comes from allowing the breath to be
comfortable, and to develop that state. The Buddha said that once
there’s that sense …
… Breath energy coming in right in the middle of the chest and
going down through the liver and the abdomen. Do it in a way that
feels refreshing. Think of the breath energy going all the way down to
your toes, so that your legs sitting here are not just dead lumps.
There’s a flow of energy that keeps them alert, keeps them …
… Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathāgata teaches the Dhamma via the middle:
From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.
From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness.
From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.
From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media.
From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact.
From contact as a …
No Mistakes Are Fatal
January, 2003
Our minds are pretty chaotic systems, which is why following the middle way is 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.
It’s no wonder that …
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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… We can’t say we’ll just do a
middling effort. The effort has to be appropriate for the occasion. We
also have to make our words appropriate for the occasion. We have to
be very careful about what we do, say, and think to make sure that
it’s just right.
He liked to make the comment that “The Buddha says a lot …
… 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 …
… The pilings on this bank and that bank aren’t hard to place, but the pilings in the middle are really hard. You’ve got to withstand the current of the river. You dig down and put a few stones on the bottom of the river and you come back with your next load of stones only to discover that the first load of …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will? | First Things First
Did the Buddha Teach Free Will? As with so many other issues, the Buddha took a middle path between the two extremes of determinism and total free will. If all your experience were predetermined from the past—through impersonal fate, the design of a creator god, or your own past actions—the whole idea of a path of practice to the end of suffering …
MN 5 Anaṅgaṇa Sutta | Unblemished
… Anger & disgruntlement are both a blemish. “It’s possible, friend, that there’s the case where this sort of wish might arise in a certain monk: ‘O, should I have fallen into an offense, may the monks accuse me in private, and not in the middle of the Saṅgha.’ But it’s possible that the monks would accuse him in the middle of the …
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 …
