Search results for: middle way
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- Taking Responsibility… is why, as the Buddha said, if you were to make a comparison with the way beings are born, it’s like throwing a stick up in the air: Sometimes it lands on this end, sometimes it lands on that end, sometimes it comes down smack in the middle. In other words, there’s no progress, there’s no purpose. It’s just wherever …
- Motivation… You dawdled through the practice saying, “Well, I’ll put it off till tomorrow and I won’t push myself too hard.” As Ajaan Maha Boowa says, for many of us, the middle way is right in the middle of the pillow. So you don’t want that regret. That’s one way of stirring up a sense of desire: realizing there are dangers …
Non-violence
6 : Developing Goodwill
… difficulty, in the same way, when the awareness-release through equanimity is thus developed, thus pursued, any deed done to a limited extent no longer remains there, no longer stays there.” — SN 42:8 §47. Think: Happy, at rest, may all beings be happy at heart. Whatever beings there may be, weak or strong, without exception, long, large, middling, short, subtle, blatant, seen & unseen …Show one additional result in this book- Issues of Control… In the same way, as we deal with our aggregates—form, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness—there are unskillful ways of trying to control them and there are skillful ways. You can actually turn them into the path. All five aggregates, for instance, are involved in concentration. Form, of course, would be the breath. Think of the breath going through the whole body. Feeling …
- Duties in the Present… The more consistently you can allow them just to be—all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out-—the more you find a sense of rapture developing, a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. This is called developing your inner resources for the sake of alertness, for the sake of mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. That’s one of our duties …
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Purity of Heart
Reconciliation, Right & Wrong
… The Buddha noted that neither extreme was effective in putting an end to suffering, so he found a pragmatic Middle Way between them: Right and wrong were determined by what actually did and didn’t work in putting an end to suffering. The public proof of this Middle Way was the Sangha that the Buddha built around it, in which people agreed to follow …Show 2 additional results in this book
- The Big Picture… Sometimes it would land on this end, sometimes it would land on that end, sometimes splat in the middle. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason. Then he had the second vision of the night in which he posed the question, “What is it that determines these ups and downs, the this end or that end or the splat in the middle?” He …
- To Begin the Day… You hope that they’ll act in a skillful way, again for their sake as well as for yours. But you realize that your primary responsibility is your actions, so you have to protect your goodwill. There’s an image in the Canon of a mother protecting her child. Sometimes it’s misinterpreted as saying you should protect all beings in the same way …
- Choosing Freedom… But holding that perception allows you to work with the energy in the body in ways you might not have been able to do if you had other perceptions. You can think of the breath energy coming in. Ajaan Fuang would often talk about there being kind of a line running down through the body, from the middle of the head, down through the …
- Expanding Your Awareness… So one way that you can show goodwill to all beings and really help them to be happy is to sit here and practice, to work on your mind. Another way of expanding your awareness is to keep expanding it through the body as you work with the breath energy in the body. You get a sense of comfort from the way you breathe …
- Driving Lessons… How does it feel as you breathe in? How does it feel as you breathe out? What kind of breathing feels good in that part of the body? You can move up to the solar plexus, the middle of the chest, the base of the throat, the middle of the head. And then, focusing on the back of the neck: Think of the breath …
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Starting Out Small
At the Gate of the Cattle-pen
… It’s called the root because it’s a good quality that runs deep and tenacious right down the middle of the heart. It’s called the heartwood because it’s solid and resilient, like the heartwood of a tree that insects can’t burrow into and destroy. Even though insects may be able to nibble away at the tree, they can go only …Show 4 additional results in this book
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Beyond Coping
The Doctor’s Diagnosis
… Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding. “And what is the middle way realized by the Tathagata 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 …Show 2 additional results in this book
- The Dhamma Eye… What was the path was the middle way, starting with understanding the truths about suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. The reason it’s called a wheel is because each of those truths has a duty, and then there’s the stage of having completed the duty, so you have three stages altogether: One is understanding what the truth …
- Safety… If you want to change the image, you may say the island may be your way-station on the way across the river, but you finally get across the river on high ground and you’re safe. This is where total security lies. It’s doesn’t lie in things outside or people outside, because those things can get washed away. And they are …
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Four Noble Truths
The Fourth Noble Truth
… In his first talk, the Buddha introduced this path of practice as 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 pains. Instead, it fosters the pleasures of concentration, along with insight into the …
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A Meditator’s Tools
Mindfulness of Death
… Then King Pasenadi of Kosala approached the Blessed One in the middle of the day and, on arrival, having bowed down, sat down to one side. As he was sitting there, the Blessed One said to him: “Well now, your majesty, where are you coming from in the middle of the day?” “Just now, lord, I was engaged in the sort of royal affairs …Show 4 additional results in this book
- Immersed in the Body… Be in the middle. When you hold things back, there are big blind spots in the mind. Those blind spots are ignorance, and it’s precisely because of the ignorance that we suffer. So as you begin to settle down and the breath begins to feel good, allow yourself to plunge into the body. Put the breath on. Wear it. Remember that image of …
- Faith in the Practice… This is what’s special about the Buddha’s teachings in the middle way. It’s not a middle way between pain and pleasure—in other words a neutral feeling tone. It’s the realization that you can use pain and pleasure as means rather than as ends. For example, there’s the pain of knowing that “There’s work to be done.” But …
- Respect… When the Buddha talks about the right effort of the middle way, it’s not just a halfway effort or a mediocre effort. It’s an effort appropriate to whatever is needed. Sometimes it’s a very gentle effort; sometimes it requires a lot more willpower and strength. But you have respect for whatever is required and you do your best to fulfill the …
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