… 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 …
… Say you’re focused in the middle of the chest. Keep that sense of the middle of the chest wide open all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and then think of that sense of openness spreading throughout the body, wherever it’s going to go. Get in touch with the awareness that already fills the body as …
… 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 …
… 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 far 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 …
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 …
… Then he went off and practiced austerities for six years,
until he was ready to admit that that, too, wasn’t the way out.
Eventually he found a way that worked: the middle way, which
essentially is composed of three things—virtue, concentration, and
discernment.
The symbolism of our circumambulation right now relates to that. The
incense relates to virtue. There’s a saying …
… Stay with it all the way in, all
the way out, and notice what feels comfortable. As the Buddha says,
you try to make yourself sensitive to the whole body and then try to
breathe in a way that gives rise to feelings of ease.
So that’s what you experiment with as you meditate—sometimes feelings
of ease, sometimes feelings of more energy …
… 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 …
… He discovered that the principles of causality work in such a way that you can bring yourself to the Uncaused by being as skillful as possible in what you do. And the discernment that shows you how to act in those ways, that detects what in your intentions is skillful and what’s unskillful, what in the results of your actions are satisfactory or …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… around the navel, the middle of the chest, the back of the neck, wherever. Here again the steadiness and quality of your awareness is the medicine. The breath is a solvent that allows the effects of the medicine to spread through different parts of the body.
This is an important skill—learning how to stay focused in a way that’s healing—because that …
… It becomes a way of occupying the whole
body with a sense of well-being. This is important because you need a
safe place. You want to be able to put wheels on this home and make it
mobile.
That way, it’s not only while you’re sitting here with your eyes
closed, but when you get up there’s still a sense …
… Touched by contact in various ways,
he shouldn’t keep theorizing about self.
Stilled right within,
a monk shouldn’t seek peace from another,
from anything else.
For one stilled right within,
there’s nothing embraced,
so how rejected?2
As in the middle of the sea
it is still,
with no waves upwelling,
so the monk—unperturbed, still—
should not swell himself
anywhere …
… Resembling a ball of sealing wax,
set in a hollow,
with a bubble in the middle
and bathed with tears,
eye secretions are born there too:
The parts of the eye
are rolled all together
in various ways.’
Plucking out her lovely eye,
with mind unattached
she felt no regret.
‘Here, take this eye. It’s yours.’
Straightaway she gave it to him.
Straightaway …
… This is why the Buddha talks about the path as being a middle way
where the voices in your mind, the imperatives that you tell yourself,
are wise and they’re just right. They get the results you want. That’s
how you know that things are balanced and that you really are
following the middle way. You tell the mind to settle down …
… Otherwise, he’d drive you out, even in the middle of the Rains Retreat. Even then, you’d just have to take it and try to use your powers of observation.
‘In other matters, such as sitting and walking meditation, he trained me in every way, to my complete satisfaction. But I was able to keep up with him at best only about 60 …
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk; he explains the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end; he expounds the holy life both in its particulars & in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure. It is good to see such a …
… Say there’s a sense of ease and wellbeing in the middle of the chest: How do you maintain that ease and wellbeing? What way do you breathe? How do you adjust your breath so as to maintain that sense all way through the in-breath, all the way through the out?
Once you can do that, how do you let that sense of …
Giving Rise to Discernment | Meditations1
… He discovered that the principles of causality work in such a way that you can bring yourself to the Uncaused by being as skillful as possible in what you do. And the discernment that shows you how to act in those ways, that detects what in your intentions is skillful and what’s unskillful, what in the results of your actions are satisfactory or …
Sn 4:14 Quickly
… Touched by contact in various ways, he shouldn’t keep theorizing about self. Stilled right within, a monk shouldn’t seek peace from another, from anything else. For one stilled right within, there’s nothing embraced, so how rejected?2 As in the middle of the sea it is still, with no waves upwelling, so the monk—unperturbed, still— should not swell himself anywhere …
