… 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 …
… what’s causing us to act in ways in the
present moment that are causing suffering now and on into the future.
After all, it’s our intentions that shape our life. Where do
intentions happen? They happen right here, right now. All too often,
they’re relegated down to the middle-level bureaucracy in the mind.
It’s as if you were the …
… Where are you focused in the body? Is your focus the right place to be focused right now? There are lots of places where you could be focused in the body—the tip of the nose, the middle of the forehead, in your palate, in the middle of the head, in your throat, your chest, your abdomen. If you find that focusing up in …
… Then Anāthapiṇḍika the householder left Sāvatthī in the middle of the day to see the Blessed One, but the thought then occurred to him, “Now is not the right time to see the Blessed One, for he is in seclusion. And it is not the right time to see the mind-developing monks, for they are in seclusion. What if I were to visit …
… You hop on a train of thought and find yourself in Burma, England, in the middle of Russia, up to the North Pole, down to the South Pole, out to Mars and Saturn, with brief stops along the way when you’re feeling hungry, tired, or hot.
It’s back-and-forth all over the place. And when our thoughts are totally out of …
… 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 …
… Why don’t we each assume the form of a hundred women who have borne one child … a hundred women who have borne two children … a hundred middle-aged women … a hundred older women?” So Māra’s daughters—Craving, Discontent, & Passion—having each assumed the form of a hundred older women, went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, said to him, “We serve …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… the middle of the head, the palate, the base of the throat, the middle the chest, just above the navel—-because they tend to be trigger points. Once a trigger point has been engaged, everything else seems to seize up as well. If you keep the trigger point relaxed, open, at ease, then the other physical reactions don’t happen. That way your body …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… These are the qualities that the Buddha in his previous lifetimes had
been developing, and it was in dependence on these that he was able to
practice in such a way as to gain his awakening. These are qualities
that all of us have in a potential form, all of us can develop them,
so we can find a way of giving meaning to …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… This way, you
don’t have to think of pulling the breath in from outside. You just
think of opening things up so that the energy can spread smoothly from
those spots: from around the navel, or just below the breastbone, in
middle of the chest, the base of the throat, or the middle of the
head. Think of the breath as originating there …
… The Buddha complied with the request and defined the outlying districts in such a way that there is nowhere in the world outside of the middle Ganges Valley where this rule applies.
Offenses
For those who live in the middle Ganges Valley, the offenses for bathing more frequently than once a fortnight outside of the proper occasions are these: a dukkaṭa for every time …
AN 10:93 Diṭṭhi Sutta | Views
… Then Anāthapiṇḍika the householder left Sāvatthī in the middle of the day to see the Blessed One, but the thought then occurred to him, “Now is not the right time to see the Blessed One, for he is in seclusion. And it is not the right time to see the mind-developing monks, for they are in seclusion. What if I were to visit …
The Fourth Noble Truth | Four Noble Truths
… 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 …
