… Or like the spider in the middle of a web: The spider is in one spot, but it’s sensitive to the whole web. Try to maintain this sense of centered but broad awareness all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out. Maintain this quality of awareness as long and as steadily as you can. Try to master it …
… What feels best? And what does the body need? If it’s
tired, can you breathe in a way that’s energizing? If you’re tense,
can you breathe in a way that’s more relaxing? If there are pains in
the body, can you breathe in a way that’s soothing for the pains?
This is something you have to evaluate for yourself …
… You try to
find the middle way, where you feed the body enough to get along. Keep
it comfortable enough so that it can function. Find pleasure in the
wilderness. Even Ven. Maha Kassapa has a long passage talking about
the beauties of the wilderness, because it’s a conducive place to
practice. He doesn’t go out there just to enjoy the wilderness …
… So in this
case, you want to see, when something’s arising that pulls the mind
in, what’s the allure? What do you think you’re gaining from thinking
in those ways? And then try to balance that with looking at the
drawbacks.
Sometimes it seems to be working in a very perverse way, when things
that you really don’t like about …
… In the same way, I—by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human—see beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discern how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their actions: ‘O, how these beings—who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, & mind, who did not revile noble ones, who held right views and undertook …
… Finally, he comes across a big bull elephant in the middle of a
clearing. That’s when he knows for sure he’s got the elephant he
wants.
In the same way, as we practice virtue, we practice concentration,
even the psychic powers that come with concentration: Those count as
footprints and scratch marks. They’re promising, but they don’t prove
things yet …
… In that case it’s
goodwill, and goodwill expresses itself in different ways—in this
case, a wish for safety.
One of the chants, the Ratana Sutta, has a story to go with it in the
commentary: There was a plague in Vesālī, and the Buddha had Ven.
Ananda go around the city chanting this sutta as a way of driving the
plague out …
… He makes known—having realized it through direct knowledge—this world with its devas, Māras, & Brahmās, this generation with its contemplatives & brahmans, its rulers & 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 …
… Instead of focusing in the middle of the body, start out on the
periphery and then move in. See what that does. In this way, you
become a wise person whose sport is jhana. You’re not the old person
you were whose sport was indulging in different kinds of fantasies and
finding your entertainment that way. Even though you’re engaged in
restraint …
… In the same way, a pure mind—even if we can make it pure for only a little while—can give results way in excess of its size. People who are really intent on purifying the mind may even lift themselves over and beyond the world.
So we’re taught that people whose minds aren’t pure—regardless of whether they’ve given donations …
… One thought leads to another, leads to
another, and you end up who knows where in the middle of Siberia.
Other times, when the mind is settling down, there’s a part of the
mind that’s afraid of concentration so it tries to break things up.
That’s divisive speech. Harsh speech, of course, is when you tell
yourself you’re a miserable …
… Then it would go back and hold on, quiet in the middle of the web where no one could see it, every time.
Seeing the spider act in this way, I came to an understanding. The six sense spheres are the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The mind stays in the middle. The eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are spread out …
A king once came to see the Buddha in the middle of the day, and the
Buddha asked him, “What have you been up to?” The king was remarkably
frank. He said “the typical things of people obsessed with power.”
It’s hard to imagine politicians admitting that today.
The Buddha asked him, “Suppose a reliable person came from the east
and said there …
… So it’s not a Catch-22,
it’s simply that these two faculties of the mind—the ability to watch
things and observe and come to reliable conclusions; and your
inventiveness in trying out different ways to experiment with the
breath and the way you focus on the breath—go hand-in-hand. They
develop together.
After all, a lot of things are …
… One way of cutting off those
little Velcro hooks is to keep reminding yourself: Where’s the stress
right now? The things that you latch on to as being especially true or
especially real: You have to remind yourself, are they really so real?
Are they really that true? You can think in terms of their
inconstancy, their stressfulness, the fact that they’re …
… What are you
doing? Why are you doing it? And is there an alternative, a way of
thinking and a way of going through the world that does not add
unnecessary suffering? Those are the big questions the Buddha has you
ask, because otherwise, if you can’t solve this problem inside, then
everything else in the world is going to be a problem …
… But most of us don’t use it that way. We find other ways of using it
and we can get eaten up by the way we compare ourselves with other
people. And so, as with any defilement, the best way to look at this
is to see: What do you gain by making those comparisons? There may be
a little sense of satisfaction …
… Phenomenon; event; the way things are in and of themselves; the basic principles that underlie their behavior. Also, principles of behavior that human beings ought to follow so as to fit in with the right natural order of things; qualities of mind they should develop so as to realize the inherent quality of the mind in and of itself. By extension, ‘Dhamma’ is used …
… But for most of us, we’re not even walking on the
water in an unstable way. We’re getting washed away, along with all
the other debris in those rivers. The only really safe place is right
here on the island.
When you can stand here, the mind gains strength. And when the mind
has the strength from concentration, it doesn’t have …
… Avoiding both of
these extremes, the middle way realized by the
Tathāgata—producing vision, producing knowledge—leads to calm, to
direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding.
“And what is the middle way realized by the Tathāgata
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 …
Introduction | The Karma of Mindfulness : The Buddha’s Teachings on Sati and Kamma
… Or like the spider in the middle of a web: The spider is in one spot, but it’s sensitive to the whole web. Try to maintain this sense of centered but broad awareness all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out. Maintain this quality of awareness as long and as steadily as you can. Try to master it …
MN 130 Devadūta Sutta | The Deva Messengers
… In the same way, I—by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human—see beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discern how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their actions: ‘O, how these beings—who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, & mind, who did not revile noble ones, who held right views and undertook …
