… This is how you put yourself onto the path of the middle way.
The fourth and final of the desires of determination is to train only for calm. Now, calm here functions in two ways. On the one hand, it’s the goal to which you aim; on the other hand, it’s a means to help give you stamina on the path to …
… 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 …
… Watch and then test the way you read the experiment, to
see if you really can trust it. Over time, your ability to read things
will get better and better. Your sense of balance will get better and
better. That’s why it’s called the middle way. The whole point of it
is to find true balance. And as with any balance, the …
… Along the way, Suppiya the wanderer spoke in many ways in dispraise of the Buddha, in dispraise of the Dhamma, in dispraise of the Saṅgha. But Suppiya the wanderer’s apprentice, Brahmadatta the young brāhman, spoke in many ways in praise of the Buddha, in praise of the Dhamma, in praise of the Saṅgha.
Itiha te ubho ācariy’antevāsī aññam-aññassa uju-vipaccanika-vācā …
… As for the guild, which is the Ssangha, I was reading recently about
Benvenuto Cellini and how he’d broken from the guild of goldsmiths in
the late middle ages because he thought he was way more talented than
everybody else. And he wanted to promote himself as the Michelangelo
of gold. He did some amazing things, but in the course of his career …
… But if you rubbed their heads in the middle of the road—no way! For sure.
It’s all a matter of willingness—accepting, giving up, letting go. When you can do this, things are light. Wherever you’re clinging, there’s becoming right there, birth right there, poison and danger right there. The Buddha taught about suppositions and he taught to undo suppositions …
… 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 …
The Pali word sukha can be translated in a lot of ways*.* Its range
covers everything from simple ease and pleasure to happiness,
well-being, and bliss. The whole purpose of the teaching is to find
true happiness—in other words, to take your desire for happiness
seriously. You have to ask yourself, are the ways you’re looking for
happiness giving you true …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… A good bathman preparing the dough
would mix it in such a way that the entire ball of dough was moist,
with no dry spots, but the water didn’t leak out. That means that you
have to knead the water through the dough the same way that you’d
knead water into bread dough.
So there’s work to be done. This is …
The word samaṇa, which we translate as contemplative, literally
means someone in tune, someone in harmony—someone who tries to live in
harmony with the way things really are. It’s by living in harmony that
you can understand how things are: what causes what, what kinds of
causes are proportional to what kinds of results, and looking for the
best results. In other …
… Even the Buddha himself made mistakes before his awakening,
going down the wrong path many, many times in many different lifetimes
before he discovered the Middle Way. It was through those points in
his practice when he realized, “What I’ve been doing, sometimes for
years, was a mistake,” and he was willing to look for other ways to do
things: That’s what …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… Like those old maps of the
North American continent, the big white space is in the middle. They
knew the coast, but they didn’t know the interior. That’s the way it
is with most of us. We know the surface of our lives, but we don’t
know what’s going on inside.
When you’re meditating, this is what you want …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
Conclusion | Good Heart, Good Mind
… This is how you put yourself onto the path of the middle way. The fourth and final of the desires of determination is to train only for calm. Now, calm here functions in two ways. On the one hand, it’s the goal to which you aim; on the other hand, it’s a means to help give you stamina on the path to …
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 …
