Search results for: middle way
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- A Centered but Broad AwarenessTake a couple of good, long deep in-and-out breaths, and then try to breathe in a way that feels good and refreshing for the body. If long breathing doesn’t feel good, you could change the rhythm. Try to find a rhythm and texture that feels right for you. Or ask yourself, “What parts of the body need energizing? What parts of …
- Victory… You have your ways of shaping this experience and if you’re not paying careful attention to what you’re doing, middle-level management takes over—in other words, your old habits. You can find yourself tensing up over a little pain here and there without even realizing that it’s happening. It’s almost like somebody else is giving the orders. Part of …
- Stand Your Ground… That’s not a good way to live. A much better way is to think of garbage pail as having a big hole in the bottom, so that everything just goes right through, right through. In other words, you know what people are saying, you know what they’re doing, but you don’t take that as something to focus on. You keep breathing …
- Encouragement… Keep reminding yourself that’s the way skills are. If this were a very simple skill, the kind of skill where you could make steady progress, it wouldn’t have such a deep impact on the mind. The mind is a very complex phenomenon, so its progress, its growing mastery, is going to be a complex process as well. Ajaan Lee makes a comparison …
- An Examined Life… That’s one way of thinking about death. The other way is to realize that there are things you can do to prepare. In other words, there are skillful and unskillful ways of living, skillful and unskillful ways of dying. I’ve seen this in my own life. I’ve seen two teachers of mine approach death, and I’ve also seen my father …
- Large-hearted Goodness… Starting in the middle of the chest right at the heart and then going down through the stomach and the intestines. This is good nourishment, because you don’t have to fight anybody for it. It’s right there, it’s free, and it’s very immediate. When you get familiar with the breath and the different ways of breathing, you find that you …
- Start the Year Right Here… After all, the path is one that’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end—admirable not just in the sense that it’s noble, but also in the sense that it’s a good path to follow. Even when you don’t get all the way to happiness, you realize that being on this path is a good …
The Mind Like Fire Unbound
Chapter IV
… 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 …- Sense Restraint… Sometimes you want it to stop, but that’s like going out into the middle of the highway: The cars are coming along, and you’re telling them to stop. Of course, they’ll run over you. The wise thing to do then is to get out of the way. So that’s where the real problem is. It’s not with your eyes …
- Trust in the Power of the Mind… middle, admirable in the end. But the best is saved for last. In the beginning, you’re making a gamble. You don’t know if the Buddha’s right or wrong about things like rebirth or karma. But you do know that they’re good things to believe, in the sense that they affirm your power to shape your life in a good way …
- The Brahmaviharas on the Path… So when you think in these ways, holding these perceptions in mind, you can develop a more and more genuine feeling of goodwill, a feeling that’s not threatened by the fact that other people are going to continue to act in sometimes really outrageous and horrible ways. Because when you see them acting in horrible ways, you’ve got to have compassion for …
- Eight Principles… impact on the breath—because that’s another way of adjusting the breath: simply changing your perception of it. Visualizing the body as a sponge is one perception that can be helpful in opening up the breath energy. Or as Ajaan Fuang once recommended, you can visualize a column of breath energy in the middle of the body, from the head on down. Then …
- Training Your Inner Critic… You can look at the Buddha’s teachings as advice on how to fabricate all these three kinds of fabrication in skillful ways. He even gives you instructions on how to breathe: Breathe in a way that makes you sensitive to rapture, sensitive to pleasure; breathe in a way where you’re aware of the whole body; breathe in a way where you gladden …
- Harmless & Clearheaded… Try long breathing, short breathing, or longer or shorter, or more middling, deeper or more shallow. heavy or light or faster or slower. There are lots of ways of experimenting with the breath, which not only makes it more comfortable but also makes it more interesting to sit here. Here it is, this energy in your body that keeps you alive. It has a …
- The Stages of Meditation… And then you move up to the next section, say, the solar plexus, and then the middle of the chest, the base of the throat, the head, down the back, out the legs. Starting again at the back of the neck, go down the shoulders and out the arms until you’ve covered the whole body. You can go through the body this way …
- Chopping Off Thoughts… So think of it relaxing and staying relaxed all way through. You have to be very watchful here. If your attention slips away, things will tense up again immediately if that’s your normal way of doing things. So you’re reeducating the body in how to breathe, and at the same time reeducating your mind, getting the mind to stay in the present …
- Dhamma Medicine… In the same way when you practice, you’re the one who’s responsible. The Buddha tells you what works—what’s good for the mind, what’s bad for the mind—but it’s up to you to follow the instructions. The path he lays out is very similar to the three kinds of treatment you get when you go to, say, a …
- An Island in the Flood… You’re crossing a river and you get to an island in the middle of the river. The river has the potential to flood, but you’ve got an island that’s high enough, so that even when it floods, you’re not swept away. But it’s a way station on the way to the other side. What does it mean to practice …
- Right Inner Speech… Exactly how much renunciation is involved? Where is that Middle Way right now? That takes experience to see. You experiment and then see what results you get. Everybody wants to hear the quick and easy formula for figuring out how much is enough. Well, there is no quick and easy formula. You have to experiment; you have to be willing to try different approaches …
- Setbacks… If you lack that conviction, then no matter what, you get stuck in someplace and think, “Well this is it! No way out.” And you give up. You’re lost. But if you’re convinced there must be a way out, that gives you the chance to find it. In that way, in spite of your setbacks, you learn. If you’ve been through …
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