… In the same way, it’s important that you keep your spirits up as you
practice. Realize that if you’re going to make your way to release, it
has to be through doing your duties. So don’t see these duties as
onerous, as a weight bearing you down. They’re an opening, an opening
to freedom: freedom from suffering, freedom from all …
… So if you feel any discomfort from the breath, think of different ways
of breathing in. Even if you’re not sure that the discomfort is
actually coming from the breath, think about different ways of
breathing to test it; and think about different ways of perceiving the
breath to test that as well. Then look at what the Buddha calls verbal
fabrication – the …
… So hold it just right,
all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out-.
Try to find what kind of rhythm and texture of breathing feels best
right now. If you’re feeling tired, you may want to breathe in a way
that’s more energizing. If you’re feeling tense and stressed out, you
may want to breathe in …
Thinking Your Way to Stillness
January 8, 2009
There’s a common perception that meditation doesn’t involve any thinking. You just force the mind to stay alert in the present moment and refuse to get involved in any thoughts at all. Then it will settle down. That approach works for some people in some circumstances, but not for everyone. This is why the …
… good in the beginning, good in the middle, good
in the end. The Buddha never asked you to do anything mean or spiteful
or ignoble. The path builds on good qualities and it leads to good
results.
So even if you don’t go all the way to the end of the path, it’s a
good path to be on.
… right above the navel, the base of the
throat, the tip of the breastbone, the middle of the head, top of the
head. Think of breath energy emanating from any one of those spots,
and if anything seems to be getting in the way of its spreading, let
it dissolve away so that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout
the entire body: That’s …
… Ajaan Fuang once noted that we now have lots of books on meditation, lots of explanations, and in some ways it’s a help, but in other ways it’s a hindrance — a hindrance in that many of our perceptions and memories picked up from books and Dhamma talks clutter up the present moment. They actually get in the way of seeing what’s …
… Try to master just these issues of bodily, verbal and mental
fabrication, seeing them as processes, not so much as your old ways of
talking to yourself, your old ways of perceiving things, or even your
old ways of breathing. If you get the “you” out of the way, the “me”
out of the way, you find there’s a lot to play with …
… But the
Buddha had to make those mistakes before he was able to find the
middle way.
And it wasn’t the case that after six years of really strong effort,
he just gave up and said, “Well, effort doesn’t get anywhere. Let’s
have a practice of no effort.” Fortunately, he didn’t go in that
direction. If he had, we probably …
… We come out to a place like this,
where you can sit under the trees in the middle of the day and you’re
face to face with your own mind, because it’s the mind that’s going to
determine—when aging, illness, and death come—whether you’re going to
suffer or not. You need to get it under control.
This is …
… success in doing detailed work, with a sense of urgency, but also with
a sense of patience, because each of the bases for success has to be
done in a balanced way. We are, after all, on a middle way here, and
that requires a lot of discernment.
If we were on a path that involved a lot of extremes—say, just do
without …
… This way you get to see things you didn’t see
before inside, both in the body and in the mind. Because as the mind
begins to gather around the breath like this, and you give it one
thing to stick with, you begin to see other movements in the mind:
other intentions that may come up, other thoughts referring to the
past, referring …
… Could there be another way? Because self-torment obviously wasn’t getting results.
He recollected a time when he was a child and had naturally entered the first jhana. He asked himself, “Could this be the way?” And something inside him said, “Yes.” “If so, why am I afraid of that pleasure?” Because prior to that he had lumped all pleasure together as bad …
… men, women, children, young, old, middle-aged,
wealthy, poor, sick, healthy, smart, dumb in the ways of the world.
But they’ve all taken the practice and they taken it to heart, and
they have all been able to benefit from it in the ways that the Buddha
promised.
At some point in their practice they all had the same strengths and
weaknesses that …
… Now, the Buddha did admit that there are various ways of conceiving
the path, but there are a limited number of variations. And they all
basically contain the same factors: virtue, concentration, and
discernment, sorted out in different ways.
When you look at the different lists in the Wings to Awakening, you
see that the factors are sometimes listed in different orders. For
instance …
… He recommends instead
the middle way, the noble eightfold path. That’s a value judgment
right there.
Toward the end of his life he was asked if there were awakened beings
in other teachings, and he said any teaching that has the noble
eightfold path can give rise to awakened beings. If there’s a lack of
the noble eightfold path, then no awakened …
… It
might be around the heart, around the stomach, in the neck, or in the
middle of the head. Keep directing your thoughts to the breath energy
there.
Ajaan Lee’s image is of holding on to a post. You can run around the
post, and as long as you hold on, you don’t get dizzy, you don’t fall
down. But if …
… 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 …
… Everyone comes up here wounded in one way or another, suffering either from things outside or from things inside. At the time of the Buddha people were suffering from greed, anger, and delusion just as we are. With modern culture, modern society, it seems as if we have more diseases of the mind, more complex ways of getting involved in creating delusion, but they …
… The
breath, when you’re not watching it, just comes in and out every which
way. But take some time to notice: What kind of breathing really feels
good for the body right now? You can focus on the body in any one
spot: the tip of the nose, the middle of the chest, at the abdomen.
Those are the three main spots, but …
2 : Sensuality | The Buddha Smiles: Humor in the Pali Canon
… 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 …
