… Experimenting with different ways of breathing, different ways of conceiving the breathing, different ways of focusing the mind, different ways of asking questions: There’s a lot to play with here. And as long as you’re fully engaged, you’re bound to make discoveries.
This is called the quality of citta, or intentness: the intentness that comes when you’re really absorbed in …
… 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 …
… That’s one way you have to look for a balance so that contentment and being unburdensome follow the middle way of moderation.
Another set of balancing qualities are contentment on the one hand, and shedding pride and being modest on the other. Some people like to make a show of how frugal they are. This, the Buddha said, is the danger of developing …
… You want to get to know the filtering process very well, so you can recognize when it’s filtering things in an accurate and useful way, and when it’s filtering them in a harmful way that gives rise to suffering.
So we focus on the breath not simply as a means for getting the mind to settle down and be still, but also …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… Just figure out a way to get through the whole body systematically: navel, solar plexus, middle of the chest, base of the throat, the head, down the shoulders, out the arms, down the back, out the legs. Survey how all the different parts of the body feel with the in-breath, with the out-breath, all the way through the in-breath, all the …
… They can dress themselves up and disguise themselves in all kinds of Buddhist ways. Laziness in particular can dress itself up like the Dhamma and say, “Well, the Buddha said for you to follow the middle way. It leads to the highest ease, so the path itself should be easeful, too.” But then you think of all the paths you’ve encountered in the …
On Target
August 28, 1956
To sit in meditation in a way that’s right on target, the mind has to be on the path. This means that it stays in the present, without tripping over preoccupations that it likes or dislikes. It’s established solely in the middle way. If it misses this target, it’s not on the path. It’s not …
… in the middle of the chest going down through the stomach, the intestines. Then the breath energy going down the shoulders and the arms.
That’s just to get you started. If you look at some of Ajaan Lee’s Dhamma talks from later years, after he had done his guide to breath meditation, you find that he also had other ways of dealing …
… We’re remarkably blind in that way. We’re like the penguins in the story Charcot told of his sailors down in Antarctica. They were staying next to a penguin colony, and the sailors found that they could kill a penguin right in the middle of the colony, take it back, and make penguin pâté, as long as they were quiet about it. The …
… 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 …
… the fact that someone was able to
find the way to the end of suffering and able to teach it to others.
You can take heart in that.
You can also reflect on the Dhamma. The Dhamma is available to all.
And it teaches us a path that, as they say, is good in the beginning,
good in the middle, good in the end …
… It’s because
the circulation isn’t going well in the back of the neck or in the
middle of the back.
This is why you start up there, at the top of the back, and think of
the breath energy going all the way down the spine and out the leg.
Wherever there’s tension that tends to tighten up in those areas …
… The purpose of this is
to pull you out of the different sides of conflicts in a way that’s
not escapist, in a way that actually is good for the people involved
in the conflict. If you can help get them out, too, then you’re happy
to do it.
Then finally, resolve on harmlessness, which the Buddha basically says
is equivalent to …
… This way makes it easier to develop
that balance between the center and the full-body awareness.
First you have to go through the body. Notice where the blockages are.
But before you look at the blockages, first you’ve got to get at least
one spot that feels good. Maintain that steady sense of fullness all
the way through the in-breath, all …
… the first one doesn’t see, the middle one doesn’t see, the last one doesn’t see. In the same way, the statement of the brahmans turns out to be a row of blind men, as it were: the first one doesn’t see, the middle one doesn’t see, the last one doesn’t see. So what do you think, Bhāradvāja: this …
… We start somewhere in the middle. We come to the practice
with some virtue, some concentration, some insight already. But we
also come with a lot of other things that are not part of the path.
They’re obstacles. Our virtue is not all around. Our concentration and
insight are not all around. Sometimes there are little gaps, sometimes
the gaps are enormous.
So …
… He
finally comes to a big bull elephant in the middle of a clearing. When
he actually sees the elephant, that’s when he knows he’s got the
elephant.”
The same way, the Buddha said, there are footprints and scratch marks
all along the path. There’s a sense of well-being that comes when you
get the mind in a strong state …
… Then a second time, when the night was far advanced, at the end of the middle watch, Ven. Ānanda got up from his seat, arranged his robe over one shoulder, stood facing the Blessed One, paying homage with his hands placed palm-to-palm over his heart, and said to him, “Lord, the night is far advanced. The second watch has ended. The community …
Chapter IV | The Mind like Fire Unbound
… 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 …
Ud 5:5 Uposatha Sutta | Uposatha
… Then a second time, when the night was far advanced, at the end of the middle watch, Ven. Ānanda got up from his seat, arranged his robe over one shoulder, stood facing the Blessed One, paying homage with his hands placed palm-to-palm over his heart, and said to him, “Lord, the night is far advanced. The second watch has ended. The community …
