… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… Because we’re thirsty in these ways,
we feed off the things that we identify with, that we cling to. So the
duty here is to abandon these three kinds of craving.
Craving for sensuality is not so much craving for sensual pleasures as
craving for the mind’s activity of fantasizing about pleasures. We
engage in that a lot more than we do …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… And there’s a way
in which you could say that there are things you have to be attached
to, things you have to desire.
Desire does play a role in the path. It’s a part of right effort. You
have to want to let go of unskillful qualities and you have to
want to develop skillful ones. It’s written in the …
… And it seems that in every case, they were having trouble simply adjusting to the fact that they were in Thailand, accepting things the way they were. So a lot of his teaching had to do with equanimity and patience. He probably saw that Westerners lacked these qualities and that they needed them to be reinforced before they could really get started on anything …
… You have to think your way to
stillness, think your way to a place in the mind where the mind is
willing to stop its thinking and settle down.
There are lots of different lists of topics in the commentaries—40
different meditation topics in all. And there’s a standard list that’s
very popular in Thailand. It’s called the guardian meditations …
… You show
some responsibility when you do, when you’ve acted in a way that
doesn’t harm anyone. That’s really significant. That’s something we
should learn how to appreciate more and more. There is room for
individual expression. You look at the different perfections, and
generosity in particular: There are lots of different ways you can be
generous. The Buddha placed …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
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 …
… When Ajaan Lee got back to Bangkok
and started looking into how this might succeed, he found out there
was a senior monk in Bangkok who stood in the way, saying that if
he—the senior monk—was not involved in the project, it wasn’t going to
succeed. Ajaan Lee knew that he didn’t have that many connections in
the bureaucracy, 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 …
… It’s the same way with the meditation. We start out trying to focus on the breath and we put a lot of pressure on it, for fear that if we don’t, the mind’s going to slip away. Of course, a lot of the pressure on the breath has an effect on the circulation of fluids and energies in the body. You …
An All-around Eye | Beyond All Directions
… 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 …
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 …
