… Any issues you may have had with people during the day, get them out of the way, because you’re trying to give the mind a place it can settle down in, right here, right now, and you don’t want those attitudes to be getting in the way.
If you’re worried about issues in the future, remind yourself: The best way to …
… It’s
the pilings in the middle of the river, where the current is
strongest, that are really hard to get in place. In the same way, the
principles of the precepts or virtue are not that hard. The principles
of discernment are not that hard, either. It’s the concentration that
requires a lot of work. In other words, the factors of right …
… Death can come in that
way. And you want to be ready to go in a way where there are no
regrets, nothing you hang on to.
So these are all ways of generating desire to focus on the practice so
that you can take delight in seeing an unskillful quality slough away,
and seeing skillful qualities growing. No matter how slowly they may …
… of temptation, that get in the way of our practice. It’s not the case that they always obstruct us. Sometimes they turn into our friends and companions; sometimes into our workers and supporters; sometimes into our slaves, helping us and caring for us. This is why, if you’re discerning, you have to walk a middle course. On one hand, you have to …
… I want to survive.’ This can also be a good reminder in the way of the Dhamma: To free yourself from death, you have to play dead. This is a good lesson in maranassati, keeping death in mind.
Another time, early one morning when I was staying in the middle of a large forest, I took my followers out for alms. As we were …
… It was only when he found the middle way that he was able to reach the end of suffering: going to something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die. And part of that way is right view. That’s what the four noble truths are: the terms of right view.
So these are the truths that guide us in that …
The Second Noble Truth
November 13, 2015
When we meditate, we’re creating an island for ourselves in the middle of a large, fast-flowing river. This island is our refuge. The Buddha says when you develop the establishings for mindfulness, you’re making yourself your island. You’re making the Dhamma your island. It’s your way station to get across the river …
… But you could find others as well—the
middle of the head, right where the legs join the torso, or the base
of the spine. If you focus your attention there, just stay with that
sense of stillness as you breathe in and breathe out. You’ll find that
that’ll have a calming effect on the breath. That way, if the breath
has …
… Then
you hold onto the raft as you use your hands and feet to make your way
across the river.
When you get to the other side, okay, *that’s *when you let go. Don’t
let go before you’ve gotten to the other side, though. If you let go
in the middle of the river, you just get washed away.
So, as …
… I discerned, as it had come to be, that ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress… These are effluents… This is the origination of effluents… This is the cessation of effluents… This is the way leading to the cessation of effluents.’ My heart, thus knowing, thus …
Your practice doesn’t come together simply because causes and
conditions happen to be that way. There’s something inside you that
has to want it to happen and to make it happen.
You look at the images the Buddha gives for people who do the
practice: people who are searching for something; people who are
struggling, fighting in battles; people who are being …
… There’s a nice buzz, say, in your hands, or in the middle of the chest. Allow that nice feeling to be unaffected by the in-and-out breathing. Don’t squeeze it. That way it gets a chance to grow stronger. Even as you breathe out, allow this feeling to stay full. As it grows stronger, let it spread. It’s usually accompanied …
… There are skillful actions on the worldly level, in other words, there
are skillful ideas that help you live in the world in a happy and
pleasant way. There are unskillful ones, which make you live in an
unpleasant or unhappy way. There are mixed ones, and then there are
the ideas that take you beyond ideas, take you beyond action entirely.
Those ideas …
… You were actually
going to figure out what kind of breathing would lead to rapture, what
kind of breathing would lead to pleasure, how to breathe in a way that
you’re conscious of the whole body, how you can calm bodily
fabrication, how you can breathe in a way that calms mental
fabrication, and how to breathe in a way that gladdens the …
… in the middle of the sea. They keep climbing on board, climbing on board, until the day when the beings of the world have no more belief in the teachings of the religion. That’s when the ship will no longer have any function. Those who are still left in the sea will have to stay there adrift, with no more way of escape …
… So right effort doesn’t mean just a middling effort, it means
appropriate effort, appropriate to what you can handle—and appropriate
to the task.
As I said earlier, as the Buddha pointed out, there are some problems
in the mind and all you have to do is to look at them and they go way.
Others require a lot of effort. You have …
… We have to look after the breath in this way, in the same way that we catch baby chicks to put in the coop. If we hold them too tight, they die. If we hold them too loosely, they run away. We have to gather them in our hands in a way that’s just right. That way they’ll all end up safely …
… ODD-NUMBERED SEKHIYAS 1-25.
“When entering a house compound (§) he should observe, ‘I will enter by this way and leave by this way.’ He shouldn’t enter quickly, shouldn’t leave quickly. He shouldn’t stand too far away, shouldn’t stand too near. He shouldn’t stand for too long a time, shouldn’t turn away too soon. While standing, he should …
… a magical way of protecting
himself so that no matter how much you spear the middle of his chest,
you can’t get to his heart, so you can’t kill him. What they do is to
go out and find the tree where the heart is, and all they have to do
is squeeze it, and he dies.
It’s the same with …
… This way, you learn how to become your own doctor. There’s nobody who
can stand over your shoulder and say, “Now you breathe this way, now
you breathe that way, now you focus on this, you’d better drop that.”
If there were somebody doing that and they were accurate, they would
scare you—that somebody could read your mind that accurately. What …
The Demons of Defilement | Inner Strength & Parting Gifts: Talks by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
… of temptation, that get in the way of our practice. It’s not the case that they always obstruct us. Sometimes they turn into our friends and companions; sometimes into our workers and supporters; sometimes into our slaves, helping us and caring for us. This is why, if you’re discerning, you have to walk a middle course. On one hand, you have to …
