Acceptance
October 31, 2008
As with so many other issues, the Buddha took a middle road when it came to the issue of other-power and self-power on the path. On the one hand, there’s the famous passage where Ven. Ananda comes to see the Buddha and exclaims that having admirable friends is half of the practice, half of the holy life …
… The Buddha taught it rightly in every way, in every facet, for remedying defilement of every sort. Nothing excels this Dhamma—in particular, the Dhamma of the middle way, which is summarized as virtue, concentration, and discernment. This is the Dhamma of causes, the methods with which we should train ourselves and which the Buddha taught us in full. As for the Dhamma of …
… You have to act in ways that will create treasures that you would like to keep with you. You have to treat your actions as your most important possessions.
There’s a passage in the Canon where King Pasenadi comes to see the Buddha in the middle of the day and the Buddha asks him, “Where have you come from in the middle of …
… The only way to see them is to stick with your original intention and keep yourself warned: “Okay, the mind is going to leave, so keep watch for how it does it.”
At the same time, work on ways to make the original intention a good one to stay with. Otherwise the mind is going to resist. Staying with the breath, if it’s …
… Now at that time—it being the uposatha day—Visākhā, Migāra’s mother, went to the Blessed One in the middle of the day and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As she was sitting there the Blessed One said to her, “Well now, Visākhā, why are you coming in the middle of the day?”
“Today I’m observing …
… But if you take your stance in a comfortable way—a way that you can maintain because you’ve relaxed around it, and it doesn’t rely on tensing anything up—then you watch as things come into your range of awareness, and you see how they come, you see how they go, you see what interactions there are that cause suffering, and you …
… Actually, there’s no reason that meditation should get in the way of our work, because it’s strictly an activity of the heart. There’s no need to dismantle our homes or abandon our belongings before practicing it; and if we did throw away our belongings in this way, it would probably end up causing harm.
Even though it’s true that we …
… But you look at the world of the path and you realize,
as they say, “It’s admirable in the beginning, admirable in the
middle, admirable in the end.” Good all the way through.
… the buying, selling, and trading of various objects for the convenience of those who desire them, as a way of exchanging ease, convenience, and comfort with one another – on high and low levels, involving high and low-quality goods, between people of high, low, and middling intelligence. This should be conducted in honesty and fairness so that all receive their share of convenience and …
… The king must stamp him out!”
Then King Pasenadi Kosala, with a cavalry of roughly 500 horsemen, drove out of Sāvatthī in the middle of the day and entered the monastery. Driving as far as the ground was passable for chariots, he got down from his chariot and went on foot to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One …
… Which was how he then came back to the middle path, avoiding the
extremes of sensual indulgence and self-torture: in other words, using
this state of mind—calm, clear, easeful, that we’re trying to work on
right here right now—as a way of observing the mind to see what it
does to create suffering. He realized that the cause of suffering …
… Aging, illness, and death are its shadows or effects that show by way of the body. When we want to kill our enemy and so take a knife to stab his shadow, how is he going to die? In the same way, ignorant people try to destroy the shadows of stress and don’t get anywhere. As for the essence of stress in the …
… It may be built into the
way you’re acting, but it can be removed from the way you act. And
tackling that kind of suffering is an area where you can make a
difference.
That’s where the Buddha focused. He didn’t take on all the suffering
in the world—which is another misconception you hear around: that the
Buddha said he …
… He is called awakened.”6
Then Sabhiya the wanderer—delighting in and approving of the Blessed One’s words—gratified, joyful, exultant, enraptured & happy, asked the Blessed One a further question:
“Having attained what
is one said to be a brahman?
In what way is one a contemplative,
and how is one ‘washed’?
How is one called a nāga?
Answer, Blessed One, when I …
… Stay with
them all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out-.
This is where mindfulness gets developed because you have to keep
remembering you’re going to stay right here with the sensation of the
breathing. You’re not going to allow yourself to slip off. If you do
slip off, then as soon as you notice it, come …
… We go that
way.” And for a third time, the Blessed One said, “This,
Nāgasamāla, is the route. We go this way.”
Then Ven. Nāgasamāla, placing the Blessed One’s bowl & robes
right there on the ground, left, saying, “This, Lord Blessed One,
is the bowl & robes.”
Then as Ven. Nāgasamāla was going along that route,
thieves—jumping out in the middle of the …
… If we don’t see them clearly, don’t take them to heart, and don’t try to find a way out, there’s no way we can put an end to what causes our fears. Just like the deer: if it’s complacent about the hunter’s headlights, it’s going to end up strapped to the fender for sure.
So to genuinely …
… Either his buffalo will get bogged down or else he’ll trip over the bag and fall flat on his face right there in the middle of the field. The field will never get plowed, the rice will never get sown, the crop will never get gathered. He’ll have to go hungry.
This is the way our practice of the Dhamma tends to …
… There’s the way
the energy flows in your body when you’re angry, as opposed to the way
it flows when you’re feeling lust, or how it flows when you’re feeling
fear. There are the thoughts that contribute to that particular
emotion. The way you evaluate the situation around you: That’s
contributing to your emotion. And the feelings and perceptions …
… Learn to open your mind to other ways of conceiving and
perceiving the breath. Ajaan Lee talks about the breath coming in and
out of the back of the skull, in and out the middle of the chest, lots
of different spots in the body. Allow yourself to conceive the breath
in that way and see what happens to your experience of breathing as …
Principles in the Practice, Principles in the Heart | Things as They Are : A Collection of Talks on the Training of the Mind
… The Buddha taught it rightly in every way, in every facet, for remedying defilement of every sort. Nothing excels this Dhamma—in particular, the Dhamma of the middle way, which is summarized as virtue, concentration, and discernment. This is the Dhamma of causes, the methods with which we should train ourselves and which the Buddha taught us in full. As for the Dhamma of …
MN 86 Aṅgulimāla Sutta | About Aṅgulimāla
… The king must stamp him out!” Then King Pasenadi Kosala, with a cavalry of roughly 500 horsemen, drove out of Sāvatthī in the middle of the day and entered the monastery. Driving as far as the ground was passable for chariots, he got down from his chariot and went on foot to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One …
