… It may happen that the way
you’re breathing is getting a little bit too calm, in which case it’s
good to think of breathing in long out short. That’ll give yourself
more energy.
You can try deep breathing; you can try moving the spot of your focus
around. Three breaths, say, in the middle of the chest, three breaths
down by …
There’s a passage in the Canon where King Pasanedi comes to see the
Buddha in the middle of the day. The Buddha asks him, “Where are you
coming from in the middle of the day? What have you been doing?” And
the king, in a remarkable display of frankness, says, “Oh, the typical
things that obsess someone who’s obsessed with power, gaining …
… Seeing this benefit our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for consciousness.’” — SN 22:2
§ 4. “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, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration …
… This image would have special resonances with the Buddha's teaching on
the middle way. It also adds meaning to the term samaṇa—monk or
contemplative—which the texts frequently mention as being derived from
sama. See also MN 97.↩︎
3. Loka: The term “world” here should be
understood in line with the definition given in SN 35:82.↩︎
4. See also SN 12 …
… all the way in, all the way
out. Try to be very quiet with the breath. The less commentary you
have on the world outside, the better.
Because the more the mind can be quiet, the more it can see.
Otherwise, it’s sending out rays of greed and anger, and that’s what
we see: the greed and anger bounced back at us …
… Ajaan
Fuang once talked about thinking of there being a line going down the
middle of the body, and the breath comes in and out of that line.
Thinking of the breath in that way: What does it do? What problem is
it good for?
This is one of the reasons why the instructions Ajaan Lee gives are
general principles, but the insight comes …
… He came back, found the middle way. Okay, you can find the
middle way too. He’s shown that it’s possible. And the confidence that
there is a way out: That’s what kept him going, even when things
looked pretty bleak. It can keep you going, too. That can be the mood
you hang on to: the confident mood. And you can …
… When the Buddha taught what he called the middle way, it was to provide the alternative.
Part of the middle way is right concentration. It involves a strong sense of pleasure, but it’s a different kind of pleasure. It’s called the pleasure of form. Sensual pleasures come from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. The pleasure of form is more the …
… But in your own case, you may find that, as you breathe in, a certain part of the energy can run a circle that goes up the front and down the back, or up the back and down the front, whichever way you want the energy to go.
There are lots of different ways you can work with the energy. Don’t limit yourself …
… The mind has these potentials of greed,
aversion, and delusion, all kinds of unskillful ways of feeding on
this and feeding on that. If we don’t take care of that now while we
have the opportunity to practice, when will we take care of it? And
if we die with those habits still ingrained in the mind, we’re just
going to go …
… This mode of analysis dates back to the time of the Buddha, although Ajaan Lee develops it in a distinctive way. Think of this analysis not as an attempt at biology or chemistry—the sciences we use to analyze the body from the outside—but as a way of analyzing how the body feels from the inside. This is an aspect of awareness that …
… He came back and found the middle way. Okay, you can find the middle way too. He’s shown that it’s possible. And the confidence that there is a way out: That’s what kept him going, even when things looked pretty bleak. It can keep you going, too. That can be the mood you hang on to: the confident mood. And you …
… top of
the head, middle of the forehead, right at your palate, in your neck,
in the middle of the chest, right above the navel. Those are the main
ones, but you might find that you have a spot of your own.
In addition to identifying it, you want to learn how to work with the
energy there. The reason Ajaan Lee focuses on …
… As he said, this
training is a middle way between two extremes: the extreme of
self-torture and the extreme of sensual indulgence.
For most of us, those are the only alternatives. If we see there’s
pain, we run to sensual pleasures. If we can’t find sensual pleasures,
we spend our time thinking about sensual pleasures. That’s our escape.
But it …
… Ajaan
Singh, one of his students, liked to go to bed early in the evening,
wake up in the middle of the night and meditate through the middle of
the night, then have a short nap before dawn.
That’s the kind of thing you can do when you’re meditating on your
own. Each of us has a different metabolism. So when you …
… If you look at them one way, they’re two-dimensional patterns. If you change your brain and look at them another way, you’ll see them as a different pattern entirely. What was two-dimensional now becomes three-dimensional. Now with those images, it was simply a perceptual trick with no practical consequences. But with the body, you can actually give yourself an …
… One of the five major collections of suttas in the Pāli Canon, containing suttas of middle (majjhima) length.
Mettā: Goodwill; benevolence. One of the four brahmavihāras.
Nibbāna: Literally, the “unbinding” of the mind from passion, aversion, and delusion, and from the entire round of death and rebirth. As this term also denotes the extinguishing of a fire, it carries connotations of stilling, cooling, and …
… After all, this is the middle way we’re
practicing. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of balancing between
extremes, but it’s also learning how to combine different qualities
that seem to conflict. After all, the mind is a complex thing. The
needs of the mind in training are complex. And this is not a onefold
path. Even with the practice of exercising …
… was born in the Middle Country, the Ariyaka race, the noble warrior class, & the Gotama lineage.
Sakya-putto Sakya-kulā pabbajito, sadevake loke samārake sabrahmake, sassamaṇa-brāhmaṇiyā pajāya sadeva-manussāya, anuttaraṁ sammā-sambodhiṁ abhisambuddho.
A member of the Sakyan clan, he left his Sakyan family, went forth into the homeless life, & attained Right Self-Awakening unsurpassed in the cosmos with its Devas, Māras, & Brahmās …
… the middle of the chest to the large intestine, the rectum, and out into the air.
Once you’ve completed these five turns inside the body, let the breath flow along the outside of the body:
As you take an in-and-out breath, think of inhaling the breath at the base of the skull and letting it go all the way down the …
The Questions | A Burden off the Mind : A Study Guide
… Seeing this benefit our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for consciousness.’” — SN 22:2 § 4. “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, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration …
AN 10:59 Pabbajita Sutta | Gone Forth
… This image would have special resonances with the Buddha's teaching on the middle way. It also adds meaning to the term samaṇa—monk or contemplative—which the texts frequently mention as being derived from sama. See also MN 97.↩︎ 3. Loka: The term “world” here should be understood in line with the definition given in SN 35:82.↩︎ 4. See also SN 12 …
Moods Are Not-self
… He came back, found the middle way. Okay, you can find the middle way too. He’s shown that it’s possible. And the confidence that there is a way out: That’s what kept him going, even when things looked pretty bleak. It can keep you going, too. That can be the mood you hang on to: the confident mood. And you can …
