… your nose, the middle of your head, the middle of the chest, whichever point feels most comfortable. Focus on that point and shelter it from other influences. In other words, other thoughts may come to the mind but you don’t latch on to them, don’t let them cause that little flame to waver. Protect it, the same way you’d cup a …
… You can work with the
breath and get a sense of well-being that comes from the way you
breathe. That provides a really good support for the mental
fabrication.
In the middle, there’s verbal fabrication, where you’re thinking about
the breath, evaluating the breath. You’re also thinking about others
and evaluating what it is to have genuine goodwill. You realize …
… a sense of the dangers, but taking whatever fear you might have about the dangers and directing it in the right way. It’s combined with confidence, that there is a right way to find happiness here.
This is where heedfulness differs from anxiety. With anxiety, you don’t really know what to do. You have no confidence that you have any right way …
… The way to find out which is which, of course, is by experimenting.
This approach applies to everything inside and out. When you’re dealing with other people, one extreme is that you’re responsible for their behavior, the other is that you’re not responsible for their behavior at all. The middle way is to say, “How about if I change the way …
… And although the fact is not obvious on the surface, the third main point about the path presented in the Buddha’s first discourse—that it’s a middle way—also implies that the path employs fabricated means that are abandoned on arriving at the goal. This implied fact becomes apparent, though, when we look at what “middle way” means.
The middle way. The …
… Choose to breathe in a way or choose to focus in a way
that gives rise to a sense of well-being. Choose to maintain that
well-being. Keep your thoughts thinking in the terms of right
mindfulness: body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities.
As for the stories that would pull you away, learn to use the Buddha’s
teachings on time. When he …
… One of the reasons why this is called the middle path, or the middle
way, is that you have to find the point of balance, and it’s in find
that balance that you really develop your discernment. There’s the
discernment that comes from reading books,
the discernment that comes from thinking things through, but the
discernment that comes from finding the point …
… The causal pattern actually goes the other way: First, through your own individual intentions, you develop a karmic profile. Then you’re born with people who have similar profiles in their individual backgrounds.
So, if a particular group—a family, a nation—suffers hardships, it’s not because the long departed members of that group created bad karma. It’s because the individuals currently …
… One way or another, your family will have to learn to fend for themselves.”
§ On his first visit to Wat Dhammasathit, a middle-aged man was surprised to see an American monk. He asked Ajaan Fuang, “How is it that Westerners can ordain?”
Ajaan Fuang’s answer: “Don’t Westerners have hearts?”
§ A Bangkok magazine once carried the serialized autobiography of a lay meditator …
… Maybe you can change the way
you breathe. Maybe you can change the way you talk to yourself. What
perceptions are you holding in mind? Could you change them?
Those are some of the parameters. But you’re going to have to learn
for yourself. When you’re alert to see something’s actually working,
then you remember it for the next time around …
… Sometimes we have a
sense of obligation for certain ways of thinking. We feel, “If I
didn’t think in these ways, I wouldn’t be me.” As we mentioned just
now, we develop certain patterns of reacting to certain events,
reading certain situations in a certain way, and we keep reverting to
those ways. But you have to remember, there must have been …
… So you want to give the mind a place where it’s right there in the
middle, not spinning around with everything else. This is what the
breath provides.
You watch it coming in, going out, and you have the right to decide
what kind of breathing feels good. The breath is one of the bodily
processes you can have some control over, so …
… There are better ways to think, better ways to manage the thought processes in the mind.
And a funny thing happens. As you master these processes, they bring you to a point where everything reaches equilibrium. That’s where you can really let go. You can even let go of your tools at that point because they’ve taken you where you want to …
… In fact, that was the image that gave the Buddha a sense of samvega—it could be translated as terror, dismay at being trapped in all this suffering and wanting to see a way out.
That’s one image.
The other image is the one that comes from a story concerning King Pasenadi. King Pasenadi comes to see the Buddha in the middle of …
… He wants to see you.”
“In that case, my good gatekeeper, arrange seats in the middle gate hall.”
Responding, “As you say, venerable sir,” to Upāli the householder, the gatekeeper, after arranging seats in the middle gate hall, went to Upāli the householder and, on arrival, said to him, “Venerable sir, seats have been arranged in the middle gate hall. Do what you consider …
… If your preferences complain, figure out ways of dealing with them to put them aside. Discernment doesn’t mean just seeing the right course of action; it also involves mastering the right way to put your preferences aside. Remind yourself that your preferences have gotten in the way, have gummed up the works, for a long, long time. How much longer are you going …
… The path that works is
the middle way.
By this, he didn’t mean a middling way, halfway between pleasure and
pain. It was a path that involved comprehending suffering, and for
using the pleasure of right concentration as an alternative to either
sensual pleasure or physical pain. Right view, which was part of the
path, was focused on the question of how to …
… Where do the ways of the world arise? In ourselves. The ways of the world have eight factors, and the path that cures them has eight as well. The eightfold path is the cure for the eight ways of the world. Thus the Buddha taught the middle way as the cure for the two extremes.
Once we have cured ourselves of the two extremes …
… He said you should work for your own happiness in a way that
actually increases the happiness of others, or at the very least
doesn’t harm them in any way. In that way, you’re being responsible in
your search for happiness. That builds a solid happiness right now and
goes on into the future.
When you’re generous, the Buddha recommends that …
… The pilings on this bank and the pilings on that bank
are not the problem, but the pilings right in the middle of the river
take a lot of work. Concentration’s right there in the middle, but the
work that’s put into coming back again, coming back again, trying to
be as sensitive as possible to what you’ve got here, is …
The Power of the Focused Mind | ePublished Dhamma Talks : Volume I
… your nose, the middle of your head, the middle of the chest, whichever point feels most comfortable. Focus on that point and shelter it from other influences. In other words, other thoughts may come to the mind but you don’t latch on to them, don’t let them cause that little flame to waver. Protect it, the same way you’d cup a …
Karma Is Individual
… The causal pattern actually goes the other way: First, through your own individual intentions, you develop a karmic profile. Then you’re born with people who have similar profiles in their individual backgrounds. So, if a particular group—a family, a nation—suffers hardships, it’s not because the long departed members of that group created bad karma. It’s because the individuals currently …
MN 56 Upālivāda Sutta | The Teaching to Upāli
… He wants to see you.” “In that case, my good gatekeeper, arrange seats in the middle gate hall.” Responding, “As you say, venerable sir,” to Upāli the householder, the gatekeeper, after arranging seats in the middle gate hall, went to Upāli the householder and, on arrival, said to him, “Venerable sir, seats have been arranged in the middle gate hall. Do what you consider …
