Dharma practice is medicine for the mind -- something particularly needed in a culture like ours that actively creates mental illness in training us to be busy producers and avid consumers. As individuals, we become healthier through our Dharma practice, which in turn helps bring sanity to our society at large.
Giving dharma talks offers me the opportunity to express gratitude for my Thai teachers -- Ajahn Fuang Jotiko and Ajahn Suwat Suvaco -- in appreciation of the many years they spent training me, which came with the understanding that the teachings continue past me. Giving dharma talks also pushes me to articulate what I haven''t yet verbalized to myself in English. This in turn enriches my own practice. When you help a wide variety of people deal with their issues, it helps you practice with yours.
When giving a talk, I try to remain true to three things: my training, my study of the early Buddhist texts, and the needs of my listeners. The challenge is to find the point where all three meet -- not as a compromise, but in their genuine integrity.
For this, I play with analogy. Meditation is a skill, and our meeting point as people, whatever our culture, lies in our experience in mastering skills: how to sew clothes, cook a meal, or build a shelter. So I've found that one of the most effective ways of explaining subtle points in meditation is to find analogies with more mundane skills. Through the language of analogy we find common ground from which our practice can grow to meet our individual needs, and yet remain true to its universal roots.
As meditators, we can easily slip into the attitude that we’re like people watching T.V.—passive consumers, watching a reality that’s ready-made—but that’s not what’s really going on. We’ve always active, always shaping things, even when we seem to be perfectly still. The purpose of the meditation is to be more careful about our intentions, more alert about how we’re shaping things.
The simple things we already have in the present can be put together in such a way that they can lead to true happiness. We don’t have to go searching outside. All we need is to develop what’s right here.
Wisdom doesn’t lie in simply accepting things as they come, but in seeing what you have to accept and what you don’t. And you won’t know the difference between the two unless you try to fight your way around unskillful states. That way you realize how much power you can have in the present moment.
You can’t go back and erase what you’ve done in the past, but you can make a difference right here in the present. If things aren’t going well, don’t simply accept them. See what you’re doing that’s causing them to be that way.
Our own body slips away from us, our friends slip away from us, and all we have left is our actions. So while you have the opportunity to act, do your best.
One way of pursuing happiness is to try to bend reality to conform to your pre-conceived notions. The other extreme is radical acceptance. But the Buddha’s middle way is to pursue your desire for true happiness in such a way that it doesn’t have bad side effects. This requires experimentation, risk-taking, precision, and attentiveness.
Your inner warrior is the determination not to come back and suffer ever again. Hold onto that attitude no matter what, for that’s what’s going to see you through.
Learn how to enjoy keeping the mind with the breath. If you spend time with the breath, you get sensitive not only to the breath, but also to what the mind is doing in the present moment and to the way it causes unnecessary suffering for itself.
Learn how to enjoy keeping the mind with the breath. If you spend time with the breath, you get sensitive not only to the breath, but also to what the mind is doing in the present moment and to the way it causes unnecessary suffering for itself.
We live with the breath, and yet we don’t know it, and as a result don’t get as much out of it as we could. The breath can provide food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for the mind if you take the time to get to know it well.
The type of insight that’s going to make a difference in the mind has to come from the mind’s being solidly based. So, until your mindfulness of the breath is really solid, this is where you want to focus all your efforts.
The breath is like a mirror for the mind. When there’s greed, anger, delusion, they’ll show up in the breath. And you find that not only does the breath reflect the mind, but you can use the breath to have a positive effect on the mind as well.
When the breath in the body is full, you find that it’s really resilient and eases your burdens in lots of ways. So experiment to see what a “full breath” is.
The mind is like an animal: that if it hasn’t been trained it’s difficult to live with. Once we train it, though, it stops creating so much suffering for itself. So we begin by staying in one place with something really simple: the breath.
Learn how to enjoy keeping the mind with the breath. If you spend time with the breath, you get sensitive not only to the breath, but also to what the mind is doing in the present moment and to the way it causes unnecessary suffering for itself.
We live with the breath, and yet we don’t know it, and as a result don’t get as much out of it as we could. The breath can provide food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for the mind if you take the time to get to know it well.
The type of insight that’s going to make a difference in the mind has to come from the mind’s being solidly based. So, until your mindfulness of the breath is really solid, this is where you want to focus all your efforts.
Your promise to yourself to follow the path and your willingness to look very, very carefully at events in the mind is what allows for growth in the practice. In spite of the teachings on impermanence, there are certain unskillful habits that can be dropped for good. (Date estimated) THBH_C9.02
The mind’s filing system—its set of labels for fitting things into pre-set molds before filing them away—is often a major cause of trouble. Meditation involves changing the system in two ways: thinking your way into a new way of seeing things, and looking more carefully at the raw data of experience. (Date estimated) THBH_C9.03
If you’re the type of person who takes pride in doing a job well, you’ve got many of the psychological attitudes you need to meditate well. Meditation done with properly focused desire, persistence, intentness, sensitivity, powers of analysis, and imagination opens up all kinds of possibilities. THBH_C9.04
