“I ask you all to examine happiness, to see exactly where was the point of greatest happiness in your life.
When you really look at it, you’ll see that it’s just that—nothing more than anything else you’ve ever experienced. Why wasn’t it more than that?
Because the world has nothing more than that. That’s all it has to offer—over and over again, nothing more than that at all. Just birth, aging, illness, and death, over and over again. There’s got to be a happiness more extraordinary than that, more excellent than that, safer than that.
This is why the noble ones sacrifice limited happiness in search of the happiness that comes from stilling the body, stilling the mind, stilling the defilements. That’s the happiness that’s safe, to which nothing else can compare.”
Phra Ajaan Dune Atulo "Gifts He Left Behind"
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Watch the breath in the Cycle, not the Body
Usually the meditation teacher will say: 'No, do not follow the breath around, stay at that one place, the place where it most usually manifests.'. However, what happens when you do that is you don't notice any breath at all the breath has disappeared from there, and that is why this is a cause for the mind wandering off.
So to counter that problem I advise you to experiment with not being concerned where the breath is actually registered on the body. But just to know, just to have your perception concerned with, not where the breath is manifesting, but whether it's going in or going out, and what stage of going in or out it is.
So do not concern the perception with the place in the body, just be concerned with where in the cycle of breathing your breath is right now and you will solve that problem.
Just a practical test. Close your eyes and ask yourself: 'Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?'. The answer to that question will occur to you before you notice where the breath is positioned on the body. You don't need to ask the second question: 'Where is the breath on the body?'. You just need to answer the question: 'Where is the breath in its cycle?'.
- Ajahn Brahm
So to counter that problem I advise you to experiment with not being concerned where the breath is actually registered on the body. But just to know, just to have your perception concerned with, not where the breath is manifesting, but whether it's going in or going out, and what stage of going in or out it is.
So do not concern the perception with the place in the body, just be concerned with where in the cycle of breathing your breath is right now and you will solve that problem.
Just a practical test. Close your eyes and ask yourself: 'Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?'. The answer to that question will occur to you before you notice where the breath is positioned on the body. You don't need to ask the second question: 'Where is the breath on the body?'. You just need to answer the question: 'Where is the breath in its cycle?'.
- Ajahn Brahm
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