Don't rush off for some other form of stimulation

"Mindfulness practice offers the restraint necessary to overcome the tug of desire upon the senses. As we notice the mind wandering off to explore a gratifying train of thought, or as we notice the body’s urging to nudge ourselves into a more comfortable position, we gently abandon the impulse and return attention to the primary object of awareness.

We do this again and again, until the mind becomes content with being fully present with what is manifesting here and now in the field of experience, rather than rushing off for some other form of stimulation.

As the mind settles down it becomes considerably more powerful, and thus more empowered."

- Andrew Olendski

Stuff

Everything in life comes and goes like apparitions in a dream.

Right now, take any object you “own”: a flower, a book, a jacket, or a car. Look at it and know that you will experience this object for only a limited time, for a few hours, days, months, or years. Either it or you will fade, crumble, or die.

When you forget this and take the object as something that is yours, you can’t enjoy it for what it is. When you remember that you don’t really own it, you are free to enjoy it while it is part of your life.

- Ken McLeod

Your greatest happiness

“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"

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

One of the eight wordly winds

Praise and compliments disturb me, Sapping my revulsion with samsara. I start to covet others’ qualities,

And thus all excellence degenerates.

Those who stay close by me, then,

To ruin my good name and cut me down to size

Are surely protecting me

From falling into ruin in the realms of sorrow (Shantideva 6: 98-99).

Evil is problematic

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

- Epicurus

Buddho

The word 'Buddho' is a word that you can develop in your life as something to fill the mind with rather than with worries and all kinds of unskilful habits. Take the word, look at it, listen to it: 'Buddho'! It means the one who knows, the Buddha, the awakened, that which is awake.

You can visualise it in your mind. Listen to what your mind says - blah, blah, blah, etc. It goes on like this, an endless kind of excrement of repressed fears and aversions. So, now, we are recognising that.

We're not using 'Buddho' as a club to annihilate or repress things, but as a skilful means. We can use the finest tools for killing and for harming others, can't we? You can take the most beautiful Buddha rupa and bash somebody over the head with it if you want! That's not what we call 'Buddhanussati', Reflection on the Buddha, is it? But we might do that with the word 'Buddho' as a way of suppressing those thoughts or feelings. That's an unskilful use of it. Remember we're not here to annihilate but to allow things to fade out. This is a gentle practice of patiently imposing 'Buddho' over the thinking, not out of exasperation, but in a firm and deliberate way.

- Ajahn Sumedho 'Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless'