Ardently alert means that when the mind is staying with the breath, you try to be as sensitive as possible in adjusting it to make it feel good, and … - Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
" "Ardently alert means that when the mind is staying with the breath, you try to be as sensitive as possible in adjusting it to make it feel good, and in monitoring the results of your efforts. Try long breathing to see how it feels. Try short breathing, heavy breathing, light breathing, deep, shallow. The more refined you can make your awareness, the better the meditation goes because you can make the breath more and more refined, a more and more comfortable place for the mind to stay. Then you can let that sense of comfort spread throughout the body. Think of the breath not simply as the air coming in and out the lungs, but as the flow of energy throughout the whole body. The more refined your awareness, the more sensitive you can be to that flow. The more sensitive you are, the more refined the breath becomes, the more gratifying, the more absorbing it becomes as a place to stay.
English
Collect this quote
About Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, born 28 December 1949, also known as Ajaan Geoff (born 1949), is an American Theravada Buddhist monk of the Thai forest kammatthana tradition.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Ajahn Ṭhānissaro
•
Ajahn Geoff
•
Geoffrey Furguson DeGraff
•
Ṭhānissaro, Bhikkhu
•
DeGraff, Geoffrey
•
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
•
Geoffrey Furguson De Graff
•
Ṭhānissara Bhikkhu
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
There’s a passage where [the Buddha] contrasts his way of teaching with what he calls training in bombast. Training in bombast is where you’re taught things that are very poetic, that sound very high, very lovely, very inspiring, but no one is encouraged to ask what, precisely, they mean. After all, in bombast there really is no precise meaning. It’s all just vague, high-sounding words. But, as the Buddha said, he taught cross-questioning. Your training with him was in cross-questioning. When there was a teaching you didn’t understand, he encouraged you to ask, “What’s the meaning of this? What’s the purpose of that? How far should this word be taken?” That way, wherever there are any doubts or uncertainties, you can clear them up.
Sometimes you hear the idea that the ego is so corrupt that anything it tries to do is going to be corrupted as well. That idea closes off all the doors except for one: the hope that somebody is going to come along and save you. But that hope is irresponsible. The responsible attitude is that you’re responsible for the actions of your mind. You really can choose. And fortunately your motives are not always corrupt. As the Buddha said, you can take advantage of the fact that you want true happiness, and develop some noble qualities out of that. The qualities of purity, compassion, and wisdom come from taking your desire for true happiness seriously.
Loading...