What’s really important is what you’re doing right now. So you don’t have to worry about other things, other places. Just stay right here. And get really familiar right here.

"Keep coming back to the breath. And sometimes you may wonder, “When do we finish with the breath and move on?” But that’s based on a wrong idea of what progress means. Progress means seeing one thing very carefully — more and more carefully all the time, more and more precisely.

Fortunately, when you’re focusing on the breath right here in the present moment, all the things you need to understand for gaining release are all right here as well. You’re at the most important point in your world when you’re focused right here, because everything comes out of this.

The other things you’re aware of come into your senses because of your past karma. And where was your past karma made? Well, it was made right here in a past version of the present moment. And that’s gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring it back.

What’s really important is what you’re doing right now. So you don’t have to worry about other things, other places. Just stay right here. And get really familiar right here."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Investing Your Intention"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We’re never going to get a perfect society, but you find that the wiser you are in your generosity, the more consistent you are in your virtue, then the better the world you create around you. And it can be done without force, without imposing your will on other people.

"Look at the Buddha. If anybody could have created a perfect society, it would have been him. But he saw that it was useless. There was a time when Mara came to him. The question had arisen in the Buddha’s mind, “Could it be possible to rule in such a way that you wouldn’t have to create bad kamma and that you could do nothing but good for all beings?” Mara shows up, and says, “Ah, yes, do that.” And the Buddha realizes that this idea of creating a perfect society is all a trick of Mara, because you’re using people for ends. And how skillful are those ends? Even if the ends are good, there’s a tendency to try to attain them in unskillful ways, to impose them on people. If you tell people that things will be good and they’ll be happy only if society is perfect, people would die before they could find true happiness. On the other hand, the solution is not a matter of simply accepting things as they are. It’s learning how to reshape them in a skillful way, starting wit...
Read more

The mind is proactive in its engagement with the senses and with the world. We’re not just on the receiving end of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations coming in. We don’t simply respond to the stimulus of other people’s actions. We’re proactive. We go out looking for things.

"One of the distinctive teachings of the Forest tradition is its emphasis on how proactive the mind is in its engagement with the senses and with the world. We’re not just on the receiving end of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations coming in. We don’t simply respond to the stimulus of other people’s actions. We’re proactive. We go out looking for things. This is in line with the Buddha’s teachings on intention. Our experience of the present moment is made up of the results of past actions, but also our current intentions and the results of our current intentions. When you look at the way the Buddha lines things up in dependent co-arising, our intentions actually come before our engagement with the senses. We intend to engage the senses, and that’s how we meet up with the sensory material that’s coming in. What this means is that our intentions don’t have to be shaped by what’s coming in. They don’t have to be pushed around by what’s coming in. We can be more skillf...
Read more

The real basis for a sense of connectedness comes through kamma. When you interact with another person, a connection is made. A connection of skillful behavior starts with generosity, and grows with the gift of virtue.

"The real basis for a sense of connectedness comes through kamma. When you interact with another person, a connection is made. Now, it can be a positive or a negative connection, depending on the intention. With generosity you create a positive connection, a helpful connection, a connection where you’re glad that the boundary is down, a connection where good things can flow back and forth. If it’s unskillful kamma, you’re creating a connection, you’re creating an opening that sooner or later you’re going to regret. There’s a saying in the Dhammapada that a hand without a wound can hold poison and not be harmed. In other words, if you don’t have any bad kamma, the results of bad kamma won’t come to you. But if you have a wound on your hand, then if you hold poison it will seep through the wound and kill you. Unskillful kamma is just that, a wound. It’s an opening for poisonous things to come in. The opposite principle also works. If there’s a connection of skillful behavior, a good...
Read more