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We should rather examine the very process of perception itself.
ALTHOUGH THERE ARE many subjects of meditation, we strongly recommend that you start with focusing your undivided attention on your breathing to gain some degree of basic concentration.
Our ego, self, or opinions get in our way and color our judgment.
When we face a situation in which we feel indignation, if we mindfully investigate our own mind, we will discover bitter truths about ourselves: for example, that we are selfish; we are egocentric; we are attached to our ego; we hold on to our opinions; we think we are right and everybody else is wrong; we are prejudiced; we are biased;
If someone becomes unmindful in indicating faults and uses unkind and harsh language, he might do more harm than good to himself as well as to the person whose shortcomings he points out.
When we listen and talk mindfully, our minds are free from greed, selfishness, hatred, and delusion.
If you have never meditated before, sit motionlessly for not longer than twenty minutes.
When you focus your attention on the breath, ignore any thought, memory, sound, smell, taste, etc., and focus your attention exclusively on the breath, nothing else.
Earlier in your practice you had inhaling and exhaling as objects of meditation. Now you have the sign as the third object of meditation.
insight meditation.
THE PRACTICE of meditation has been going on for several thousand years. That is quite a bit of time for experimentation, and the procedure has been very, very thoroughly refined.
Third, they give you the ability to sit for a long period of time without yielding to the meditator’s three main enemies — pain, muscular tension, and falling asleep.
Your objective is to achieve a posture in which you can sit for the entire session without moving at all.
Besides, the main criterion by which you choose a posture for yourself is not what others say about it. It is your own comfort.
THE MEDITATION we teach is called insight meditation.
We sit, watching the air going in and out of our noses. At first glance, this seems an exceedingly odd and useless procedure.
There is a difference between being aware of a thought and thinking a thought.
By its very nature it is obsessional, and it leads straight to the next thought in the chain, with apparently no gap between them.
A useful object of meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness. It should be portable, easily available, and cheap.
Breathing is a nonconceptual process, a thing that can be experienced directly without a need for thought.
it. Don’t increase the depth of your breath or its sound.
At this point you will have learned a major lesson about your own compulsive need to control the universe.
Gently, but firmly, without getting upset or judging yourself for straying, simply return to the simple physical sensation of the breath.
Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation.
term, sinking denotes any dimming of awareness. At its best, it is sort of a mental vacuum in which there is no thought, no observation of the breath, no awareness of anything.
You begin to experience a state of great calm in which you enjoy complete freedom from those things we called psychic irritants.
If you place too much emphasis on the problem-solving aspect, you will find your attention turning to those problems during the session, sidetracking concentration.
Try to force things out of the mind and you merely add energy to them.
seethe
foam
fe...
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The net effect is like recharging a battery. Meditation recharges your mindfulness.
If, however, you find that your schedule has ceased to be an encouragement and become a burden, then something is wrong. Meditation is not a duty or an obligation.
after a year or so of steady practice you should be sitting comfortably for an hour at a time.
But self-discipline is different. It’s the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret.
Greed and hatred are the prime manifestations of the ego process.
malady
banishing
May I be well, happy, and peaceful. May no harm come to me. May I always meet with spiritual success. May I also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life. May I always rise above them with morality, integrity, forgiveness, compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom.
parents
teachers
relatives
friends
indifferent persons
unfriendly persons
living beings
resentment.
Therefore, we recommend very strongly that you practice loving friendliness before you start your serious practice of meditation.
Repeat the preceding passages very mindfully and meaningfully.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals.
