This is a blameless happiness, learn how to savor the potential for well-being a lot more than sensual pleasures

"We’re not here simply to see things as they are. One — because we’re here to see things as they work. How cause and effect work. And two — we’re seeing these things so that we can be more discerning in knowing which forms of happiness and pleasure really are satisfying.

After all, nibbāna is the ultimate pleasure — the ultimate happiness, the ultimate sukha: bliss, happiness, well-being. You get to appreciate it first by learning how to appreciate what feels good right here, right now, in the body.

So try to develop your sensitivity here. Learn how to savor what’s pleasurable here, because that sensitivity will reorient you, give you new ideas about what happiness is, what well-being is — and what’s needed to find it. It also opens you up to the potentials you have right here.

Think about all the skills the Buddha found in his meditation, leading at last to the ultimate skill, which is the ending of the effluents. How are you going to know what an effluent is unless you get really sensitive to how things flow around in the heart and mind right here?

So try to get sensitive right here in the heart, right here in the body. Explore your sensitivity. Savor what you find is good. That’s how you develop your palate; that’s how your discernment gets strong, strong enough to overcome a lot of the preconceived notions you bring to the breath, bring to the body, bring to your own mind, bring to life.

It’s only when you find something you thoroughly like right here that you can change the way you rank pleasures in your life. Because this is a blameless happiness, it has a lot more potential than sensual pleasures. Learn how to savor the potential of well-being simply here in name and form as you’ve got them right here, right now."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Savor Your Breath" (Meditations11)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the breath do that.

 "When you focus on the breath, try to breathe in a way that feels really refreshing. Think of the breath energizing your entire torso all the way down, and then even beyond the torso down through the legs, down the back. Any part of the body that seems tired or tense, in need of a little refreshment, a little bit of soothing: Let the breath do that." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt"
Read more

You can float and be buoyant, but stay in place. There’s a sense of lightness and buoyancy, so keep that sense of lightness, but stay where you are.

"Breathe in such a way that there’s no holding on, so that things are allowed to flow smoothly. The breath flows smoothly, the blood flows smoothly, and there’s a sense of ease all the way through the breathing process. Some people at this point begin to get a sense of floating, but try not to drift out. You can float and be buoyant, but stay in place. There’s a sense of lightness and buoyancy, so keep that sense of lightness, but stay where you are. You’ve learned to breathe in such a way that the whole body feels at ease throughout the in-breath and out-breath. Try to maintain that sense of awareness of the whole body, and let the pleasure radiate out through the body. Just learn how to maintain that, to stick with it. If you find yourself losing focus when you open up your range of awareness to the whole body, go back to surveying the body spot by spot, section by section, and then try settling down with the whole body again. You may find yourself going back and forth like this
Read more

Keep the sense of relaxation in your feet and hands as steady as possible by comparing one side to the other

"No matter how the breath is cycling through the rest of the body, keep the sense of relaxation in your feet and your hands as steady as possible. It doesn’t have to be an enormous relaxation, just enough for you to know that it’s more relaxed than before. One way of checking it is to compare one hand to the other, one foot to the other. See which one is more tense and then allow it to relax as much as the other one." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Grass at the Gate" (Meditations3)
Read more