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Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Thanissaro Bhikkhu Quotes

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Famous Thanissaro Bhikkhu Quotes

“In the initial stages, this usually involved evaluating how you were relating to the breath, and detecting more subtle levels of breath energy in the body that would provide a basis for deeper levels of stillness. Once the breath was perfectly still, and the sense of the body started dissolving into a formless mist, this process would involve detecting the perceptions of "space," "knowing," "oneness," etc., that would appear in place of the body and could be peeled away like the layers of an onion in the mind. In either case, the basic pattern was the same: detecting the level of perception or mental fabrication that was causing the unnecessary stress, and dropping it for a more subtle level of perception or fabrication until there was nothing left to drop. -Jhana Not By the Numbers”

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Author:Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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“We start the path to the end of suffering, not by trying to drop our clingings immediately, but by learning to cling more strategically. In terms of the feeding analogy, we don’t try to starve the mind. We simply change its diet, weaning it away from junk food in favor of health food, developing inner qualities that will make it so strong that it won’t need to feed ever again. The canon lists these qualities as five: conviction in the principle of karma—that our happiness depends on our own actions; persistence in abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful ones in their stead; mindfulness; concentration; and discernment. Of these, concentration—at the level of jhāna, or intense absorption— is the strength that the Buddhist tradition most often compares to good, healthy food”

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Book:The Karma of Questions
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“The key to maintaining your inspiration in the day-to-day work of meditation practice is to approach it as play—a happy opportunity to master practical skills, to raise questions, experiment, and explore.”

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Author:Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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