Keeping the Breath in Mind
and
Lessons in Samadhi
by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
(Phra Suddhidhammaransi Gambhiramedhacariya)
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma
Copyright © 1995 Metta Forest Monastery
For free distribution only.
You may print copies of this work for your personal use.
You may re-format and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks,
provided that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
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Content
Translator”s Foreword
Keeping the Breath in Mind
Introduction
Preliminaries
Method 1
Method 2
Jhana
Lessons in Samadhi
Groundwork
The Art of Letting Go
At the Tip of Your Nose
The Care & Feeding of the Mind
"Just Right" Concentration
Appendix
Glossary
Chant for the Dedication of Merit
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Translator”s Foreword
This is a "how to" book. It teaches the liberation of the mind, not as a mind-boggling theory, but as a very basic skill that starts with keeping the breath in mind.
The teachings here are drawn from the works of Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo (1906-61), one of Thailand”s most renowned teachers of Buddhist meditation. Ajaan Lee was a forest monk -- one who prefers to live in the seclusion of the forest and makes meditation the central theme of his practice -- so his teachings grow out of personal, practical experience, although he also makes a point of relating them to standard Buddhist doctrine.
The book is in two parts: The first is a basic guide to the techniques of breath meditation -- Ajaan Lee”s specialty -- and gives two methods that he developed at separate points in his career. The second part consists of excerpts from five of his talks dealing with issues that tend to arise in the course of meditation.
If you want to begin your practice of meditation immediately and fill in the details later, turn to Method 2. Read over the seven basic steps until you have them firmly in mind and then start meditating. Take care, especially at the beginning, not to clutter your mind with extraneous ideas or information. Otherwise, you might spend too much time looking for things in your meditation and not see what is actually there. The rest of the book can wait until later, when you want help with a particular problem or -- what is often the same thing -- when you want an over-all perspective on what you are doing.
The purpose of this book is to suggest possibilities: to direct your attention to areas you may have overlooked, to suggest approaches that otherwise might not have occurred to you. What you actually see is purely an inpidual matter. Don”t try to force things. Don”t be worried if you have experiences that aren”t covered in the book. Don”t be disappointed if you don”t have experiences that are.
Signs and visions, for example: Some people experience them, others don”t. They are an inpidual matter, and not really essential to the meditation. If you experience them, learn how to use them wisely. If you don”t, learn how to use what you do experience. The important point is to keep the basics in mind and to stay observant.
Meditation, like carpentry, sailing, or any other skill, has its own vocabulary that to the beginner is bound to seem like a code. One of the challenges in using this book will be in breaking its code. Part of the difficulty is that some of the terms are literally foreign: They”re in Pali, the language of the oldest extant Buddhist texts, colored by shades of meaning they”ve picked up from Thai. This problem, though, is relatively minor. Most of these terms are exp…
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