Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook

When you know the breath is going in or going out for about one hundred breaths in a row, not missing one, then you have achieved what I call the third stage of this meditation, which involves sustained attention on the breath.

Without the experience of delight, there will be some discontent. And discontent is the source of the wandering mind.

The experience that tells you what the breath is doing, that is what you focus on. Let go of the concern about where this experience is located. Just focus on the experience itself.

The happiness generated by sensual excitement is hot and stimulating but also agitated and therefore tiring. Repetition makes it fade.

Even today, some meditators mistakenly believe that something as intensely pleasurable as jhāna cannot be conducive to the end of all suffering, and they remain afraid of jhāna.

The understanding that diversity is a heavy burden is crucial to being able to focus on the breath.

Here we discover that the diversity of consciousness is another heavy burden.

You should realize that you are much closer to truth when you observe without commentary, when you experience just the silent awareness of the present moment.

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.