Bhikkhu Analayo - on Yoniso Manasikara

Greetings dear D&D members! :slight_smile:

I just wanted to share with you a link to this article of Bhikkhu Analayo on Yoniso Manasikara.

This is such an importaint aspect of the path. Where we put our attention in the first place, conditions what thoughts, feelings and other mind states arise afterwards.

I think yoniso manasikara is most useful both in practice and in communication as well. :slight_smile: That’s why I believe the more people start to get to know this term and practice, the better. :pray:

One page as an excerpt for inspiration:

If you have time and willingness, for what it’s worth, I recommend this read. :slight_smile: I especially like the idea of yoniso manasikara as way of skillfully directing attention that leads to arousing the factors of awakening and not arising of defilements. I think this is closely related to 6th factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, Samma Vayamo informed by 7th factor - Samma Sati. Awareness of how certain attention (cause) leads to specific effects teach us how to implement right effort in order to reduce kilesas and develop wholesome states both in the present moment and the future. :dharmawheel:

With Metta! :anjal: :yellow_heart:

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Right mindfulness and appropriate attention work together:

"In part, right mindfulness and appropriate attention serve overlapping
functions on the path, particularly in line with the fourth establishing of
mindfulness: that of choosing which phenomena and tasks to focus on in the
present moment, and which ones to ignore. However, these qualities start from
different functions: memory in the case of mindfulness, choice of what to attend
to in the case of attention. Only when they are trained, through the addition of
other mental qualities, to become right mindfulness and appropriate attention do
their functions overlap. Even then, though, right mindfulness covers a broader
range of functions, encompassing all the ways in which memory can be brought
to bear on the purpose at hand.
"—Thanissaro

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Can I ask where this Thanissaro quote comes from?

The interest is acknowledged. The quote is from the book “Right Mindfulness,” chap. 3, p 57 online version. The chapter is titled “Experience is Purposeful,” and deals with the way moment to moment experience can be made to contribute either to ignorance or awakening depending on employment of wise attention.

“The mind is not a blank slate. Even before contact is made at the senses, the factors of bodily, verbal, and mental fabrication have already gone out looking for that contact, shaping how it will be experienced and what the mind will be seeking from it. Because these fabrications, in an untrained mind, are influenced by ignorance, they lead to suffering and stress. This is why insight has to focus on investigating them, for only when they’re mastered as skills, through knowledge, to the point of dispassion can they be allowed to cease. Only when they cease can suffering and stress be brought to an end.”—p 42