Search results for: committee
- Feeling & Intention… They’re part of the committee of the mind. But just because a committee has a few unskillful members doesn’t mean that they have to take over. If you’re nourishing the good members of the committee, the good members can get stronger and overrule the unskillful ones. This comes under the Buddha’s teachings on fabrication. There are three ways we fabricate …
- Nurturing Your Inner Adult… That way you can reclaim the breath, you can reclaim the power of the breath, so that it’s on the side of the more alert, wiser, more mature members of your inner committee. So if an emotion like fear or anxiety comes up, your first reaction should be: How is the breath? Now, fear is not always an unskillful emotion. I’ve had …
- Strength for Stillness… Or a mind whose various committee members may or may not be in agreement about settling down. So try and find the members that want to stay with the breath, that want to look inside, and strengthen them. How do you strengthen them? First through conviction, the conviction that this is a good thing to do, this practice we’re doing here. Something taught …
- Conspiracies in the Mind… The image of the committee in the mind is very useful here. This inner committee is not a group of angels deciding to put on a charity event. They’re the city council in a really corrupt city. There are a lot of shady dealings going on behind the scenes. So when ideas come up in the mind, you have to learn how to …
- Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!… Don’t think that as soon as you propose the idea to the committee of the mind, “Hey, let’s meditate!” everybody in the committee will chime in and say, “Yes, that sounds great.” We’ve all had opposition in our internal committees. The important thing is to realize that you don’t have to identify with the opposition. It’s normal, it’s …
- The Wisdom of Ardency… Then you try to figure out how you can do it, because there are members in the committee who say, “Well, I’d much rather relax right now, or take things easy, or I need my rewards of pleasure. I can practice tomorrow.” How are you going to deal with them? That, too, is an element of wisdom. Knowing that there are things that …
- Blowing Bubbles… This gives you some insight into the committee of the mind, realizing there are lots of different selves and lots of different becomings—lots of different bubbles are being blown all the time. And again, just because something is there, you don’t have to go with it. You don’t have to get involved. Sometimes the thought will try to get you involved …
- Strengthening Concentration… Why are you doing this? How do you deal with the different committee members in the mind that are pulling you away? As you experiment with these different approaches, you’ll find the ones that work, so that your single-mindedness really stays single. It really does develop power. Without the strength of the concentration, your discernment won’t be strong enough to deal …
- Stop Squirming… That pulls you out of all the arguments of all the different committee members in the mind. When there’s physical pain in one part of the body, you can focus on the breath energy in another part of the body. This is how we build our powers of endurance: by giving ourselves a place of well-being, even in the midst of a …
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