Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Evaluation
     … So, as you’re meditating, remember that your ability to evaluate how things are going, even though it may seem like a disturbance in the mind as you’re trying to get it to settle down, is a necessary part of getting it to settle down: to get things adjusted so that the mind is snug with the body, the mind is snug with … 
  3. Healthy Conceit
     … There’s somebody observing the meditator here, and you want to train that observer to anticipate, Yes, there’s going to be a distraction and you want to look for the warning signs before the mind leaves the breath. How does it start surveying around to see where else the mind might want to go? When the mind starts getting bored with the breath … 
  4. The Broken Gong
     … If you find you’re driving yourself crazy over some incident in your family life, at work, whatever, and it echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes in the mind, you can question it: What actually happened, and where right now is the sensation of that event? It’s at the contact at the mind. But why does it have to contact the mind now, when the … 
  5. What Is Skillful?
     … And there will be parts of the mind that don’t want to abstain and don’t want to get rid. They don’t like rules. But it’s not simply that we’re following rules here. As we follow the rules, we begin to see things in the mind that we might not have seen otherwise. For instance, if you don’t take … 
  6. The Tools of the Path
     … What made it bearable was the fact that he could get the mind into states of rapture every day, every day. When the mind is well-fed like that, then it’s a lot more willing to look at its unskillful sides—its defilements—and not be bowled over by them, not try to deny them. The mind is much more on an even … 
  7. Square One
     … As the Buddha said, you need both tranquility and insight to get the mind into concentration. To get the mind into concentration, you’ve got to choose one topic. Clear away all other topics in the mind. They may keep coming in, but just don’t pay attention to them. And you try to be ardent, alert, and mindful. Mindful means keeping something in … 
  8. Relationships
     … As it fills the body, you find that the mind feels a lot less frazzled. At the same time, the qualities it needs to develop to maintain this, in terms of mindfulness and alertness, give nourishment to the mind. So you’re putting yourself in a position of strength. When you’re in this position, then when you’re dealing with relationships with people … 
  9. Nostalgia for Suffering
     … Think of all the different variations of what the mind can do—and as the Buddha said, the mind is more variegated than the animal kingdom. Think of all the different species out there and all the different types of animals: They all came from mind. A mind thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to be a lizard… wouldn’t it be cool to … 
  10. Sensitive to Fabrication
     … And also in the mind: We’ll see the stages by which the mind creates a reaction, creates a worldview and then reacts within it, or responds, or is more proactive. The more quickly we can pick up on these things, the more clearly we can see the steps in the process. The purpose of this is to see how arbitrary a lot of … 
  11. One Thing Clear Through
     … As we get the mind into concentration, that too is a gift to ourselves and to others. We allow the mind time to rest, time to get to know itself. When the mind settles down, it’s like water that’s been murky. As it settles down, settles down, it finally becomes clear. All the mud settles to the bottom and the water becomes … 
  12. Mature Happiness
     … But then the teachings go from outside actions into your actions of the mind. It’s easier to see your outside actions and it’s easier to see the harm of outside actions. But the training isn’t complete until you take it inside, because the mind is the source of all these things. This is another reason why we bow down to the … 
  13. Timeless Practice
     … So we work on getting the mind to settle down, and in the course of getting the mind to settle down—developing mindfulness, developing concentration—we begin to abandon some of our cravings. We begin to comprehend some of our suffering, comprehend our clinging. This is how the duties of the four noble truths help one another along. This is the framework for understanding … 
  14. Endurance
     … You’re going to be looking at your own mind as the mind is looking at the breath. In the beginning, you want to pay most attention to the breath, and pay attention to the mind mainly when it’s not with the breath. When it’s wandering off, bring it back. Try to breathe in a way that will make the mind want … 
  15. Clinging
     … When something moves in the mind and there’s a tightening up in the body, the mind is holding on to something. When we meditate and breathe through patterns of tension in the body, we’re doing symptom management, because what often makes it seem so oppressive is the fact that it tightens up the body, and we’re carrying it around. So it … 
  16. To Comprehend Craving
     … In the same way, the mind clings to craving as it goes from this body to another one. And we know what wind is like. It can blow anywhere. So you want to train the mind so that it’s not fooled by any kind of craving. We do work with the desire to get the mind to settle down. We work with the … 
  17. Outside the Box
     … It’s the mind. The body can live perfectly fine without getting involved. It’s the mind that wants these things.” That was a way of looking at the issue that had never occurred to me before, because I was always justifying my desires by saying, “Well, this is what the body needs.” But as he said, “The body doesn’t need sex at … 
  18. Noble & True
     … When the mind has a good sense of the present moment and how to stay with the present moment without letting other things get in the way: Seeing that as something to be developed is a noble act, too. So the truths really are noble. Ajaan Suwat often said to regard the suffering of the mind as a noble truth, something that’s really … 
  19. Persuasion
     … It’s thinking about your emotions—What makes you want to do something? After all, the mind is really good at persuading itself to do things that it likes to do but it knows will yield bad results. It’ll try its best to ignore those long-term results, saying they don’t matter; or that your actions don’t matter anyhow; there’s … 
  20. In Alignment
     … People bring flowers, he’s not disturbed; if people created a mess here in the hall, he wouldn’t be disturbed.” Try to have that same sense as you’re sitting here, both with regard to things outside and to things happening inside the mind. You want to find the point of awareness that’s aware and that’s it: knowing these things as … 
  21. Technique & Attitude
     … Some people find this to be a good way of getting the mind to settle down in the present. Whatever the technique, as long as you find that it helps you get the mind still and centered in the present, and sensitive to what’s going on right here and now, it’s a useful concentration technique. But there’s more to the meditation … 
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