Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 103
  2. Oneness
     … Part of the mind might object: “This is stupid. You’re not thinking about anything.” But that’s precisely the point: You don’t have to think about anything. The mind needs this opportunity to rest, to gain energy. Ajaan Lee compares this to putting a knife in a scabbard. You want to make sure that your knife is sharp when you need it … 
  3. A Meditator’s Environment
     … Sometimes the mind is out looking for trouble, listening for trouble. You’ve got to get some control over that, because if you can’t control that in the course of your daily life, it’s going to be really hard to control the mind as it settles down to concentrate. So you pay attention to your engagement in the senses with a strong … 
  4. The Safety of Dualities
     … That implies that our actions make a difference, and because our actions come from our intentions, and our intentions come from our minds, it’s worthwhile to train the mind. You want to get the mind really still so that you can see, when it moves, whether its movements are skillful or not. As you get deeper into the processes of the mind, you … 
  5. Nobody’s Servant
     … developing the qualities we need right here, right now, food for the mind, the sense of well-being that comes when you focus on the breath. Allow the breath to become comfortable, think of the sensitive parts in your body and how the breath might nourish them. Sometimes just thinking of that as a possibility changes the way you breathe, changes the way you … 
  6. Respect for Happiness
     … One of the Buddha’s terms for the mind when it settles down with the breath in the present moment is vihara dhamma, “a home for the mind.” A lot of us live like homeless people. The mind doesn’t have a place where it can find shelter, where it can feel safe. So you wander around, and you put up with all kinds … 
  7. Judging Just Right
     … In other words, we have to approach this as a skill, because it is possible for the mind to get into really heavy states of concentration where everything blanks out. You have no sense of the body. Nothing is going on at all, and no discernment can arise in that kind of concentration. And of course it’s very easy to get the mind … 
  8. Persistence: Lift Your Heart
     … You have parts of the mind that are on the side of the Buddha, and parts of the mind that are on the other side. A lot of right effort is learning how to convert the parts that are on the other side—either that or to abandon them, and to want to abandon them. This is an important element of having strong persistence … 
  9. Success by Approximation
     … The calming ones are useful for when the mind is feeling frenetic; the energizing ones, for when the mind is feeling sluggish. So even with skillful qualities, you have to learn how to make distinctions. Beyond that, there are levels of concentration, levels of equanimity, levels of right view. These things will progress as you go on the path, until the mind is totally … 
  10. Opportunities Everywhere
     … The things that’ll be helpful are the good qualities you’ve developed in the mind, the understanding you’ve developed about how the mind creates states of becoming: again, more of those balloons. At that particular point, it’s going to be especially serious because if you get in a particular balloon, you might find yourself in a whole other body in a … 
  11. A Clear Sense of Priorities
     … When you begin to ask those questions, you find that the practice starts making deeper inroads in the mind and really benefits you in ways that it couldn’t have otherwise. On a very simple level, take the practice of being mindful as you go through your daily activities. Now, mindfulness here covers both mindfulness and alertness. In other words, have a strong sense … 
  12. Active Truth
     … And the only way you can do that is to put the mind in a position where it doesn’t feel threatened by the stress. That’s what the path is for — and particularly the heart of the path: Right Concentration, putting the mind in a state of ease, even rapture, focused on one thing. This gives the mind a sense of power, a … 
  13. Carrying Your Duties Lightly
     … You really need practice with doing that, because otherwise the narratives come in and eat into your meditation, eat into the mind, and leave you with no concentration. Get in touch with that part of the mind they call “your face before you were born”: in other words, the part that has no knowledge of these narratives, doesn’t give them any reality. Learn … 
  14. Duties
     … We want to get the mind to settle down, because when the mind is settled down, it’s a lot stronger and a lot clearer. It can see things a lot more clearly and understand what it’s doing inside that’s creating suffering for itself. After all, that’s the message of the four noble truths: There may be pains caused by the … 
  15. Food for Endurance
     … Then we can ask ourselves: “Which of these ways is the most conducive to keeping the mind happy, keeping the mind acting in skillful ways?” Choose that perception; choose those feelings. Then you can feed on those. That’s the food of intention. It’s in this way that we can create happiness from within, because we live in a world where we have … 
  16. Older than the Cosmos
     … And how do we know that they’re not worth laying claim to? Because they come out of the mind. You can see the process by which they all happen, and it starts in the mind. The Buddha calls craving the guide to becoming. He also calls it the seamstress, what stitches things together. It thinks, “This together with that and that together with … 
  17. The Fangs of Conceit
     … There’s stress in the mind. There’s suffering in the mind, and we’re causing it to ourselves. That’s the big irony. There’s enough stress and suffering in the world without our additional piling it on. And everything we do should be for the sake of happiness. You’d think that’s why we would act to begin with, or to … 
  18. Concentration Teamwork
    When you meditate, it’s important to have a clear sense of cause and effect around what’s going on in the mind. We’re trying to get a sense of ease, a sense of fullness and refreshment: That’s the result. In the Buddha’s terms, he says it’s born of seclusion. In other words, you’re secluding your mind from thoughts … 
  19. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … But if you do point those words at what’s going on in your mind—you allow them to point, you allow them to come into the mind, to illumine what’s going on in the mind—then you’ll benefit. You’ll be able to step back from things happening in the mind and see them in a new light. But as we … 
  20. Skilled in Aims
     … a well-being totally generated by the mind that’s quiet. We focus on the breath and, in working on the breath, we work on the mind. The intention to do this comes from within the mind. It’s not the case that the breath pulls at you and says, “Hey, hey, hey, pay attention to me!” It’s because we have right view … 
  21. Indulge in the Pleasure of Jhana
     … But how do you adjust it in a way that makes it better, so that the mind can permeate into the breath, the breath can permeate into the mind, so that there’s no sense of a boundary between the two of them? In other words, your body is willing to have you be aware of it and it’s not going to freeze … 
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