Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 106
  2. Occupy Your Body
     … It’s “concentration work.” We come to concentration to rest, but for the mind really to rest, to have a sense of belonging here in the present moment, fully inhabiting the present moment, often takes some work. The factors that do the work are directed thought and evaluation: keeping your mind directed to the breath, and then evaluating how things are going as you … 
  3. Your One Responsibility
     … This is where the mind and the body meet. Every intention has to go through the breath in order for the body to move. The things that you sense coming in through the bodily senses have to go through the breath as well before they reach the mind. The breath is like a checkpoint. When things come in, what kind of impact are they … 
  4. Skillful Attachments
     … And because you can’t teach the mind just to drop everything all at once, the basic strategy of the path is to give you better things to latch on to, and basic to this strategy is the realization that you have more choice in the matter than you might have thought. For most of us, whatever comes up in our minds, whatever comes … 
  5. All-around Eye
     … You’re training the mind on all sides of the mind. If it were just a matter of training the mind to note, note, note, note, note or to scan, scan, scan, scan, scan – or whatever the one practice is – it would be like going down to the gym and just developing your biceps. Everything else would be left undeveloped; you’d be all … 
  6. Love for the Dhamma
     … The real problems lie in the mind, which is why we sit here focusing the mind on the breath as a way of bringing the mind into the present moment, where we can watch it. We turn our gaze inward, instead of outward. What do you see when you look outward? You see aging, illness, and death. You see other people’s issues: their … 
  7. For Your Future’s Sake
     … At that point, the mind is going to grab at anything. So, as it’s forced out of the body, if it hasn’t been trained, it’s going to grab hold of whatever. Again, there’s a need to train the mind so that it can control its urges, so that it’s not pushed around by pleasure or pain. This is why … 
  8. Own Your Actions
     … What are you doing right now as opposed to what’s coming in at you? Because the suffering you’re feeling right now, whatever stress or strain or sense of burden or disturbance in the mind: It comes from what you’re doing. The things that are coming in may be the raw material for creating that suffering, but you don’t have to … 
  9. Judging the Dhamma
    One of the first things you notice as you try to get the mind quiet is how unquiet it is. Or as Ajaan Lee once said, a lot of the practice is getting to know your defilements. All these thoughts that come into the mind and pull you away from the practice: There are lots of them. And getting to know them doesn’t … 
  10. Unraveling the Present
     … So once the mind is still and you feel it’s time to look at the rest of your life from that perspective, look for that issue of inconstancy and stress, to give you the proper perspective on things: proper in the sense of leading the mind to release. Always keep this in mind. The Buddha is teaching us skills to bring the mind … 
  11. Complexities of Karma
     … You’ve got to train the mind, because if the mind changes on you—and as the Buddha said, there’s nothing in the world so quick to change direction as the mind—then all that goodness can be blocked at the moment you die. You don’t want that. This is why we develop mindfulness, so that we can remember what’s good … 
  12. Safe at Home
     … So it has come from within the mind, from training what resources you have in the mind. The good thing about true happiness is that it doesn’t take anything away from anyone else. It’s not like the happiness and pleasures of the world, where if you gain something, somebody else has to lose it. Your true happiness doesn’t conflict with anybody … 
  13. Change
     … The other change that’s dangerous is the fact that the mind can change so quickly. As he once said, the mind is so quick to change that there’s no adequate analogy for how fast it is. Even the twinkling of an eye is too slow. You can work for years and years on something and suddenly your mind changes and reverses on … 
  14. Knowledge over Fear
     … And when you reach that state where you’ve mastered the skills of meditation and you don’t have to suffer anymore, then you realize there’s no danger in the mind at all. And when there’s no danger in the mind, outside dangers get very small. They’re there, you’re careful, but fear is gone. That’s what the ajaans tell … 
  15. Effective Self-Discipline
     … It’s important to have the desire to get the mind to be peaceful, to get the mind to understand itself. If you didn’t have that desire, you wouldn’t be here. You’d off some place else, down at the beach, looking for happiness. So sometimes it’s useful to remind yourself of why you’re meditating, of what you want out … 
  16. In Your Power
     … You use the teachings from the suttas as tools, but you’ve got to develop the qualities that lead to the knowledge within the mind, so that you can see the mind in action as it’s creating suffering. You catch it in the act. Then you can stop it. It’s like a dog peeing on your rug. If you hit it while … 
  17. Goodwill for Free
     … By giving this free gift, you become free, and the freedom is immediate in the sense of spaciousness that appears in the mind. It lasts for a long time, but it does have to be maintained. You learn how to feed your goodwill by reflecting on the state of the mind that you’ve developed and then comparing that with the state of mind … 
  18. Self View & Conceit
     … When the mind gets settled down, is it really as still as it could be? Or is there some disturbance in here? Look around to see what you’re doing that’s causing the disturbance—because the acts of the mind are what’s causing the disturbance. The Buddha devotes a refrain in a sutta to the need to settle in and indulge in … 
  19. The Role of Attachment
     … You develop good qualities in the mind. You like them. When you get something good in the mind, you hold on to it both to see how far it can take you and for the sense of well-being that comes with it. If it’s the best thing you know in the mind, hold on to it. Don’t let go of it … 
  20. The Limits of Control
     … How much can you control the mind to stay with the object of your concentration? Push against the envelope. You find that you can create a sense of greater constancy than you have in any other way, a greater pleasure than you’ve experienced for many other things, greater control over your mind. This is not only to give the mind a pleasant dwelling … 
  21. Mission Possible
     … We’re looking for the details of the mind, how the mind creates a little thought world inside, and how that thought world can suddenly blow up. Like the old pictures they had of the Big Bang: Out of nothing comes a huge sudden expansion. How does that happen? You want to watch it carefully. You want to see what those first steps are … 
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