Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Good for What Purpose?
     … You think that you can trust whatever urges come up in the mind. Yet who knows what’s going to come up in the mind? As the Buddha said, the mind can change directions very fast. If the mind is basically anything, it’s basically changeable—and quickly changeable at that. So what do we do? I know some people who say they don … 
  3. Meditate Because You Have To
     … It’s something the mind needs. And as for how fast the progress is coming, or whether it seems to go up and down, that’s just a natural part of the mind. So when frustration comes up, you sit with it. When enthusiasm comes up, you sit with it. Whatever comes up, you sit with it. You watch it. You learn from it … 
  4. Protecting Your Space
     … Otherwise, all it knows is the mind in the reaction to things outside. What you really want is to have time every day to get in touch with how the mind is reacting to itself. What conversations are going on in the mind? Look for some physical seclusion, along with what the Buddha calls mental seclusion—dropping your thoughts of the future, dropping your … 
  5. Beyond Imagination
     … There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha said that the mind is more variegated than the animal world. Think of all the different species of animals, different kinds of lives they live, different kinds of bodies they have, the things they find attractive. And the Buddha said it all comes from the mind. Your mind is capable of all that kind … 
  6. Not Swept Away
     … You’re after the mind, and you’re going to learn a lot of interesting things about the mind as you try to stay focused here. Other thoughts are going to come up for sure, and you need skill in learning how to not get sucked in by them. Sometimes you can simply notice the fact, “Oh, here comes another thought.” That in and … 
  7. A Passion for the Path
     … There’s a sense of well-being that comes when you can look at your actions and see that you haven’t harmed anybody; a sense of well-being that comes from getting the mind to settle down and be still; the well-being that comes when you begin to discern things in the mind that are really unnecessary, you can drop them, and … 
  8. Realities Right Here
     … What have you got in the mind on this level? You’ve got acts of attention, intentions. feelings, perceptions, contact. Learn to see them on those terms, because that’s what you directly experience in the mind. When you get into a feeling or a thought world, you don’t see them in those terms. But when you can step back a little bit … 
  9. Surprise Yourself
     … What’s clear is that we’re practicing mindfulness of breathing to get the mind into concentration, and the 16 steps fall into four tetrads. One tetrad deals with the body, one with feelings, one with the mind, and one with dhammas. In other words, they deal with the frames of reference that we use to establish mindfulness. But the question is, do you … 
  10. Samvega
     … Why the hell do I have to sit here with this pain? Why can’t we be more relaxed about it?”—all these comments the mind makes up: fear that you’re going to harm yourself, cutting off the circulation to your legs; you’re going to get numb and after you get numb you’re going to get paralyzed. The mind has all … 
  11. The Use of the Present
     … That’s the mantra of the mindfulness movement. But there are times when you’re tempted to say, “Let’s just disown mindfulness entirely,” at least in the way it’s been turned into a business here in the States. It’s a shame, because “mindfulness” is a perfect word for what the Buddha was talking about: keeping something in mind. We’re not … 
  12. Take Care of Your Tools
     … Images coming into the mind? Just because there’s an image in the mind and it’s coming in a way that’s very uncanny doesn’t mean it’s true. If you find it unsettling or disturbing, breath deep down into the heart a couple of times and it’ll go away. If you suddenly find yourself outside of the body, just think … 
  13. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … The teachings on kamma are directly related to the meditation because, as they point out, kamma comes from the mind. This is why you want to train the mind because our thoughts, words, and deeds are really going to have an impact on our lives. Even how we relate to things moment by moment has a big impact. You’re sitting here with your … 
  14. The Cost of Happiness
     … That’s when the mind is insensitive. It’s not seeing what’s going on. One of the most important aspects of the meditation is to make those periods of blanking out shorter and shorter, until you finally get to the point where you don’t blank out. If the mind is going to move, you see it move. And you’re in a … 
  15. Endurance & Contentment
     … Technically, it’s defined as directed thought and evaluation, but it basically comes down to the chatter going on in the mind. When you invest that chatter with your identity, it makes it hard to step back from it. So instead, you can look at it as the committee of the mind, or the corporation of the mind. Or try Ajaan Lee’s image … 
  16. Believe in Your Actions
     … There’s the part of the mind that has to be alert but there’s also the part of the mind that has to be ardent. You have to want to do things skillfully and you have to put in the effort to figure out what is skillful in any situation. And be willing to learn from your mistakes. Heedfulness is not easy. It … 
  17. Wearing the Breath
     … The reason why we want to get our awareness all-around is because when thoughts come into the mind, the fact that they’re able to stay for a while means that there has to be a little bit of tension someplace in the body to hold them, like a little marker, and those patterns of tension can be anywhere. So, if you’re … 
  18. Truth Without Air Quotes
     … This is the way the mind works. These are the processes that lead to suffering. If you want an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do. It’s interesting that with dependent co-arising, in later centuries, the question arose: Is dependent co-arising happening in the context of the world at large or inside the mind? There was a … 
  19. Trading Up
     … Then you’re ready to work on the mind. In other words, you’ve got to clear away a lot of the underbrush, clear away a lot of the junk in your life if you want to have some space for the mind to develop. The path factors dealing with concentration start with right effort. Here again there’s a trade. You work on … 
  20. Anxiety
     … So learn to hold on inside to the parts of the mind that really are useful, and then you can let everything else go. All the other things are avenues by which danger can come, but the good things in the mind are a place of safety.
  21. Streams of Anger
     … If anger arises in the mind, you tell yourself, “I’m not going to act or speak on this anger.” Part of the mind will say, “But that other person really did something wrong.” The reason you’re holding things in check is to remind yourself that you’re actually suffering from the anger because of things in your own mind. That other person … 
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