Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 116
  2. Tools of Perception
     … This is how you get the mind into deeper and deeper concentration until the point where you really don’t feel the need to breathe. The energy sources in the different parts of your body nourish everything else. The mind is still enough so that you don’t need a lot of oxygen to nourish the brain. The oxygen you get through the pores … 
  3. Loving Yourself
     … Because if you act on unskillful intentions, it leaves a scar on the mind. And no matter how much denial you may build up around it, it makes it harder and harder to just be with yourself, harder to be true to yourself, true with yourself, to admit what’s actually going on in the mind. There are two places where you can see … 
  4. Generating Good Energy
     … Because you find that as the mind settles down into different layers of concentration, the way you experience the breath is going to change. When you get the mind into the first jhana, there’s a sense of breath energy suffusing throughout the body. But you’re standing outside of it a little bit, watching over, like the bathman and the bathman’s apprentice … 
  5. Two Types of Dukkha
     … This is why we sit and meditate, closing our eyes to the world, so that we can see what the mind is doing right now that’s adding unnecessary suffering, adding unnecessary stress to what we’re experiencing. We try to bring our attention as much as we can into the present moment so that we can watch the workings of the mind. Otherwise … 
  6. Defilements at the Door
     … They don’t have to invade the mind and remain. That’s the phrase that the Buddha uses: “invade the mind and remain.” They may present themselves to your awareness, but they don’t have to come inside. It’s like the difference between the third establishing of mindfulness and the fourth. The third talks about different states of mind, those imbued with passion … 
  7. The Four Noble Truths
     … To comprehend pain, you need a good solid place to keep the mind so that it can watch the pain and really be interested in comprehending it, rather than just wanting it to go away. That means you’ve got to put the mind in a position of strength, a place where it feels safe—not threatened or overwhelmed by the pain. So we … 
  8. Feelings of Unworthiness
     … As the Buddha said, nothing can change as quickly as the mind. There’s no analogy that he could give for how quick the mind is to change its course. Now, that can be a negative thing, but it can also be a positive thing, as when you have a good change of heart. You realize that your past may be bad—you either … 
  9. Mindfulness of Death
     … Finally, there’s discernment—seeing what’s skillful in the mind, what’s unskillful in the mind, and knowing how to talk yourself into doing what’s skillful and out of doing what’s unskillful, regardless of your likes or dislikes. When you reflect on the fact of your own death, remind yourself, “These are the qualities I’ve got to develop in myself … 
  10. Noble Ardency
     … If you’re very mindful and alert and ardent, the mind’s going to settle down. Right mindfulness is how you get the mind to settle down, and that’s how you get it to stay settled down. The quality of ardency in there is what gets the concentration stronger and stronger. Ardency is also very directly related to the development of discernment. As … 
  11. The Desire for Truth
     … If you’re not really clear about what you’re doing, how can you know the results of your actions? So you watch the mind. You’re alert to see what the mind is doing. You’re alert to the breath. And then when you learn anything about the relationship between the mind and the breath—how to get the mind to settle down … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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