Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. The Gift of Discernment
     … You have a sense of what you should do, because the mind, after all, is an active faculty. It doesn’t just sit here passively receiving things. Raw material comes in, and you shape it. As long as the mind is going to be active, that’s its primary need: knowing how to shape things properly. The Buddha can’t change what raw material … 
  3. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … So you bring to the mind questions framed in these terms as you’re sitting here meditating. When the mind settles down, don’t question it too quickly. But once you’ve really settled down and gotten a sense of being here solidly with the real sense of singleness, then you can ask yourself, “Is there still some disturbance here?” Here we’re not … 
  4. A Gift of Well-Being
     … Where do your actions come from? They come from the mind, the state of the mind right now. If you learn how to tend to that state, your actions will be a lot more skillful and a lot more appropriate for the situation. It’s in this way that the meditation is a gift to yourself and to other people, just at the practice … 
  5. Attachment to Precepts
    One of the fetters that ties the mind down is something called, in Pali, sīlabbata-parāmāsa. Many times, you see it translated as “attachment to rites and rituals” or “attachment to precepts.” I know not a few people out there who say, “Well, that’s one fetter I’m not attached to. I’m not attached to rites, rituals, or precepts. I just do … 
  6. Character
     … You want to pay attention to what you’re doing right here, right now, and especially paying attention to keep the mind with the breath. If the mind wanders off, you notice that, so that you can bring it right back. And that’s done by the third quality, ardency. This is when you’re trying to do it well. And it’s in … 
  7. Love is Conditional, Goodwill Is Not
     … When the body is disturbed, then the mind is disturbed. And when the mind is disturbed, then the breath gets disturbed. It’s a vicious cycle. Now we’re trying to cut that cycle. But it means that we’ll have to notice what kind of habitual patterns we already have: where they’re useful, where they’re not, why they need to be … 
  8. Patterns to Happiness
     … You evaluate the object to see what’s working in the sense of getting the mind to settle down. For instance, when you’re focused on the breath, you can play with the breath in different ways: long in, long out, short in, short out, long in, short out, short in, long out. Try to see what rhythm feels best for the body right … 
  9. Near to the Buddha
     … We meditate on the mind; we meditate on the breath. The breath is the closest thing in the world to your mind. Even in your own body, there’s nothing that’s closer to you than the breath. When you learn to develop qualities of mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration, discernment around the breath, then every time you breathe, there they are, right nearby. In … 
  10. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … If you’re willing to watch the breath, get to know it, play with it a bit, try to see what kind of breathing feels good, it gives you an anchor in the present moment so that the mind isn’t running out after all kinds of things. It’s got a basic sense of well-being right here. In the beginning, the well … 
  11. Right Livelihood
     … The only way the mind can stand up to that kind of contemplation is if you’ve got the strong sense of wellbeing that comes from nourishing the mind with right concentration. Otherwise, the insights that can come from meditation, if you don’t have a good solid foundation like this, can be disorienting, destabilizing. So as the foundation for your practice, you want … 
  12. A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness
     … What we’re trying to do here is to teach the mind to find something deep inside that doesn’t need to feed. That goes against the grain because all we know is feeding, either physically or mentally, emotionally. Because this is the only way the mind seems to know how to function, we’re not willing to pull away and say “Oh, there … 
  13. Fear of Death
     … That inclines the mind to realize that maybe your awareness could exist without body, and it would actually be a good thing. As for the fear that you’ll be missing out on human sensuality, here again, you need an alternative pleasure. In this case, it would be the pleasure of any of the jhanas. Get the mind focused on the breath, and the … 
  14. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … If you have some unskillful habits, you have some well-worn pathways in the mind, and it’s very easy to run down them, especially if you’re feeling hungry for pleasure or if you’re feeling some sort of lack or - disease inside. You go running out with whatever comes into the mind and then takes you away. But if you’ve got … 
  15. To the Far Shore
     … If something unskillful comes up in the mind, you want to see it as soon as it comes, so that you can see what’s causing it—what incites it. The Buddha uses the word samudaya, which translates as “origination.” When he uses that word, he’s usually talking about causes coming from within the mind itself. So, say, when sensual desire comes up … 
  16. Treating the Diseases of the Mind
     … It’s in the interaction of the body and the mind right at the breath where you learn an awful lot about the mind. When you’re feeling lazy, you might want to contemplate death, realizing that it could come at any time. The question always is, are you ready? And the answer almost always is, “Not yet.” Ask yourself, “Why? What’s standing … 
  17. Horror Stories
     … As I said earlier, the place where you’re going to find awakening is a place you’ve been many, many times before, just focused in the present moment, noticing how the breath changes, how it has an impact on the body, how it has an impact on the mind, how the mind has an impact on the breath, and how your perceptions have … 
  18. Goodwill Without Limits
     … It requires both the heart and the mind: heart in the sense of your intentions, what you will, what you aspire to in life; and your mind in the sense of trying to figure things out: How do you find a happiness like that? So in training yourself in the brahmaviharas, you’re training both the heart and the mind. The heart in the … 
  19. Not-selfing Your Selves
     … You note them so that you can recognize, “Okay, this is an event in the mind.” Then the question is, “What is the impact of this event?” And particularly these voices in the mind, what are they saying? Why are they saying it? What’s their reasoning? Where do they really lead? This is what the investigation is all about, so that you can … 
  20. Saṃvega & Pasāda
     … Trying to get the mind in concentration is good for you and for the people around you. As the Buddha said, if you don’t have the sense of pleasure that comes from getting the mind into concentration, then no matter how much you may see the drawbacks of sensuality—of being attached to the body—you’re going to go back to sensuality … 
  21. Truths of the Will
     … So learn to be clear about your intentions, recognizing which ones you should cultivate, which ones you should drop, so that the truth of the path, that fourth truth, becomes a reality in the mind—and the third noble truth, the end of suffering, will become a reality in the mind as well. That way, nibbāna, unbinding, total freedom from suffering, which actually goes … 
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