Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Equanimity Isn’t Apathy
     … Learn to develop the mind that’s like earth. Learn to develop the mind that’s like fire—not in the sense of burning you up, but in the sense of being willing to burn anything, likable or not. That’s its natural duty. Think of the meditation as your natural duty. You’re here in this body. This body is causing suffering for … 
  3. Preparing to Die Well
     … Like having a set of tools that you use to work on the mind: When the mind has been fully shaped, fully developed, you put the tools down. This is how we prepare for death so we can learn how to do it well. As Ajaan Lee said, most people die without any rhyme or reason, flailing around and latching onto whatever the mind … 
  4. Self-Hatred
     … This way, you can catch any movements of the mind. The more you get to know the mind, the more you realize that it’s not just stuff going on in the brain. Thoughts are often related to patterns of tension associated with different parts of the body. A lot has been written about how the body contains a lot of memories. They’ve … 
  5. The Art of Right Speech
     … We’re not just memorizing words or ideas; we’re learning how to deal skillfully with issues in the mind. And the first principle in that skill, he would say, is how we relate to the breath, because there are many layers in the mind. Some are more conscious than others, and one of the ways we get in touch with some of the … 
  6. A Complete Training
     … The best way to understand the mind is to realize it’s not just mind, it’s heart as well. The functions that we assign to the heart in English and the functions that we assign to mind all come under the one word citta in Pali. You find this also in many other languages in Asia that have been influenced by Buddhism. After … 
  7. Two Kinds of Cross-Questioning
     … But as the mind begins to settle down, you want to understand how you got it to settle down. When the mind is not settling down, you want to ask: “What’s going on here? What am I doing that’s getting in the way of its settling down?” In some cases, it’s simply the fact that you’re carrying a lot of … 
  8. Respect Your Center
     … I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say, “Well, just allow the mind to settle in, and it’s just going to naturally grow without your having to really do anything about it.” In some cases, that’s true, but in a lot of areas, you have to go against tendencies of the mind that *seem *natural. You have to … 
  9. Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes
    When we talk about the committee of the mind, or when Ajaan Lee talks about all the various consciousnesses that may be hovering around your body, or when the Buddha talks about your thoughts being not-self, the purpose is to get some distance from those thoughts. But it doesn’t mean you have to distrust them. It simply means that you want to … 
  10. Sorting Yourselves Out
     … You want to simply allow it to be comfortable, to flow in different parts of the body, have a sense of the energy flowing all around without any obstacles, so that the parts of the mind that want to settle down will have some allies, and the part of the mind that wants immediate gratification, immediate pleasure, will be able to find it. That … 
  11. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … This is why we practice concentration, to give the mind that place to stay, a more secure foundation. In other words, when pain comes up, either a physical pain or mental pain, you don’t just go jumping right into it. Try to find the part the body and the part of the mind that’s not totally overwhelmed. At the very least, remind … 
  12. Overcoming Delusion
     … As we sit here meditating, there’s no question about what we’re doing or saying, it’s mostly about what we’re thinking, trying to train the mind to develop good qualities, so that its thoughts are skillful, i.e. appropriate: thinking when it’s appropriate to think and not thinking when you don’t have to. And a large part of the … 
  13. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … In fact, it becomes your sport, to see how you approach the issues of greed, anger, and delusion in the mind, all the various cravings in the mind, but not as someone who’s hungry. After all, that’s exactly what craving means. It’s a kind of hunger, a kind of thirst. If you see a craving arising, but you’re feeling full … 
  14. Your Inner Ally
     … This way, you strengthen your ally in getting the mind to settle down. So remember, you’re not going to get everything totally still. Some people think they have to get everything totally still before they can get the mind to settle down. Years back, when I ran Wat Dhammasathit, a monk came to visit, and he was complaining that there was no quiet … 
  15. Not Just a Witness
    I’m reading a book on the psychology of Now, how the mind creates its sense of what’s going on in the present moment. The author points out, as she goes from one revelation to the next, that we don’t just pick up stimuli from outside and then put them together to see what we’ve got. We anticipate; we generate perceptions … 
  16. Evaluation
     … After you’ve got the mind settled in and things are going well, you want to ask yourself, “What still needs to be done? What still is not quite right? What still is lacking? What are you doing that’s adding unnecessary stress or a burden on the mind right now?” The best way to see that is to watch for inconstancy. The level … 
  17. No Resistance
    Sometimes it seems that when you try to focus on the breath, the distracting sounds around you, other distracting things around you, impinge even more on the mind. But that’s simply because when you’re with the breath, there are not a lot of complications. When you’re thinking a complex thought, you have to block things out. The mind is very good … 
  18. Respect
     … It’s not simply by wishing or wanting that we can get there; we have to develop skillful qualities in the mind—like we’re doing right now: training the mind in mindfulness, training the mind in alertness. Keep the breath in mind—that’s mindfulness—and be alert to what the breath is doing. Know when it’s coming in, know when it … 
  19. What’s Getting in the Way
     … Where is the potential for rapture? Where is the potential for ease? Where in the mind is the potential for stillness? What would happen if you developed those potentials and kept at it? When, say, sensual desire does come up in the mind, what would it be like not to give in? And what would the mind need to do to be in a … 
  20. Victory in Battle
     … You’re trying to find freedom, but there are parts of the mind that are trying to keep you tied down, so you have to regard them as traitors, as enemies. You can’t identify with them. So there is a battle, but winning the battle inside doesn’t mean that you give up on winning some things outside. Look at the Buddha. After … 
  21. Potentials
     … There are potentials in the mind, like the potential for sensuality. It may lie latent, but it doesn’t take much to provoke it. And the fact that we have these potentials, both good and bad, is what allows us to practice. You probably know the passage where the Buddha says that you look at form, feeling, perception, fabrication and consciousness, and you ask … 
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