Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 129
  2. To Get Ourselves
     … It’s a way of developing a sense of detachment toward your food, a willingness to eat whatever you get, so it helps scrub away some of the defilements of the mind. The other reference to the customs of the noble ones is in the Canon, where the Buddha talks about four traditions of the noble ones. We chant it every now and then … 
  3. To Suffer Is an Active Verb
     … We look to see the level of suffering in the mind, and then try to see how it’s connected with what we’re doing. The Buddha says to watch it to see it go up and down so that you can detect the causes. When are you going to watch it best? When you’re getting the mind into concentration. That’s when … 
  4. Self-Reliance
     … The same principles apply to the mind. You have to watch the mind, live with the mind, watch its dealings, see how it handles hardships, see how it frames questions. Look at what kind of questions your mind is asking and how it goes about answering them. This way you get to know your own mind. You learn how to read your practice to … 
  5. Wisdom Through Doing
     … Anything unskillful comes up in the mind, you want to let it go. You should focus on the breath. Anything that’s not related to the mind and the breath together, just let it go. Give the mind some time to be by itself. You’re not concerned about anything else but just this awareness in the present moment, anchored in the breath with … 
  6. Can Do
     … It’s basically saying that you can get the mind into concentration and you can induce these things, you can follow these steps. What it means in practice is getting the mind still and then posing these questions. Say there’s a pain in the body, and it’s a sharp pain. It’s not the ordinary pains of just sitting and meditating. It … 
  7. Heedful of What’s Precious
     … When a skillful state arises in the mind, you want to figure out, “How do I keep it going?” If it disappears, you want to figure out, “Well, what happened? Why did it disappear?” Similarly with unskillful states: If you see something unskillful coming into the mind, you want to watch it with the idea of figuring out where it’s coming from so … 
  8. Take Good Aim
     … Firing accurate shots in rapid succession means being very clear about what’s going on in the mind, moment to moment, and especially clear about when suffering is arising there, how it’s arising, and how it can be brought to an end. Because the mind can change so quickly, you want to be able to see it very quickly. Piercing great masses means … 
  9. Always in Training
     … And so much of the goodness that the mind could do gets sacrificed for that. We have to realize that our values are backwards. It’s the mind that’s more important, and the body has to be there in service of the mind. This is where we get into the issue of the healthy positive and unhealthy positive body image. An unhealthy positive … 
  10. Body Contemplation Is Compassionate
     … When you leave this body, where are you going to go? If the mind has lots of attachments, it’s just going to grab onto whatever comes past, out of desperation. There’s work to be done so the mind doesn’t grab on like that. You really can make a difference in how you die by the preparatory work you do right now … 
  11. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … As you get the mind still with the breath and explore the potentials of the breath, you find that it’s good for the mind and for the body. Like right now, you can breathe in long or you can breathe in short—fast, slow, heavy, light, deep, shallow. These different ways of breathing will have a different effect on your body and on … 
  12. Listening to the True Dhamma
     … When it talks about perceptions, okay, you’re engaging in perceptions right now—whatever images you have of how the breath flows in your body, where you are in the body, what pictures you have in the mind. Are they the best pictures for getting the mind to settle down? The Dhamma points you to things you’re doing all the time but haven … 
  13. The Buddha’s Cure
     … So when the mind feels confident, feels calm, collected, you can see a lot more clearly, probe a lot more clearly. The parts of the mind that are recalcitrant, that are really clinging, can begin to loosen some of their grip, because they can see that they’re not being chased out for the sake of pain or harshness. They’re being chased out … 
  14. After-work Meditation
     … A part of the mind has a tendency to believe in the negative things more than in the positive, so it feels fake to remind yourself of how much you really do want true happiness. But don’t you want to happiness? Can’t you allow yourself to think that thought? Part of the mind will say, “But look at all these horrible people … 
  15. Calming Mental Fabrication
     … You can do this either just to get the mind to a spot where it feels really good and quiet, or to start understanding what’s going on in the mind—how it fabricates things. The best way to learn about the process of fabrication is to fabricate something really good. So he gives you some recommendations, and it’s good to keep them … 
  16. No Who or Where
     … This is a state of becoming that we’re creating as we get the mind into concentration, but the more you can keep it at the level of events, it’s a transparent* *becoming. You get to see the process as it’s happening. It enables you to see the process that happens when parts of the mind want to destroy the concentration and … 
  17. A Generosity of Spirit
     … But you realize that the mind becomes lighter as a result. It’s like the sandbags that hold down hot-air balloons. You give away the things that you’re holding onto, you cut off the sandbags, and the balloon can go higher and higher. The mind becomes more expansive, and that becomes the mind that’s in line with unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion … 
  18. The Graduated Discourse
     … So when you find the mind wandering off, remember those principles: generosity, virtue, the rewards of generosity and virtue, here on Earth and in heaven. But then the drawbacks—and these are the drawbacks of good actions. Can you imagine what the drawbacks of bad actions are? The drawbacks of acting on greed, aversion, and delusion? When you find the mind wandering off, try … 
  19. Verified Confidence
     … But as the Buddha himself said in many places in the Canon, the practice of the brahmaviharas, even though it leads to high levels of rebirth, doesn’t lead to dispassion unless you really look at the state of the mind that results from those brahmaviharas. After all, you can use the brahmaviharas to get the mind into good, strong concentration. There’s one … 
  20. The Joy of Monotasking
    Focus on one task—getting the mind to stay with the breath. We live in a society that values multitasking, but often when you do many tasks all at once, none of them gets very well done. And when we do many things all at once, we miss out on a lot. People who multitask and say that they get the tasks done just … 
  21. Uncertainty
     … If you’re bothered by these kinds of uncertainty, it’s hard for the mind to settle down. The Buddha talked about different ways of dealing with this hindrance of uncertainty, and the primary one is that you look carefully at your mind and ask yourself, “What am I doing, and what effect is it having?” You’re not going to overcome uncertainty by … 
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