Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 131
  2. A Poker Mind
     … figuring out what’s wrong with the breath, what’s wrong with the mind. And when the breath does get comfortable, the next question is what you can do to maintain that sense of ease and then let it seep through the body. You want to end up with a sense of pleasure suffusing the body and awareness suffusing the body, so that they … 
  3. Lessons from the Breath
     … You’re not trying to nail the mind down; you’re not trying to nail the breath down. You just want to keep track of how it’s coming in, how it’s going out. If you put too much pressure on it, it’s going to rebel, like a child who you beat too much, who you’re too harsh with. You have … 
  4. What Am I Becoming?
     … Is the mind staying with the breath? If it’s not, is it a problem with the breath or with the mind? You’ve got time to check these things out. Experiment with different kinds of breathing; experiment with different places of focusing your mind. If the mind’s hung up on some issue from the day, learn how to think about that issue … 
  5. Get Out of Yourself
     … There may be slight variations, but the Buddha said that when you’re practicing mindfulness, you should practice being aware of the body internally and also externally; being aware of feelings internally and externally; being aware of the mind, mental qualities internally and externally. Now, if you interpret mindfulness simply as being aware, that sounds very strange: You’re supposed to sit next to … 
  6. Up for the Challenge
     … This helps to counteract the mind’s tendency to worry about this, worry about that, be restless, fidgeting around. These are the five factors of concentration, the factors that go into getting your mind to settle down: singleness of preoccupation, directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure. They’re your weapons against the hindrances. They also speak to that part of the mind that wants some … 
  7. Your Gyroscope
     … When you find the mind suffering from pain, you ask yourself, “Where is the cause of that suffering?” It’s not so much in the physical pain. It’s in the clinging and craving within the mind. That’s where you want to look. When you adjust your understanding in this way, then when these waves of the world go up and down, you … 
  8. A Skillful Attitude
     … Getting the mind into position means focusing it on the breath. Wherever you sense the breath or the process of breathing, focus your attention there. And allow yourself to think of the concept of breathing in a wide way. It’s not just air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the whole energy flow in the body. And wherever in the … 
  9. Generating Energy
     … As for energy that comes from the mind, the Buddha talks about gladdening the mind: thinking about topics that give rise to a sense of inspiration. These can be the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, your own generosity, your own virtue. Sometimes putting the breath aside for the time being and thinking about these things can be very helpful. Thinking about the Sangha … 
  10. sBeyond Acceptance
     … It’s simply that you haven’t been paying careful attention, which is why that part of the mind gets away with doing what it wants. But there are other things in the mind where you give them your steady gaze and they stare right back. They’re not going to be embarrassed. That’s where you have to do what the Buddha calls … 
  11. Realizing Cessation
     … All dhammas have the mind as their forerunner, and they’re achieved through the mind. In other words, the mind is proactive. It’s because we sense this truth, even though we may not fully know it, that we give so much credence to our cravings, because we know it’s through our desires that we can get things done. Now, the question is … 
  12. The Buddha’s Secret Weapon
     … just having the mind still with a non-sensual comfortable sensation flooding the body, your awareness filling the body, so that the mind doesn’t feel constricted. It feels wide open, at ease. That satisfies the mind’s desire for pleasure. In fact, that’s a pleasure that’s much more encompassing, much more immediate than even sensual pleasure. And it’s much more … 
  13. The Making Of
     … Ask yourself, “Where is the breath comfortable? Where is it uncomfortable? How is it fitting in with the mind? How is the mind fitting in with the breath?” And when there’s a sense of ease, what do you do with it? In the Buddha’s images for the different jhānas, the first jhāna has the only image in which is a conscious agent … 
  14. Self Power, Other Power
     … If you mistreat him when he’s small, he’s going to remember that.” That principle applies to little tiny defilements in the mind. But it also applies to the good things in the mind as well. Whatever amount of concentration, whatever amount of mindfulness you’re able to muster: If you look after them, they’ll grow. And just because they’re not … 
  15. Furnishing Your Home for the Mind
     … This is the natural place for the mind to be. You drop the other thoughts and here you are with your breathing. Now, to stay here requires several qualities in the mind. You have to be alert to what’s going on. And at the same time you have to have some strategies for making this a nice place to be. You’re trying … 
  16. A Wilderness Mind at Home
     … See them simply as events coming and going in the mind, as part of a causal chain. When you think in certain ways, what happens as a result? It’s not an issue of whether you like or don’t like that thinking, just look at what it creates in the mind. If you see that it’s wreaking havoc in the mind, you … 
  17. Keeping Your Values Alive
     … the fact that there’s suffering and stress, and it’s caused by things that happen in the mind. So you want to learn how to change those causes so that the mind actually gets on the path to the end of suffering. You learn to look at issues in that way: Where is the stress here? What’s causing it? And particularly, what … 
  18. Lessons in Happiness
     … Keep reminding yourself, especially when the mind has this tendency to run away and be done with everything, that that’s not the Buddha’s way. The Buddha followed the path of exploring, cultivating, developing, letting go of what is unskillful, anything he could sense was a weight or burden on the mind, and then going to deeper and deeper levels, from body, feelings … 
  19. The Perception of Inconstancy
     … Some things in the mind are actually unskillful: There’s the dhātu of sensuality—in other words, this potential in the mind is lying there, waiting for something to provoke it—although, as Ajaan Lee noted, often it doesn’t wait. It goes out looking for things to provoke it. But then there are good potentials in the mind as well: There’s the … 
  20. Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources
     … We’re here because there are a whole range of virtues and good qualities we need to develop in the mind: both in the way we deal with other people and in the way we deal with the mind itself. And a large part of the skill we have to develop in the practice lies in learning how to balance these things out.
  21. Heedfulness
     … But the Buddha’s more concerned with the life of the goodness of the mind, its skillful qualities. And that’s really much more important. It’s why we’re here. We’re looking to keep the goodness of the mind alive so that it can develop even further to something that goes beyond good and evil, i.e. to the deathless. But the … 
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