Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Cutting New Paths in the Mind
     … Advanced Practice Cutting New Paths in the Mind October 10, 2011 When we’re taught to meditate, there’s so much emphasis placed on being in the present moment, not wandering off to the past and not wandering off to the future, that we tend to neglect a very important part of right effort, which is to prevent unskillful qualities from arising. To prevent … 
  3. Kamma & Rebirth
     … But if you did go on the assumption that this is part of a longer story shaped by your actions, and that your actions are shaped by your mind, you’d be sure to put more effort into training the mind to be meticulous and careful. You’d take whatever time and effort is needed to get the mind in good shape. This is … 
  4. Wisdom for Dummies
     … So you realize the mind has to be trained. That’s another basic principle of wisdom: that true happiness comes from training the mind, because the mind is what makes the choices. That’s why we meditate. And that’s why meditation requires that we focus our attention on the present moment, because these choices are being made right now. This again brings up … 
  5. Generating Desire
     … When you say you’re a contemplative, are you really a contemplative? Or are you just here as a tourist, checking it out, seeing what it’s like wearing robes, going for alms, playing the role of a monk? If you had any sense of honor, you’d want to make your mind the mind of a monk, the mind of a contemplative. This … 
  6. Caught in a Thorn Bush
     … When the pattern is laid out, you get the mind still, and then in that stillness you look for any disturbance—and here we’re not talking about disturbances coming from outside, they’re disturbances from within the mind itself—deal with whatever disturbances you can detect. As you get more and more still, you can begin to detect disturbances you didn’t even … 
  7. A Rite of Passage
     … It’s good to have some time away physically so that you can get off by yourself and then give yourself a place to stay in the mind so that you can step out of the thoughts, step out of the voices. This is one of the reasons why we work with the breath. It’s the closest thing to the mind that’s … 
  8. Four Roles to Play
     … As you get more familiar with what you’re doing—getting the mind to fit with the breath, getting the breath to fit with the mind; getting a sense of the whole body being aware; the breath going through the whole body; a sense of ease going through the whole body; everything coming together like this—you get more and more conscious of this … 
  9. Relate Everything to the Breath
     … To be aware of mind states, you want to relate the mind states to the breath. Mental qualities that either help you, like the factors for awakening, or hinder you, like the hindrances: Relate those to the breath. What kind of breathing helps to induce mindfulness? How is analysis of qualities related to the breath? Analysis of qualities means seeing which qualities in the … 
  10. Minding Your Own Business
     … So, as we sit and meditate, we’re learning to get down to the very basics of what’s our part of the body, what’s our part of the mind. When you’re sitting here in the body, what are you experiencing? You’re actually experiencing the breath energy. If it weren’t for the breath energy, you wouldn’t sense the body … 
  11. Great Expectations
     … The best way to do that is to get the mind really quiet, with a pleasure that’s not involved with sensuality. As the Buddha once said, if you don’t have this higher level of pleasure—the pleasure that comes from concentration, getting the mind secluded from sensuality and unskillful thoughts—then no matter how much you may know about the drawbacks of … 
  12. Brahmaviharas at the Breath
     … Hopefully, as you develop these skills in your meditation as they apply to the mind here, dealing with the present moment, looking after the mind’s well-being, you can apply them to the situations around you. Because a similar principle applies: You want to have goodwill for yourself and for everybody around you. If there are things you can do to help improve … 
  13. Pleasure & Pain
     … You can begin to see which part of the pain is physical and which is mental — in other words, which part of the pain comes from actions of the mind, the way the mind reacts to the raw data of physical pain, the way it puts a label on it, the way it constructs dialogues around it. All the wild beasts in your savannah … 
  14. Joy in Getting It Right
     … All the way up to, “It’s a natural ornament of the mind”—in other words, it’s just a natural expression of the mind, without your thinking about what you’re going to get in return. So you can work on your motivation. You can also work on your attitude. You’re not just going through the motions. You think: “Something really important … 
  15. How We Cling
     … But the real cause is the mind. It’s what the mind is doing. That’s where the real cure has to be focused. The mind has its addictions. It’s addicted to these activities. All too often, our ideas of the world and ourselves in the world and how things should be done aren’t providing us with very much pleasure, but we … 
  16. Safe Haven
     … As we’re meditating here, it’s one way of showing goodwill for ourselves, realizing that we have to train the mind if we’re going to find happiness. It needs some good basic qualities like mindfulness and alertness, and it needs a good safe place to do its work. It needs time out to do its work because it’s very delicate work … 
  17. Strength of Conviction: 1
     … Does it make sense? Does it seem like it’s going to be a good thing? What part of the mind is attracted to it? And if it’s the part of the mind that you feel is honorable and trustworthy, then you follow through. This, the Buddha said, is where you give rise to the desire to practice. And then you try it … 
  18. Kind & Happy
     … It’s so easy you focus on the breath once or twice and then go wandering off to tomorrow, wandering back into the past, picking your nose and scratching yourself—all kinds of things happen in the mind. Then you remember: “Oh, the breath!” You come back. That doesn’t develop anything. To develop qualities in the mind, you really have to stick with … 
  19. Against the Grain
     … If you don’t have that kind of pleasure, no matter how much you see the drawbacks of sensuality, you’re just going to keep going back to sensuality—because the mind’s hungry. So right concentration is a natural outgrowth of right resolve, the resolve to go beyond sensuality, providing a sense of well-being that doesn’t involve sensuality. Then, when the … 
  20. The Kamma of Concentration
     … Where is there still disturbance? And look for it not so much in things outside but in the actions of the mind. You see this especially clearly when you’re working with pain. The real disturbance there is not the pain. It’s the mind’s commentary, or the perceptions you’re bringing to it. The Buddha has that tetrad in his breath meditation … 
  21. Cut, Cut, Cut
     … But it requires a talent—the talent of stripping things down, taking things apart in the mind, so that things can be as simple as possible. This is one of the reasons why we train the mind in concentration in order to gain insight. You’re focused on very simple things here in the present moment: breath, awareness. And you’ll find out that … 
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