Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 133
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. Balanced Breathing
     … If you notice the mind slipping off, be meticulous about bringing it back. It’s the little things that are important. The Buddha has a teaching on little things that you’re not supposed to be careless about. You can’t be careless about little snakes, like baby rattlers. They don’t know how much poison to put into their bites, so they put … 
  7. The Anatomy of the Present
     … In fact, the Buddha actually gives priority to the present moment, and especially to what the mind is doing right now. There are some statements to this effect scattered around the Canon. It’s interesting that they’re rarely discussed. One is the pair of verses that starts the Dhammapada: “The mind is the forerunner of all things.” This means that everything you experience … 
  8. Expanded Possibilities
     … What can a human being do? Then, in the course of mastering the skills, in the course of training the mind, he looked at what you can learn about the mind, and what you can come to know. He found that there’s something deathless that can be attained through human effort. He looked back and realized that if you identify yourself or define … 
  9. Cornered
     … You begin to notice the machinations in the mind: Even on a subtle level like that, they’re there. At the same time, you realize that anywhere else you could go would also be fabricated—so you incline the mind to something that’s not fabricated at all. But here, again, the Buddha has you corner yourself with discernment. He wants you to think … 
  10. The End of Karma
     … And where do our actions come from? They come from the mind. So focus your mind right now. It’s hard to focus right away at the mind directly, so focus on something really close to the mind. Focus on the breath. Think of the breath not so much as the air coming in and out through the nose, but the flow of energy … 
  11. Stay Tuned
     … You can see the slightest movements of the mind. When there’s a sense of ease and well-being, the mind begins to open up, so that whatever insights it gains go really deep and change things inside. But your duty for now is to stay tuned, stay planted right here. Learn how to take delight in the station you’re tuned to, take … 
  12. A Sense of Well-being
     … Only when you make the mind really, really quiet can you begin to sense the shadow radiation put off by the mind. Only then can you sense how much that energy shapes your experience, how much it affects the experience of the people around you. This is why the Buddha put so much emphasis on the question of intention, because that’s where the … 
  13. Ironclad Technique vs. No Technique
     … Sometimes the mind needs to be made more alert, and at other times it needs to be calmed and soothed. Different ways of breathing will function in different ways, and you learn this by playing with the breath and gladdening the mind. If you simply put the mind into shackles, saying, “You’ve got to do this, this, this, and nothing else,” there’s … 
  14. A Mind Like Earth
     … Because after all, mindfulness means remembering, remembering what to do in situations where the mind is relatively tame and what to do in situations where the mind is getting upset. In other words, the practice is not for just perfect places. We don’t have to run away to retreats to do it. The practice is for an imperfect world, because where else are … 
  15. The World of Conviction
    The World of Conviction March 27, 2017 One of the mind’s habits is to create states of becoming, involving both the world outside and your own inner world, the world of the mind. You start with a desire and then, based on that desire, you take on an identity in a specific world of experience. If you have a desire for pizza, the … 
  16. Chanting Before Meditation
     … how to breathe in a way that the mind and the breath fit together well, so that you feel at home right here. When you feel at home, then it’s very easy to watch what’s going on in the mind. You follow what the Buddha says is mindfulness as a governing principle. If there are good qualities that are not here yet … 
  17. Imagining Freedom
     … Where is the pain the worst? What shape does it have? How do I picture it to myself? How does that picturing it make the pain worse? Why is it that physical pain makes inroads into the mind? This is one of those things we take for granted—that the mind has to be pained by physical pain—but it doesn’t have to … 
  18. A Victory that Matters
     … What in the mind fights that by saying that other things you’d rather do are more important? The part of the mind that tosses up all kinds of obstacles. You could go along with the obstacles and block your path, or you can take the Buddha’s approach by looking at how suffering feels from the inside and how all the processes that … 
  19. Practical Wisdom
     … In other words, when you know that there’s greed, anger, or delusion in the mind, you can make up your mind not to follow them. That requires mindfulness, it requires alertness. Even better, when the pleasure or the pain arises, is when you can just be right there with the pleasure or the pain and not give rise to craving, not give rise … 
  20. The World Is Aflame
    The eye is burning; the ear, the nose, tongue, body, the mind is burning. All six senses, the Buddha said, are burning with aging, illness, and death; passion, aversion, delusion. And those six senses are both his definition of the world and his definition of old kamma. It’s not a very life-affirming or world-affirming view, but it does affirm something else … 
  21. Meticulousness
     … The attitude you take toward your surroundings is indicative of your attitude toward what’s going on in the mind. Ajaan Lee tells the story of Ven. Sariputta putting on his robe, noticing that there were some leaves on the ground where they shouldn’t be. So, even while he was putting on his robe, he used his foot to move the leaves into … 
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