Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 135
  2. A Friend When You’re on Your Own
    One of the paradoxes in the Buddha’s teachings about training the mind is that on the one hand he talks a lot about solitude, going off alone into the wilderness. But on the other hand, he also talks about the importance of admirable friends, as in that passage we chanted just now about associating with wise people and staying away from fools. After … 
  3. Generosity of Spirit
    Sometimes it may seem like a very selfish and self-centered thing we’re doing here, trying to get the mind into concentration, have a sense of ease and well-being inside. And although it is centered in yourself, it’s not self-centered in a selfish way. After all, the more well-being you can find inside, the less you feel oppressed by … 
  4. The Arrow in the Heart
     … This is why we get the mind into a state of concentration. It’s like relaxing around an arrow so as to minimize the pain in the mind and make it easier for us to pull it out. Even though concentration is not the ultimate ease and it’s not the ultimate happiness, still it gives us a period of rest and the ability … 
  5. Rapture
     … If you can nourish and protect this sense of fullness, then you begin to notice any movements of the mind that might disturb it. You see where the mind is hungry and how it often goes out looking for what’s basically junk food to assuage its hunger. Now, however, you realize you don’t have to do that, for you’ve got something … 
  6. Right Action
     … At the very least, meditating when the mind is messy gives you an opportunity to look at what a messy mind is like. Maybe with enough time, you’ll get tired of it, and want to do something about it. I’ve often found that one way of jumpstarting your practice is to make up your mind that you’re going to sit for … 
  7. Deconstructing Anger
     … One of the best times to see it is when the anger arises first, and then something in the mind says, “Let’s go with this.” And if you can say “No,” you have a good chance of hearing the mind’s argument as to why it doesn’t want to hear the “No,” why it just wants to push the “No” aside. Because … 
  8. The Buddha’s Filters
     … You’ve got the desire for quietude in the mind, for clarity in the mind. And your world is here in the body, as you feel it from within, in the present moment, and you are the meditator operating here. As you get clear about that, you begin to see that all the distractions that come up to disturb your concentration are also states … 
  9. Shoulds & Wants
    When you sit down and meditate and tell yourself you’re going to be thinking only about one thing — the breath — you find that lots of other thoughts come crowding in, lots of other voices in the mind. Some of them are helpful; a lot of them are not, because a lot of them come from a time when the mind was not trained … 
  10. Being Somebody, Going Somewhere
     … What’s the purpose of the well-being? It allows the mind to settle down so that it can see itself. What’s the purpose of seeing itself? You can detect any unskillful movements of the mind and hold them in check. As for skillful things, you can give rise to them and maintain them. So, there’s work to be done, good work … 
  11. Step by Step
     … There are lots of different voices in the mind, lots of different attitudes in the mind that would be all too happy to have you forget, because they have other agendas. So you have to stay right here. Pains may come up in the body, you’re going to stay right here. You may get tired or sleepy, you’re going to stay right … 
  12. Recollection of the Buddha
     … But there are other meditation themes that are, as he said, places where the mind goes foraging. These are mainly for motivation, for the times when the mind doesn’t want to settle down with the breath. You don’t feel up to it. You get discouraged, you’re lazy, or other moods invade your mind. It’s at times like that when you … 
  13. From Inconstancy to Dispassion
     … But if you can see the damage that that does to the mind really clearly, and you realize the allure is nothing, the mind is lying to itself: Once you see that the allure is a lie, then you can develop dispassion. And the dispassion here comes not with a sense of missing it, or regretting that you have to let it go. It … 
  14. Name & Form
     … As they look into their experience of the body, they begin to see more and more of the mind in action in the present moment. And through taking apart the activities of the mind, that’s when you open up to something that’s beyond name, beyond form. So pay a lot of attention right here.
  15. Samvega
     … Are you ready to go? What’s in the mind that’s not ready to go? You’ve got to deal with that. Then, as the Buddha says, when you find anything unskillful in the mind, you have to treat it the same way that a person whose head is on fire would try to put out the fire. You’re not just aware … 
  16. The Challenge of Right View
     … What right now is the suffering or stress that you’re feeling, and what’s the cause? Part of the reason for why the mind is suffering right now is something in the present moment. There are causes coming in from the past that may make you feel pain either in the body or in the mind, but how you react to them is … 
  17. Visakha Puja – Shaking the Earth
     … by trying to develop skillful qualities in the mind, as when we’re meditating right now. You focus on the breath. That’s called directed thought. And then you see if you can stay with the breath for long periods of time, because you’re trying to develop concentration. As the Buddha once said, that’s the heart of the path. All the other … 
  18. Perceptions Around Pain
     … In fact, if it weren’t for our mental actions right now, physical pain would not have an impact on the mind—and there would be no mental pain. That gives you something to think about and something to work with as you meditate. If pain arises while you’re meditating and all you do is complain about it, you’re not really learning … 
  19. Anger
     … We get used to looking at things in the mind in terms of the different kinds of fabrication: bodily fabrication, verbal, mental. Bodily fabrication being the in-and-out breath; verbal being directed thought and evaluation being the way you talk to yourself; and mental fabrication being perceptions—mental labels, acts of recognition, acts of imaging things to yourself—along with feelings. You use … 
  20. An Island in the Flood
     … Or you take feelings in and of themselves, the mind in and of itself, dhammas—mental qualities—in and of themselves, as your frame of reference. But the important thing is you don’t just stop with the frame of reference. You also engage in those other activities: being ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. This … 
  21. Now & at Death
    When you try to get the mind in concentration, there are five qualities that can get in the way, five ways of thinking. They’re called hindrances, nīvaraṇa: sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt. But these aren’t just obstacles to concentration. When the Buddha talks about the things you have to watch out for when you’re … 
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