Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Basic Intro
     … That’s getting the mind in position. The difficult part about training the mind is not getting in position, it’s staying in position. You’ve got to watch over your mind to make sure it doesn’t go wandering off someplace else. If you catch it wandering off, bring it right back. Ask yourself, where could the breath be more comfortable? Then breathe … 
  3. Breath Meditation – The Four Tetrads
     … What effect do they have on the mind? What can stimulate the mind or gladden the mind, as the Buddha says? Does the mind need to be made more steady and concentrated? If so, which perceptions and feelings make it more steady? And if there’s anything that’s not skillful in the mind, how go you release the mind from it? “Release,” here … 
  4. Abandoning Effluents (2)
    Luang Pu Dune, one of Ajaan Mun’s most senior disciples, had a famous short explanation of the four noble truths, in which he said that the cause of suffering is the mind flowing out. The path to the end of suffering is the mind knowing the mind. This teaching fits in with what the Buddha taught about asavas, or effluents: the things that … 
  5. Getting Familiar with Concentration
     … You’ll learn some interesting things about the mind in the process of training it to stay still. So it’s not that you practice concentration without any insight at all. As the Buddha said, tranquility and insight are both necessary to get the mind into good solid concentration. In this case, the insights will be insight into how to get the mind to … 
  6. Hunker Down
     … right back at the mind, right back at the breath. The talk is just shadows, words, names for the Dhamma. The actual Dhamma is there in the mind. There might be kusala dhamma or akusala dhamma, in other words, skillful or unskillful qualities in the mind, but the Dhamma’s right there in the mind, good or bad: That’s what you’ve got … 
  7. Useful Thinking
     … It usually happens that when the mind is wandering off, it’s about to make a decision about what it wants to do in the present moment, or has already made the decision and wants to implement it and doesn’t want you to know. Or one part of the mind is doing this, another part of the mind is being kept in the … 
  8. What We’re Here to See
     … If you want to learn about the mind, you have to give the mind something to do, but you want that something to be very focused here in the present so that you can observe the machinations of the mind clearl. This is why we bring it to the breath. The task at hand now is to develop concentration around the breath, or if … 
  9. Magha Puja
     … This desire to be skillful is what leads the mind to concentration. And it goes beyond that. You begin to purify the mind. In other words, you gain insight into the ways the mind creates suffering for itself, and you learn to let go. You do this bit by bit by bit, even as you’re practicing the precepts, developing the mind in concentration … 
  10. Responsible Conviction
    Meditation is a process by which you develop good qualities in the mind, qualities like mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration. We do this because we believe in the power of the mind. The mind is not just on the receiving end of material events. By working on the mind from within, you can make big changes in your life, big changes in the world around … 
  11. We All Start with an Impure Heart
     … The more you can act on it, the more it becomes a tendency of the mind. In his terms, it “bends” the mind in the right direction. The intentions that you act on are the ones that bend the mind. So even though it may be a struggle, when the skillful desire has the last word, that’s what’s going to bend the … 
  12. Giving Weight
     … This way, the mind gains a sense of its own importance—that by staying safe inside, you really can function a lot better. If you look after the mind, it really can help you in lots of ways. Ordinarily, we don’t take much care to look after the mind. We think the mind can take care of itself as it does its daily … 
  13. Inner Wealth
     … Try to stay there, both so that you can observe the breath carefully and so that you can begin to observe the mind carefully, while at the same time giving the mind a place to settle down. The mind needs a place to settle because that’s where the mind gains its sense of well-being: in its ability to stay in one place … 
  14. The Gatekeeper Doesn’t Just Note
     … With all this analysis and everything, nothing seems to be clearing up the mind. Well, that’s because the mind still hasn’t opened up to itself. When we talk about being quickly alert to whatever comes up in the mind, it’s that question of the allure. You have to look really carefully for that, because it whispers in the mind. It’s … 
  15. Admirable Intentions
     … Intentions are food for the mind. Just as the body has good food and bad food, the mind has good food and bad food as well. If you want the mind to be strong, you have to feed it good food. It starts with generosity, virtue, and developing good qualities in the mind. Of course, with generosity and virtue, you’re already developing good … 
  16. But Not Sick in Mind
     … The desire to make the mind skillful, the desire to bring the mind to concentration: That’s part of the path. It’s not a cause of suffering. There will be some suffering in the sense that if you want the path to show its results and they’re not happening, that’ll weigh on the mind. But that, the Buddha said, is actually … 
  17. The Five Strengths
     … You’re here to look after the mind. The mind spends its days looking after all kinds of other affairs—your affairs, other people’s affairs. Just looking after the body is a major issue—trying to find food, clothing, shelter, or medicine—and that’s just the body. Then there are also all the other people around you. So the mind ends up … 
  18. Not Siding with the Hindrances
     … Why does the mind suddenly find the new idea so attractive? Part of the reason is simply that mindfulness is weak. The habit of the mind is that it tends to flit around. It tends to forget very easily. You have to consciously sew one moment of alertness to the next one, to the next one, to the next one, if there’s going … 
  19. Look after Your Baby
     … The mind may be with the breath, or part of the mind is with the breath, but it’s not the whole thing. Something else is already sneaking off to go someplace else. And you want to see that. In other words, you have to get the mind so that it doesn’t keep lying to itself. So remember, the mind will slip off … 
  20. Disposable Worlds
     … You’re creating a special place for the mind to settle in, so that it can be at ease in the present moment, so that it can be stable in the present moment. Once it’s stable and at ease in the present moment, then it can see things a lot more clearly, especially what’s going on inside the mind itself. The problem … 
  21. The Right Medicine
     … That’s why we work with the breath, both because the breath can be very calming—it can provide a good, steady foundation for the mind so that it can stay continually in the present and feel content to stay in the present—and also because the breath is about as close as you get to the mind without actually focusing on the mind … 
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