Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. The Energy You Broadcast
     … It creates a better atmosphere, a better environment in which to allow the mind to settle down and really get still inside, so that you can send out even better energy. Of course, you’re not the only one picking up on that energy. People around you pick up on it as well. So both for your own sake and for the sake of … 
  3. Treasures from the East
     … And because your actions come from the mind, you have to be very careful about which things you allow to grow and develop inside the mind, and which you have to learn how to put aside. Like we’re doing right now as we meditate: We’re staying with the breath. We’re putting aside all other thoughts. We have to be watchful about … 
  4. See Your Thoughts as Strange
     … The Thai ajaans talk about the mind settled in, at ease, at equanimity, as the normal state of mind, or the mind at normalcy—in the same way as when you’re observing the precepts, they say that your behavior is finally at normalcy. But for most of us, that’s not our sense of normal. Distraction is our normalcy. The desires that flow … 
  5. Persistence
     … Anything that comes out of the mind based on greed, aversion, or delusion is going to be unskillful. Anything based on absence of greed, aversion, or delusion will be skillful. That means with your effort you have to notice when something comes up in the mind, where is it coming from? Then you have to decide what to do. The realization that you have … 
  6. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
     … We cling to fabrications, the way the mind puts thoughts together intentionally, and we cling to consciousness. And in clinging to these things, we make ourselves into a being. Why do we do that? Because of craving. That’s the second noble truth, the cause of suffering. We crave sensuality. We fantasize about pleasures that we’d like to get, and to get those … 
  7. Independent of the World
     … As the Buddha said, “There really is no happiness other than peace.” Of course, he’s talking about the happiness of the mind, the peace of the mind. When you find something that doesn’t change, that doesn’t disappoint, that’s not going to let you down—that’s when the mind can finally let go, put down the burden of its efforts … 
  8. Skillful Fear
     … In doing it, you get the mind to settle down, to have a sense of stillness. The mind is clearer because it’s not cluttered with a lot of thoughts. It’s centered and your awareness is broad. It’s the kind of awareness that’s good for the body, good for the mind—and you can see things going on in your mind … 
  9. You’re Doing Something Wrong
     … first, to get the mind into a proper, balanced state of rest. Sometimes you get so quiet that you fall asleep, which is not what you want. You want to be alert and still at the same time. You want to develop a quality of mind, an awareness, that fills the whole body. One way to get that full-body awareness is to work … 
  10. Disenchantment
     … Whereas the pleasure that comes simply from learning how to focus on your breath is not placing a burden on anyone, so it’s a type of food for the mind that’s really worth developing. As you develop a sense of oneness with the food of concentration, you look at the other ways the mind has been feeding on things for its emotional … 
  11. New Eyes
     … You’ve got a means for getting back in touch with your body, fully inhabiting it, sensing the energy flow, to see how the energy flow can have an effect on the mind, how the mind has an effect on the energy. There’s a lot to explore here. It’s just a matter of adjusting your eyes a little bit. Try to look … 
  12. The Buddha’s Basic Therapy
     … That’s what really weighs the mind down. The mind doesn’t have to be weighed down, no matter how bad things get outside. So all these teachings—even though they may sound strange in the Pāli, or in the way they’re phrased in the Canon—really are therapy. They get the mind in the right position, a healthy position, so that it … 
  13. Gaining the Dhamma Eye
     … that you’re going to try to get beyond all of your attachments to your emotions, all your attachments to everything that colors the mind, that obscures the mind. You’re going to focus on the purity of your own mind as your main goal, because that’s ultimately what dispassion means. You’re not going to let your mind get clouded by its … 
  14. The Thread of Mindfulness
     … You want to keep a picture in mind that’s going to be helpful in getting the mind to settle down and then learn to stick with it. As you go through the various levels of concentration, the object gets a lot more refined. Sometimes you want to rush to the more refined levels when you’re not quite ready. Say you’re working … 
  15. Happy About Kamma
     … This is why we train the mind. This is why training the mind involves sitting here with your eyes closed, watching the movements of the mind. It’s so that you can understand what you’re doing—first by seeing clearly what you’re doing. If you see that you’re making some unskillful choices, you can unmake them, because there is that element … 
  16. Don’t Leak Out Your Ears & Eyes
     … And that’s why the mind gets sick: from lack of restraint of the senses. Remember that these two things go together: concentration and restraint of the senses. The concentration gives restraint of the senses a foundation, and the restraint of the senses gives protection for the concentration. When they work together, the mind will be healthy and strong. That’s the kind of … 
  17. More than Mindfulness
     … Where did it start in the mind? To see that, you have to get to it faster and faster. Which means that you have to strengthen the intensity of your concentration on the one hand, and to refine your sensitivity on the other, so that even the slightest amassing of tension, building up of tension, is something you can detect and disperse, detect and … 
  18. Choosing to Believe in Your Choices
    As you sit here focused on the breath, you’ll sometimes find that the mind is not with the breath. It’s someplace else. And when you notice that, you have a choice. You can either stay with that someplace else and follow whatever the thought is or you can come back to the breath. They’re both here: the thought and the breath … 
  19. Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)
     … After you’ve fed the mind well on concentration, you begin to look at all the other things that would pull you out of concentration, and you see that there’s greed or aversion or delusion involved in going after those things. So, to get past them, the first step is to see, when the greed or the anger comes, how does it come … 
  20. Pleasure & Pain
     … As you begin to take apart all these various strands of fabrication in the mind, you’re going to run across something that’s unfabricated, at the point where the mind has no intentions at all to weave things together. When that happens, it’s very dramatic. Things open up in a totally new way. That’s one of the main benefits that come … 
  21. With Reference to the World
    The body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, the mind in and of itself, mental qualities in and of themselves: Notice the “in and of itself” or “in and of themselves” here. That’s the important point of what we’re trying to focus on. Take the body, for instance. Just try to be with the sensation of the body you … 
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