Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Inner Baggage
     … the questions you ask in the mind, the way you evaluate things, the way you think about things, the way you verbalize issues in the mind. You begin to see that there are skillful ways of doing this and unskillful ways—burdensome ways and unburdensome ways. Ways that help relieve the unnecessary suffering inside: Those are useful ways of thinking, useful ways of directing … 
  3. Beginner’s Mind
     … When the mind is open in this way, all the useful things you’ve learned in the past are right at your fingertips as well. So when they talk about Beginner’s Mind, it doesn’t mean that you’re totally ignorant, totally forgetful of lessons you’ve already learned. It’s just that you look at things in a fresh light, both what … 
  4. Self-doubts
     … You realize there are things you don’t know, and something in the mind wants to find out. That kind of doubt is actually encouraged. It’s the doubt that has no curiosity: That’s what you’ve got to watch out for. And that can either be doubt about the practice or doubt about your ability to do the practice. If it’s … 
  5. Seeing with the Body
    Seeing with the Body January 6, 2006 One of the Buddha’s essential insights was that the suffering that really weighs down the mind is a suffering we create — and it’s unnecessary. Even though we create it and we suffer from it, we cling to it. This has some unexpected implications. One is that for a lot of us, if we didn’t … 
  6. What’s Real
     … The Dhammapada begins with two verses that start, “The mind is the forerunner of all things that are experienced.” That’s a very anti-materialist statement right there. The mind is not just on the receiving end. It’s not just what they call an epiphenomenon of physical things. The mind is the major force in shaping your experience. This is why we have … 
  7. Wise Choices
     … You’ve got the mind thinking and aware. Those are your raw materials. If you find it difficult to settle down with the breath, you can focus on other ideas that you find inspiring, things that encourage you to do what’s good, encourage you to do what’s wise. Then, when the mind is ready to settle down, it can stay with the … 
  8. Basic Wisdom
     … He recommends that you be generous, that you observe the precepts, and you develop good qualities in the mind through mindfulness and meditation, partly because these actions give rise to good results, and partly because he wants you to become sensitive to what you’re doing— because this is the big issue in life. We’re constantly doing, doing, doing things, and some place … 
  9. In the Driver’s Seat
     … Where you focus, how strong your focus is, what kind of image you have in the mind of how the breath is going to go—that will have an immediate effect on how the breath is experienced, so you want to take advantage of that. As for things you can’t control, you may have some pains in the body that come from past … 
  10. Delight in the Breath
     … If you don’t have this pleasure inside, he said, then no matter how clearly you see the drawbacks of sensuality, you’re going to go back for it, because the mind needs pleasure. It needs a sense of well-being. **So let’s try to provide it inside. As you’re sensitive to the breath, what is there in the breath that’s … 
  11. How to Look, How to Listen
     … to see the mind. We use the breath as bait to get the mind in the present moment, to clear things out in the body, so that they don’t interfere with your ability to observe your mind and to see what needs to be done. One thing you have to take into account, of course, is the amount of energy you have. Of … 
  12. Equanimity & Karma
     … But, as he explains, those extra arrows are the ones that actually weigh down the mind. That first arrow doesn’t have to weigh down the mind at all. So try to develop the right qualities of mind, which he enumerates as: one, the ability to develop unlimited goodwill and equanimity; two, working on your virtue so that you don’t have to criticize … 
  13. The Middleness of the Path
     … Or if you’ve been away from the practice for a while, the level of sensitivity in the mind is not what it was, particularly your sensitivity to what you’re doing. When this happens, get the mind to settle down at least a little bit and then just stay there for a while — it may not be perfect, but it’s good enough … 
  14. The Buddha’s Program
     … It makes a pairing between assumptions and release, because only in release is the mind is totally beyond the influence of past assumptions. Even the Buddha’s teachings, as he lays things out, are there as assumptions for you to fall back on, to guide your actions—as long as you have to be acting. After all, you assumed yourself into being a being … 
  15. Antidotes for Clinging
     … It’s when you grab on, it’s when you cling, that stress comes into the mind. You create a clinging-aggregate. You create a connection. This is stress in terms of the four noble truths. Wherever there’s craving, there can be clinging, and the clinging to the aggregates is the stress that really weighs on the mind. When we practice, our main … 
  16. The Search for Happiness
     … Actually it’s what the mind’s been doing all the time as it talks to itself: You direct your thoughts to a topic and then you pass an evaluation on it. When we practice concentration, we’re taking this habit of the mind, which we’ve been doing willy-nilly, and using it for a happier purpose. So it’s good to be … 
  17. Staying Power
     … The meditation will cut a few broad swaths through the mind, but a lot of the really important work will remain undone. You have to have the kind of patience to see: When a thought comes into the mind, how does it come in? When it takes root in the mind, how does it take root? What are the stages? You have to learn … 
  18. The Need for a Purpose
     … When the mind is beginning to settle down and part of it says, “Well, you’re not doing much thinking right now, it’s not very intelligent,” learn how to talk to yourself then. Remind yourself that this is an important skill: learning how to keep the mind content as it gets quiet so that it can see itself clearly. The quiet is not … 
  19. Bringing Daily Life into the Practice
     … If the mind were not actively involved in wanting to see and hear and engage with other senses, it wouldn’t receive any input. There’s an act of the mind that goes out to these things—flows out to these things, as they would say in Thai—and you want to watch for that. Who’s flowing out? Your greed and your anger … 
  20. A Good Independent Self
     … Talk to yourself about how well the mind is settling down with the breath. What can be done to fix the breath if they’re not settling down together? What can be done to the mind? That’s useful conversation, useful criticism. And finally, feelings and perceptions: We have our old perceptions that we keep plastering on to things, but those can be changed … 
  21. What Am I Becoming as Days & Nights Fly Past?
     … Sometimes, toward the end of the meditation, you might want to think about difficult situations that may come up in the course of the day, cases in which you’ve been behaving in an unskillful way in the past, and you can pose the question in the mind: How can you avoid behaving that same way over and over again? Give some thought to … 
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