Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 142
  2. Training Your Selves
     … You can’t get past it by saying, well, “I just won’t have a sense of self as I meditate.” We’re creating a state of becoming as we get the mind to settle in, with a world and a sense of you in that world. The world here, of course, is the world of your experience inside the body as you relate … 
  3. “My Way”
     … When the Buddha talks about the mind being luminous, he’s not saying that it’s necessarily good, just that you have this quality of being able to see things, observe things going on inside. In particular, the Buddha asks you to focus that power of observation on your actions—your thoughts, your words, and your deeds—to see where they’re coming from … 
  4. Attention & Intention
     … Some of them have only a little impact on the mind. Some of them have a huge impact on the mind. But they all bite, bite, bite away. Ajaan Fuang once described an experience he had in his meditation. Looking back on it, I’d say that he was probably talking about his experience of stream-entry. He said he came out of it … 
  5. The River of Karma
     … What kind of pleasure is good for the mind? You learn how to analyze that. What kind of pleasure is bad for the mind? Okay, learn how to develop the pleasure that’s good, i.e., the pleasure that comes from concentration, the pleasure that comes from generosity and virtue. You develop these forms of pleasure so that they can put the mind in … 
  6. A Good Dish of Concentration
     … We need to meditate to get the mind calm, so that we can actually see what’s going on, so that we can see what these aggregates are and why they’re suffering. There’s one analysis you hear sometimes, that the aggregates are the Buddha’s analysis of what we are: i.e., we don’t really have a self, but we are … 
  7. Seriously Happy
     … Now, part of the mind will say, “Yes, I’m satisfied. It’s good enough for me,” then there’s going to be a battle inside.” But you have to realize, when the Buddha’s talking about the bad sides of certain kinds of pleasure, it’s not because he’s down on pleasure. It’s simply because he wants you to raise your … 
  8. Self-Starting
     … You realize there are certain needs for the mind, certain needs for the heart, that can’t be met by ordinary social arrangements. You have to train from within, and fortunately the Buddha set out a good course of training. This is where traditional Buddhist countries differ from ours: They have a system of training for people who want to drop out, basically, whereas … 
  9. Living Forward, Understanding Backward
     … They’re created in the mind. They’re not necessarily a given. What are they made out of? Physically, they’re affected by the breath. Inside the mind, they are affected by the kind of conversations the mind has with itself, and also by feelings of pleasure and pain, neither pleasure nor pain, and perceptions—the labels we put on things. As we meditate … 
  10. The Regularity of the Dhamma
     … to put the mind in a good position to see things clearly and carry out its appropriate duties. Actually, when the mind is in right concentration you’re standing where the Buddha stood when he discovered all of these things. It’s from this point of view that you can see: “This is the intention; this is the act of attention; this is the … 
  11. Protection Through Mindfulness Practice
     … One main problem is that when something comes up in the mind we tend to think of it in terms of our own vocabulary. Lust comes up and our vocabulary says that it’s something good. Anger comes up and even though part of us may think that it’s not all that good, another part of us really likes it. This is why … 
  12. Self-starting
     … This is why we train the mind. Actions come from the mind and, fortunately, the mind can be trained. It’s not stuck in either an innate bad nature or an innate good nature. It’s got a changeable nature that can be molded, directed to freedom from good or bad natures. We don’t usually think about being trapped in a good nature … 
  13. Gifts of Noble Wealth
     … For the Buddha, the precepts are a means for the higher stages of training the mind. They help you develop more alertness, more mindfulness, getting you to reflect on your actions and their consequences. And learning some restraint, because if you don’t have restraint, mindfulness, and alertness, then you’re never going to be able to get anywhere in your meditation. So using … 
  14. Meditation as a Skill
     … In other words, you monitor how the mind is doing with the practice and learn ways to adjust things so that you’re happy to keep with the practice. You can maintain that level of persistence without its getting dry, without its getting boring, without the mind rebelling. You begin to notice patterns, cycles of ups and downs, plateaus, and you learn to realize … 
  15. Merit: Actively Happy
     … When you can look at your mind and say, “There’s nobody for whom I have any ill will,” it makes the mind more expansive. This can actually protect you from some of your past bad actions, in the sense that the results coming from your past bad actions don’t have as big an impact on the mind in the present because the … 
  16. Everything Comes Together Right Here
     … How does the breath feel right now? Does it feel comfortable? The Buddha talks about perception and feeling as being mental fabrications because of the impact they have on the mind. But they also have an impact on the breath. The way you picture the breath to yourself will have an impact on how it feels and where the sensations are that you notice … 
  17. Noble Happiness
     … As for the mind, though, there’s a question: Does it have to feed or can it be independent? So we look inside to see. We start out with something really basic. Focus on the breath. Notice when the breath is coming in; notice when it’s coming out. Think about the breath. Keep the breath in mind. That’s mindfulness. And then be … 
  18. Strengthening Discernment
     … The best way to do that with your meditation is to mix the fabrications of your mind and your body in a way that gives rise to a sense of real stillness, so you can see things very, very clearly and, in the course of getting there, you really come to understand how the mind acts. This is how it deals with the breath … 
  19. Attachment to Views
     … How does the mind move in to ruin what’s just happened? That happens very, very often. There are many layers to the mind. Something happens and there’s a nice letting go, and then you clamp onto that, and that’s it as far as that particular insight goes. You have to wait to see what’s going to come up next and … 
  20. True Values
     … It starts with conviction that the quality of the mind state with which you act is really important. If you act with skillful intentions, the results are going to be good. You’re convinced of that. If you act with unskillful intentions, the results are going to be bad. This is very different from what the world tells us. Success in their eyes can … 
  21. The Body Doesn’t Care
     … But the fact is that, as you’re getting the mind to stay with the breath, the breath is like a mirror for the mind. You begin to see things in the mind you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. In particular, when you follow the Buddha’s instructions on breath meditation as they relate to the processes of fabrication, you see how the way … 
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