Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 145
  2. A Touchstone at the Breath
     … Where? Right here, where the mind and the body meet at the breath. So try to make this the point from which you come—this awareness of the body, awareness of the breath, awareness of the mind, right here at the breath. When other issues come up, you may want to look at the texts, but always take the answers and try to relate … 
  3. All of a Piece
     … It also supplies to actions in the mind as well. So the lessons you learn on the everyday level when seeing that the things you like to do give bad results, and you’re able to say no, that’s good practice for your meditation, good practice for gaining discernment, good practice for awakening. The principle applies all the way through. The same with … 
  4. The Reality of Your Thoughts
     … All these neurons firing and little thoughts appearing here and appear there, and there’s part of the mind that’s always trying to make sense out of these things. We’ve gotten pretty good at creating little thought-worlds—so good at it that we tend to forget that we’re in this process of creating all the time, and we often take … 
  5. Pull Yourself Up by Your Fetters
     … You push against them by developing the path, getting the mind into concentration. And it’s something you hold on to while you’re developing it. While you’re sitting here, hold on to the breath. The image that they give in the Forest tradition is of a red ant. They have these big red ants in Thailand that live up in mango trees … 
  6. Desire for Happiness
     … We’re developing qualities of the mind here. We’re not looking for little insights that we can wrap up and take home. We’re looking for skills. And this is the beginning skill: getting more and more sensitive to how the breath feels. It requires alertness, it requires mindfulness, and as these qualities get developed, those are the qualities you take home. Those … 
  7. The Discernment of a True Person
     … See exactly what is worthy of lust and why the mind wants to lust to begin with. The body is not the problem. But looking at its unattractive side at least helps to clear one of the issues out of the way. The mind is going to say, “That really is beautiful, how can I not lust for it?” So you look into it … 
  8. Guiding Truths
     … From there you develop all the other factors of the path, particularly right concentration, which gives the mind the strength it needs in order to pull away from the craving, to pull out of its old habits. Because the mind needs pleasure, you give it the pleasure of concentration. Once it has the pleasure of concentration, it has a point of comparison from which … 
  9. Merit & Skill
     … It’s only when you get to the level of non-returning that you can give simply out of a sense that this is a natural ornament, as they say, for the mind. It’s a natural expression of the mind state at that point. But prior to that point, all generosity is motivated by some thought of getting something in return. It’s … 
  10. The Brightness of Life
     … The problem is the clinging in the mind. It’s something the mind is doing, and you want to see the process. So he gives you these tools. This is where you look for the clinging: in the aggregates, in the different forms of fabrication, first in areas where it’s really obvious—when there’s greed or aversion—and then in the less … 
  11. A Becoming Critic
     … How do these states of becoming get started in the mind? One of the reasons we meditate is to get to know these states of becoming well. We’re going to be creating a state of becoming as we meditate. There’s you, the meditator. You’re identifying with your intention to get the mind to settle down, to stay with the breath. And … 
  12. Disenchantment
    One of the traditional principles of the teaching is that when the mind gains concentration, it’s able to see things as they are. Actually the Pali term means “seeing things as they’ve come to be.” There’s an interesting passage where the Buddha makes a distinction between bhava and bhuta. Bhava means a state of being, becoming, the process of becoming, which … 
  13. Determination
     … You develop the perfections of the mind in an imperfect world because it’s the qualities of the mind that really count. In another one of the Buddha’s teachings, he calls those your treasures—your noble treasures which, unlike the usual treasures of the world, can’t be affected by fire or water or all the other social forces out there that can … 
  14. Ven. Ananda’s Awakening
     … We’re thinking about our breath, because thinking about the breath gets the mind to settle down with a sense of ease in the present moment, which is where the work is to be done. Wanting to be balanced, at ease, happy to be in the present moment: That’s an important part of the path. The breath can help you because, of the … 
  15. Interconnectedness
     … So, when we practice, we make the mind stronger and stronger until ultimately it doesn’t need to feed anymore. It’s not like the body. The body always has to feed, but the mind—when it reaches a certain level of strength—opens up to something totally other where there’s no need to feed. That’s the “good news” of the Buddha … 
  16. You Are Not Redundant
     … You can choose to be generous, you can choose to be virtuous, and above all you can choose to train the mind. This is something you are directly responsible for. The better the training you give to the mind, the more important you are. There’s an interesting Dhamma talk by Ajaan Mahā Boowa that I translated one time. It was one of the … 
  17. Body Contemplation
     … It’s a good practice to have done when the mind is trying to figure out where to go. While you’re alive, it’s good for dealing with lust or with any sense of pride around your body. In the Forest tradition, they teach two kinds of body contemplation. One is taking the body apart into its component parts, visualizing the different parts … 
  18. A Frame for the Day
     … You begin to notice that you begin to give rise to feelings of pleasure—a sense of ease in the body, ease in the mind—all because you made up your mind to focus on a particular topic and to stick with it, and to do it as skillfully as you can. Eventually, we’re trying to develop a sense of disenchantment with fabrications … 
  19. Alternative Conceptions
     … And then the concentration then becomes a good basis for insight, not simply because it makes the mind still enough so that you can see, but also because, in the process of creating the concentration, you’ve learned a lot about how the mind puts things together. This is why the Buddha, when teaching meditation, simply said, “Go do jhāna.” He didn’t say … 
  20. Skillful Distress
     … Now, most people think that the way out is to go for householder joy—in other words, trying to find sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, or ideas that give refreshment to the mind, happiness to the mind; or for householder equanimity—looking for things that will calm you down in terms of those six senses. But the problem with the senses is that … 
  21. Noble Conversation
     … Things in the mind go up; things in the mind go down. If they can go down, they can go back up again. That’s a case where conversation is actually helpful. This is one of the skills of being a meditator: knowing what to talk about, when and where to talk about it, and who to talk about it to. The Buddha discusses … 
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