Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Ups & Downs
     … After all, the mind is a complex process, with lots of different things going on all at the same time. And as with any complex system, sometimes one little thing can have a huge effect. Other times, a lot of effort seems to go nowhere. The effects come out some other place far away. So you have to maintain a certain equanimity about the … 
  3. All-around Knowing
     … The reason the mind slips off to the past or the future is because it gets very small. It’s as if the route to the past and the future is a little tube, and you usually make the mind small enough to fit down the tube. But here you’ve got the mind enlarged. It won’t fit. Another image is that when … 
  4. Death Is All Around
     … That’s good use of the body, because the mind benefits. Ultimately, you can put the mind in a position where it doesn’t need these things anymore, so it doesn’t need to hold on. That’s when it’s really well-off. If the body goes, it won’t have an impact on the mind. So think of the body as something … 
  5. Medicine – Timely & Timeless
     … Before you take up the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress and not-self, he has you develop other perceptions first—in particular the perceptions that lead the mind to concentration. While you’re here practicing concentration, focus in on your breath. What keeps you with the breath? A perception, a mental label that says “breath.” And a lot of the concentration practice is learning … 
  6. Right Effort & Right Mindfulness
     … the rest of the body, feelings, the mind that’s aware of the breath, mental qualities that are involved in staying with the breath. You stay with these things and put aside other contexts. In particular, you put aside the context of the world out there. Any greed or distress with reference to the world, any desires you have for the world, or any … 
  7. A Message for the Universe
     … That just stirs up the mind. You have to ask yourself, “Maybe I’m perceiving things wrong?” Well, what would a more accurate way of perceiving things be? What would be a more useful way of perceiving things? What would be more conducive to getting the mind to settle down? Remember, we’re doing all of this in the context of the four noble … 
  8. The Dhamma Wheel
     … to get the mind in a place where it can really discern the suffering. This is one of the reasons we have to get the mind so quiet and alert at the same time because when suffering happens it’s very hard to sort out exactly where it is and actually to perform the right duty, which is to comprehend it. Usually, our main … 
  9. Respect for the Triple Training
     … When you see that a certain type of behavior muddies the mind, you have to realize: How are you going to gain any discernment when you behave that way and the mind gets muddied? You have to behave in a way allows you to see things clearly. This relates both to the concentration and to the virtue. If we do things that are open … 
  10. Explore & Experiment
     … nourishment for the mind. So, explore this sense of the body as you feel it from within. At the same time, you’re beginning to explore the acts of the mind as they relate to how you feel the body from within. So you get both *nāma *and rūpa, both name and form. It’s through exploring these things that the Dhamma becomes yours … 
  11. Talking Among Your Selves
    It’s strange that the mind has to talk to itself. But then when you think about the different roles of self that function in becoming, you can understand. There’s the consumer self that wants to enjoy pleasure, the provider self that feels that it can provide for that consumer self by doing whatever’s needed to gain that pleasure. And then there … 
  12. Dependable Friends
     … If they’re not on good terms, the breath will start getting uncomfortable, and the mind will start getting uncomfortable and want to go off someplace else. So do your best to explore the breath, to get to know it. It’s not a matter of just sitting here and allowing it to come in and out any old which way. There’s always … 
  13. Large-hearted Equanimity
     … If something is subject to origination, one, it’s caused, and two, the cause comes from within the mind. And that thought, “Whatever is subject to origination,” occurs to the mind only when it’s come across something that is not subject to origination, an experience that is uncaused. ** In other words, as Sariputta told Moggallana—this was back when he had first gained … 
  14. Frame Your Questions Well
     … So you should simply allow the mind to wander as it likes. But that’s also creating a state of becoming, one in which there’s nobody responsible. And it certainly doesn’t create the path. The path is something you have to put together. It’s something you have to fabricate. It’s called a sankhara in Pali, a fabrication. And it requires … 
  15. Into the Light of Consciousness
     … If you’re very clear about the choices you’re facing and the impulses in the mind that would want you to make one choice over another, then you can apply the Buddha’s teachings more systematically, more consistently, and benefit from them more consistently. So it’s good to know what patterns of judgment you need. We’ve been talking for the past … 
  16. Teachings to Rahula
     … Does the mind fit with the breath? Do they feel good together? Does the breath feel good with the body? How do you know? Well, stick with one kind of breathing for a while and see what impact it has on your sense of the body—by working on things as you feel them from within. This is an area of our awareness that … 
  17. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … So your first duty is trying to understand when there is suffering the mind—and that can be anything from really heavy suffering to subtle stress. What is it? How does it come? How does it go? When you see it come and see it go, what else comes and goes along with it? That’s when you begin to catch sight of the … 
  18. Choose Your Battles
     … So here we are on a long-term project, cleaning out the mind. It’s like cleaning out an enormous house that’s been vandalized and has had all kinds of animals moving in. Nobody proper has lived there for a long time; nobody’s been cleaning it up. It’s full of all kinds of junk, all kinds of garbage. There are a … 
  19. Outside the Box
     … It could be a fever in the mind, a fever in the body—not so much a physical fever, just an antsiness. Okay, what’s the problem? What can you do to soothe the fever? He says to find a topic that you find inspiring. Think about that, and then eventually the mind will be able to settle down again, ready to be with … 
  20. Lessons for New Monks
     … You behave on your own, and you behave with other people, in a way that’s more conducive to helping the mind settle down and become independent—to become its own refuge. The first principle is being virtuous. For the monks, of course, this means being strict in line with the Pāṭimokkha and all the other rules they’re supposed to follow. For lay … 
  21. The Center of Your Life
     … Because “doing” isn’t just a matter of physical action, it also includes the actions of the mind. This brings you very quickly to the issue of training the mind, which is why we’re sitting here meditating: It’s because of aham sukhito homi, may I be happy. We want a happiness that lasts. We want to order our lives around this issue … 
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