Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 151
  2. Four Determinations
     … One, you’re looking for the cause—not simply for the fact that it arises, but, what’s causing it to arise? What arises together with it? And two, nine times out of ten when the Buddha talks about origination, he’s talking about causes coming from within the mind. What inside the mind is sparking this? How long does it last? Because that … 
  3. From Anxiety to Confidence
     … But if we build treasures into the mind, nobody else can take them away. We’re the only ones who can destroy them. And we have no good reason to do that. We may get discouraged that we don’t have as much time to do this as we’d like, but remember that the Buddha said one day practicing the Dhamma is worth … 
  4. Heart & Mind
    We’re here training the mind because it’s the most important thing in our lives. The mind is what shapes our actions, and our actions shape our experience. It’s important, though, to know that the word “mind” in Pali, citta, corresponds to what we would call both mind and heart in English. In other words, we’re dealing both with thoughts and … 
  5. The Big Picture
     … When aging comes, when illness comes, when death comes, you’ve got to be able to keep your mind focused, to get some control over your thoughts so that they don’t run wild, and use the power of the mind to help. Sometimes the power of the mind can actually help cure an illness. Even if it doesn’t cure the illness, you … 
  6. The Lessons of Good Kamma
     … That internal dialogue where you can talk yourself into doing the right thing in these cases is a good exercise for the mind, because after all, as you get the mind into meditation, you’re going to have to be giving up a lot of other things that, again, are within your rights to hold onto. You have the perfect right to sit here … 
  7. Self-Knowledge
     … We don’t like the idea that the mind has defilements. We’d like to hear that the mind is naturally pure, the mind is naturally awakened, and that it’s simply all that horrible social conditioning that makes us unhappy. If we could get away from our social conditioning, everything would be fine. That’s partly true, partly not. One of the important … 
  8. You Contain Multitudes
     … Well, the mind is not much different from that. We tend to think of ourselves as having one mind, one self, but there are lots of minds in there, lots of states of becoming. It’s not always clear who’s in charge. What we’re doing as we meditate is trying to put the mind concerned about your true well-being, your long … 
  9. The Joy of the Battle
     … As the Buddha said, every skillful intention that comes into the mind, every intention to abandon something unskillful, or to develop something skillful: That initial intention right there is good karma. And to whatever extent you’re able to carry through with it, that’s more good karma. So even at times when it seems like you can’t get a handle on something … 
  10. Whole-Hearted Concentration
     … Gather the mind around the breath. If you’re going to be thinking, think about the breath. If you’re going to be asking questions or exploring, ask questions about and explore the breath. You do this singly in the sense that this is the one topic you’re going to focus your mental activities on. If you really want to know this, give … 
  11. The Wisdom of Ardency
     … You’re alert to what the breath is doing, and you’re also alert to what the mind is doing as it tries to stay focused on the breath. The ardency here is to keep at this. If you find yourself wandering off, you come right back to the breath. Mindful means keeping something in mind. In this case, you keep in mind the … 
  12. Conviction & Truth
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice meditation, so that we can make our judgment more reliable, make our gaze steadier, and our sense of what’s really a defilement in the mind a lot more subtle than it’s been in the past. This is how we prove ourselves. Remember, too, that the path is what you might call a truth … 
  13. Factors for Stream Entry
     … So you use your understanding of right view and you apply it to the mind, trying to develop concentration, mindfulness, and all the other factors you need so that you can really see into the mind clearly. You use your right view to look at all other views that would pull you away, and you learn how to take them apart. Anything that would … 
  14. Seven Facets of Discernment
     … There are ways to focus the mind even as the body is dying so the mind doesn’t have to suffer. We’re told some of these skills as we read about how to meditate, but we have to learn the rest of them from observing our own minds as they relate to the breath, as they relate to distraction. As they relate to … 
  15. Meaning & Purpose
     … Someone showed me a video the other day, where some Abhidhamma expert was talking about how people who try to get the mind to be concentrated are suffering from greed, which is an unskillful state. When the mind gets still and is not analyzing dhammas, it’s suffering from delusion, which is another unskillful state. But: If you can’t have any desire in … 
  16. The Power of Intention
     … So you have to keep looking back into the mind: your mind as you experience it from within, your body as you experience it from within. That’s where the suffering is felt, but that’s where it’s going to be cured. So, instead of being just on the receiving end of things, we’re very much on the generating end. The Thai … 
  17. Acceptance
     … So as you develop this energy in the mind right here, you’re not the only one who’s going to benefit. People around you benefit as well. So you take what you’ve got and you make the best use of it. That’s a basic principle in the practice. All the good qualities in the mind that the Buddha talks about developing … 
  18. Nibbana Is Better than You Think
     … Look for your pleasure there, because this kind of pleasure doesn’t corrode the qualities of the mind. Then, from there, the Buddha would teach the four noble truths. Given your new perspective, you see that it’d be a good thing if the mind could find a happiness that doesn’t involve harming anyone at all, a happiness that has no drawbacks. That … 
  19. Thinking About Your Fears
     … This is why it’s good to be able to get the mind into a state where you can focus on the sense of space, realizing that the mind can be perfectly content, perfectly happy, without any reference to the body at all. Space, consciousness, nothingness: These are states of concentration you can work on and dwell in. As you get the mind to … 
  20. Actor & Experiencer
     … The same with good qualities in the mind: Your sensitivity may not be what it could be, your understanding of the process of meditation may not be what it could be, but you take what you’ve got and you apply it. And you learn from applying it. As you do this, you begin to see that there are two sides to the mind … 
  21. Working with Fabrication
     … These are the things you say to yourself—all the different voices in the mind. Pick up a topic, and then make a comment on it. Directed thought is picking up the topic. Evaluation is the comment, which can either be a statement or a question. Finally, there’s mental fabrication: feelings and perceptions. Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure … 
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