Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 152
  2. Get Attached to Jhana
     … And there’s the part of the mind that says, “Well, let’s get through the whole hour and then we’ll go on to something else.” Don’t listen to that part of the mind. Say, “Let’s inhabit this hour. Let’s inhabit this moment,” and allow our awareness to settle back into the body and get a sense of what’s … 
  3. Undomesticated Happiness
     … He questions Rāhula about the five senses, and then applies the same questionnaire to the mind. This is where it really hits close to home. We tend to assume that our thoughts and our awareness are ours more than anything else. They’re what we really are. So we need to get deeper in the mind. Take the approach that we use to the … 
  4. A Multilingual Mind
     … So the Buddha is trying to get you to pull the mind down to that pre-verbal level as much as you can. That becomes your basis for looking at things, for mastering the processes of breathing, thinking, and perceiving, so that you can put these processes to the ideal purpose, which is finally to go beyond all of them. So try to get … 
  5. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … There are certain things you’ve got to work on, certain things you have to bring into being, to give you something good to hold on to as you start learning how to let go of other things that are really weighing down the mind. If you look at the duties of the four noble truths, the first three all revolve around dispassion. You … 
  6. Discernment Is in the Details
    When you focus on the breath, there are quite a few activities going on in the mind. But the two most important in getting you to be with the breath and stay with the breath are directed thought and evaluation. Directed thought is when you keep reminding yourself to keep coming back to the breath: “Breath, breath”—this is what you’re going to … 
  7. Joy in Effort
     … Actual insight comes not by pummeling the mind with a technique but from posing the right questions in the mind. “What are these assumptions I’m carrying around here? How could I do this more efficiently? What am I doing that I’m not noticing? How can I learn how to notice it? How can I catch the mind as it’s about to … 
  8. The Need for Right View
     … The interaction of a lot of different mental events in the mind goes into a decision to do something. That creates the kamma. And it’s going to have results. So you want to be very clear on what’s happening in the present moment that shapes your intentions, and how you can learn to create the conditions that will make your intentions more … 
  9. Why We Bow Down
     … Your choices do make a difference, and they’re going to depend on the quality of the mind. The Buddha was very upfront about the fact that he couldn’t prove these things logically. You’re not going to know them until you’ve actually taken them as working hypotheses and put them into practice. But making that test requires conviction, because the path … 
  10. Facing Danger & Hardship
     … Remember that your primary duty is to maintain the state of your mind, because even if you have to die, the state of the mind is the one thing you’ve got that doesn’t have to be lost when you die. Now, if you let your state of mind get ruined by how you die, you’ve lost everything. You’ve lost your … 
  11. Something to Stand On
     … It also provides a mirror for the mind. When you get sensitive to the breath, you begin to realize that when there’s an unskillful thought and it starts flitting through the mind, there’s going to be a pattern of something—tension or something like that—that’ll pass through different parts of the body. Can you sense that? Can you see the … 
  12. Goodwill & Kamma
     … Of all the possible things we could be doing right now, we’re choosing to develop good qualities in the mind, skillful qualities in the mind: mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration, discernment. The simple choice to do this is good kamma, and as you maintain the choice, maintain that intention, that’s good kamma as well. The Buddha talks about two kinds of good kamma … 
  13. The Path Is in the Details
     … The present moment in the mind is always made up of particular things: particular thoughts, particular experiences, and especially particular intentions. Those are the crucial things. So it’s important, as you meditate, as you get to know your mind, to look for the particulars. The path comes down to something very basic: being honest about your intentions. Often this is difficult, but it … 
  14. Taking an Active Role
     … You’re less the victim of what’s coming up in the mind, less the victim of what’s coming up in the body, less the victim of what’s happening around you. So always keep this in mind. You have the choice: You can be aware of a tiny part of the body, or you can be aware of the whole body. You … 
  15. Crossing the River
     … The word they use in Pali for the object of the mind is support, arammana, and you find that some supports are more supportive than others, more reliable than others. When you’re meditating, you try to find a reliable support, something you can stick with for long periods of time, something you can get to know very well. That’s why we focus … 
  16. Not Resolved on Self
     … After all, often the skillful thing to do is to get the mind still, settled down, on familiar terms with your breath, on familiar terms with your body as you feel it from within. That’s a good place to be. Then you try to maintain that sense of center regardless of what’s going on around you. So you move the resolve from … 
  17. Right View as Tool
     … In other words, wherever the mind is pained, wherever the mind is weighed down with stress, you turn to look to see: Where is the clinging? It’s something you’re doing. That’s something you want to comprehend, and to comprehend it you need to develop right concentration. Otherwise, the mind won’t be stable enough, strong enough to comprehend the suffering. The … 
  18. Is ‘I Am’ the Problem?
     … Especially with the concentration, as you begin to gain a sense of mastery over how you breathe, how you perceive the breath, how you can play with the breath energies in the body, how you can figure out how to get the mind to get more and more still as you peel away the various layers of concentration: There’s a real joy that … 
  19. No Slivers in the Heart
     … We’ve got the mind. All the qualities that the Buddha said led to his own** **awakening—resolution, ardency, heedfulness—are qualities we have to some extent. And they’re all open to us to be developed. It’s like a vast empty continent with lots and lots and lots of land, enough land for everybody to develop what they want. And here’s … 
  20. Energy & Efficiency
     … At the very least you find this is a lot more efficient way of keeping the mind calm, keeping the mind still, clear, bright. It’s in this way that discernment is an issue of maximizing efficiency, husbanding your resources, learning what to let go of so you can hold onto what’s valuable. If you try to hold onto too many things at … 
  21. Levels of Truth
     … See which ones you can stay with most consistently that allow the mind to have a sense of real stability and clear focus. If some of the subtle levels are too vague for you, you’ll lose your focus, and you find the mind drifting off, so choose a level of breath energy that’s appropriate for you right now. As for the other … 
  22. Load next page...