Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 156
  2. Right Effort
     … There are four areas that you have to attend to, each with its own duty, and they all depend on having a good sense of which qualities in the mind are skillful and which qualities are not. The Pali word here, kusala, is sometimes translated as “wholesome”—i.e. wholesome qualities vs. unwholesome qualities—but that misses an important aspect of the practice. We … 
  3. Producing Experience
     … And even when the mind seems to be simply spinning its wheels, it’s not just idly spinning its wheels. It’s creating new states of being, new possibilities — some of which are good, some of which are not so good. You have to keep that principle always in mind as you’re meditating. You’re not simply here innocently watching what’s going … 
  4. Cutting Edge Perceptions
     … When you’re trying to keep the precepts and you’re feeling very strongly tempted to break a precept, there’ll be that voice in the mind that says, “You’re going to give in a little way down the line, so why not just give in right now?” And you’ve got to say, “No. I’m responsible for right now. I’m … 
  5. The Sublime Attitudes
     … For mindfulness to be effective in training the mind, it always has to be paired with alertness. And both of them have to play a role in larger clusters as well. They’re part of the five strengths, the seven factors of Awakening, and the noble eightfold path. The reason the Buddha teaches skillful qualities in clusters is because unskillful qualities come in clusters … 
  6. Everyday Feeding Habits
     … There’s that passage in Luang Pu Dune where he says that when the mind goes sending out for things or rushing out toward things, that’s the cause of suffering. How are you going to know when the mind is rushing out unless you’ve got a good, solid reference point inside so that you can sense its movements? Otherwise, everything is all … 
  7. Your World to Practice In
     … So, having some nourishment like this every day should be part of your regimen to refresh the body, refresh the mind, and to get you back in touch with your awareness right here in the present moment. And to gain some seclusion. That’s one of the five factors that the Buddha describes as creating a good environment for your practice: finding some seclusion … 
  8. Radical Questioning
     … Learn how to question the assumptions, especially the assumptions where the mind says, “Well, of course it’s this,” or, “of course it’s that.” You have to ask yourself: Is that really the case? Some of this requires not simply watching things coming and going, but also actively analyzing them. After all, analysis of qualities, dhammavicaya, is an important factor in the path … 
  9. Bowing & Chanting
     … But the news you get from the Dhamma—the news that the mind can be trained, the news that the mind can find freedom through dispassion: Think about that. That’s something that’s always true, always worth knowing. So, as you chant and memorize the chants, they become a part of you. You’re chanting something that expresses good values—good values that … 
  10. The Five Aggregates
     … So as you sit here with your eyes closed, what have you got? You’ve got the body sitting here breathing and you’ve got the mind thinking and aware. So you bring them together. There are all kinds of things you could do with this body sitting here breathing and with the mind thinking and aware. You could think about the past, you … 
  11. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … There’s a part of the brain that keeps saying, “Is this worth it, the energy that goes here? Or would the energy go better there?” That’s a basic function of the mind. The problem is that it often malfunctions, based either on our own past experiences or on our own lack of clarity as to what the results of our actions will … 
  12. A Sense of Adventure
     … Part of the mind says, “Well, I’d like to have it done fast so I can go off and do something else.” But there also has to be another part of the mind that says, “If you try to speed it up, you could ruin it. So keep doing what you’re doing.” Even though the results don’t appear as quickly as … 
  13. The Door of the Cage
     … But the nuts and bolts of what practices to develop, that’s where he goes into a lot of detail, very precise, very accurate, almost diagrams of how things work in the mind. These instructions allow you to bring the mind to a state of concentration where it can see its actions more clearly: where it is that it’s holding on, where it … 
  14. Surveying the World
     … Look into what the mind is doing right here, right now—because that’s going to solve the problems you see when you survey the world. The first time he surveyed the world, he saw it as being like a stream drying up. There were fish in the stream, fighting one another over the water. No matter who won out, they were all going … 
  15. Goodwill Starts with Gratitude
    When the Buddha taught breath meditation to his son Rahula, he started out with some preliminary meditations to get the mind in the right shape to be focusing on the breath. I’ve talked a lot in the past about the meditation on making your mind like earth so that you’re not shaken by events coming up outside or coming up inside your … 
  16. Training Your Inner Critic
     … Breathe in a way that makes you sensitive to rapture, sensitive to pleasure; breathe in a way where you’re aware of the whole body; breathe in a way where you gladden the mind; concentrate the mind; liberate the mind. He gives you perceptions to hold in mind: Think of the pleasure going through the whole body. Perceive it as something that can happen … 
  17. You Can Make a Difference
     … When the mind gets solid enough, you can start investigating its perceptions around the pain: what it pays attention to, what it doesn’t pay attention to, how it pays attention, what’s the skillful way to pay attention to pain? In other words, look for the cause. Particularly, look for the cause of pain that’s felt in the mind. So, what we … 
  18. A Point of Balance
     … Only when the mind is balanced in right concentration can it get away from these currents of craving that keep pushing, pushing, pushing. So as you focus the mind right here on the breath, you’re putting yourself in a position where you really can solve the problem of suffering and its cause. If you’re not right here, you’re wide of the … 
  19. Cross-questioning
     … If you’re working with the breath every day, it’s a lot easier to detect changes in the mind. Or if you’re working with any particular topic consistently, it’s easier to see changes in the mind, because you’ve got the breath as your baseline, or buddho as your baseline, or contemplation of the body as a baseline. That makes it … 
  20. Karma & Gratitude
     … This is why the reflection on gratitude is a useful way of getting the mind to be willing to settle down here in the present moment, realizing that this is the way out. As the Buddha said, the karma of meditation leads to the end of karma and all the entanglements that come with karma. That’s what the noble eightfold path is—everything … 
  21. Encouragement
     … What we do know, though, is that the power of the mind is such that we can train it. Once we’ve accepted that things are uncertain, there is no protector outside, then we have to learn to be our own protectors—and we can do it. That was the Buddha’s message. That’s what his awakening means in our lives: It is … 
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