Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Questioning Impermanence
     … You’ve got the body, you’ve got the breath, you’ve got the mind that thinks and is aware. And that’s all you really need. Our problem is that we’re not yet really skillful with these things. We haven’t explored their full possibilities. So sometimes the meditation gets boring. It’s because we haven’t learned how to ask the … 
  3. In the Eyes of the Wise
     … We try to get a sense of what it means to have the mind really balanced—so that it’s not leaning under the power of its likes or its dislikes, or under the power of its delusions or fears. As the Buddha said, there are four ways that the mind gets biased: leaning under the influence of things you like, things you dislike … 
  4. Cleaning up Your Personal Environment
     … All that nice peace and quiet in the mind just got frittered away. He responded, “What you did was to take the gold you had and you traded it for excrement.” Idle chatter just eats away, eats away, eats away at your goodness. It not only takes up your time but also fills up your mind with all kinds of garbage that you have … 
  5. Harmlessness
     … Sometimes when we’re feeling weak in the practice, part of the mind will jump on us and say, “That’s a sign that you should give up.” This doesn’t necessarily mean giving up entirely but just, say, giving up for tonight. You can start telling yourself all kinds of stories about how the meditation’s not going well. You sit down. Your … 
  6. Discerning the Middle Way
     … And “jJust right” for the mind: It’s not too light to detect, it’s not too heavy so that it gets burdensome. So you’ve got to adjust things and then observe and then adjust again and observe. When you find something that’s good, you stick with it for a while. You stop the adjusting then and see how long you can … 
  7. A Mind Like Earth
     … In other words, as a prerequisite for getting the mind to settle down, you’ve got to develop a certain quality of patience, resilience, equanimity, that you’re ready for everything. But particularly you’re not going to react immediately to whatever comes up. You want to watch, because this is an important principle in the meditation. Not only does it help you sit … 
  8. The Gift of Speech
     … And the training of the mind is very close to the training of the mouth. Look at the factors in the noble eightfold path: Right after right resolve, which is the type of thinking that leads you to right concentration, comes right speech. And of course, the first level of right concentration starts with directed thought and evaluation, the way you talk to yourself … 
  9. Good & Bad Meditation
     … If you’re not familiar with the territory of the mind, you can’t tell a step forward from a step back. And if you’re tied up in the problems of conceit, it makes things even more difficult. If what looks like a step forward is happening, you can get puffed up, proud, and complacent. If what looks like a step back happens … 
  10. Two Kinds of Defilements
     … Now that kind of defilement is not going to go away just by watching it, watching it come, watching it go, and saying that it’s all okay—pretending that there’s no part of the mind that’s scarred by that, that’s affected by that, that’s damaged by that. That’s the kind of defilement that you have to dig into … 
  11. Visakha Puja – True Homage
     … Be very heedful with the mind, because it might want to wander away from the breath. Be ardent, really paying very close attention to what you’re doing. And be resolute: Once you’ve got the mind firmly planted in the breath, keep it there. This way, we practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. It’s an important phrase. Throughout the forest … 
  12. A Matter of Life & Death
     … the life of the mind’s goodness, the life of the mind’s happiness. Qualities of the practice are what will keep it going, no matter what else happens in the world around you.
  13. Sensitive to the Breath
     … The breath just sits there, comes in and goes out, and pretty much responds to your activities, the activities of the mind. And there is a part of the body that tends to be shy: feelings in certain parts of the body that are going to take a while to open up to you, or maybe a spot in the body where the breath … 
  14. For Goodness’ Sake
     … If you want to be a human being, you have to develop virtue, good qualities of the mind, good qualities of the character. That’s what differentiates us from common animals.” So what are those good qualities? There’s a list called the ten perfections. They include discernment, which is primarily a quality of the mind, but the other nine are all qualities of … 
  15. Bare vs. Appropriate Attention
     … Instead of being hungry and looking for places to feed outside, you’ve got a good source of food for the mind inside. But it goes deeper than that. You’re also gaining practice in what’s called appropriate attention, looking at things in terms of where there’s stress, what’s causing it, what you can do to put an end to stress … 
  16. The World of the Noble Truths
     … And these becomings the Buddha talks about can happen in the mind. The world outside that we know is also a state of becoming. We’re in it because of becomings in the mind. We take on many different becomings in the mind in the course of the day. You focus on wanting something and then you take on an identity within the world … 
  17. The Governing Principle
     … You’ve got to give rise to skillful qualities in the mind. And once you’ve got something skillful, you want to maintain it, to try to make sure that it doesn’t pass away. So always keep this in mind as you’re practicing, because the teachings that tell you otherwise are all over the place. When we were trying to find a … 
  18. Enthusiasm
     … There are lots of different ways of encouraging yourself, and you have to learn what the mind responds to, so that the effort is not just drudgery, and you’re not just gritting your teeth. That kind of effort wears you out pretty quickly, and then you get discouraged and disillusioned, which doesn’t help. You have to learn how to read yourself and … 
  19. Resolute Good Humor
     … In the same way, the mind, when it’s put under a lot of pressure, just tunes out. It goes into a state of non-perception. That’s not awakening. That’s just blanking out. You need to know how to pace your mind, because we’re not here to explode. We’re not here to blank out. We’re here to wake up … 
  20. Perfection in an Imperfect World
     … In the same way, when passion, aversion, delusion come into the mind—when any unskillful quality comes in the mind—you’ve got to figure out, “How do I get past this?” You can’t just sit there and wallow in it, enjoy it, or participate in it. You have to realize, “This is going to burn me up. This is going to cause … 
  21. Fear of Mistakes
     … You direct your thoughts to the breath and evaluate the breath, evaluate the mind in relationship to the breath: Is the breath comfortable? How do you know if it’s comfortable? Well, you test it. Try different ways of breathing, and then you can decide which one is best for giving the mind a good place to stay. Once you’ve got comfortable breathing … 
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