Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 158
  2. Faith in the Buddha’s Awakening
     … Meanwhile, sensory consciousness can depend simply on contact at the sixth sense, the mind, and it’s there that it can feed on craving, which is enough to keep it going even when the body dies. So not everything depends on this body or this brain or these nerves. There is a consciousness that can go, a being that goes from one life to … 
  3. The Power of Truth
     … And it’s the same with the mind. We’re interfering with the mind. We’re trying to get a good solid state of concentration going—calm and peaceful—and we learn about the mind by seeing what works and what doesn’t work. That’s insight right there. If things aren’t going well, you have the freedom to change them. After all … 
  4. The Little Things
     … After all, we’re meditating here to see the movements of the mind, and they’re extremely subtle. They’re right here and they’re very close, yet we don’t see them. Part of the reason is because we’re looking further away, and part of it is because they really are subtle things. To see them requires patience. It requires that you … 
  5. Things Aren’t as They Should Be
     … What is the mind doing around the breath? You’re committing yourself to this practice and then you reflect. All around. That way, you start seeing things about the mind that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise, when the mind wasn’t so gathered—and these things can make a difference. They can actually take you all the way to the end of suffering … 
  6. A Fool for Sensuality
     … As for the part of the mind that objects to this practice, ask it, “Why do you object? What do you want out of this body? If you were to die, and an image of a body appeared to you, would you want to just go for it? Because of a glance, because of a certain line in the body, a certain shape, would … 
  7. Noble & True
     … There will be times when the mind says, “I want X,” and you look at the four noble truths that say, “No, you don’t. You may want X but it’s not good for you. It’s not going to help put an end to suffering, and it’s not going to lead you to a happiness that’s harmless.” You have to … 
  8. Radiating Goodness
     … That’s made up of the qualities of the mind that enable you to be involved in things and yet not get sucked in by them: qualities like patience, determination, resilience, generosity. As I said this morning, before you’re going to gain anything out of the practice, you have to be willing to give. An attitude of giving is an actual refuge so … 
  9. Tuning-in to the Breath
     … And the mind has a tendency to focus on pain because it’s usually a warning signal. But we don’t have to focus there. In other words, there can be a slight discomfort in a part of the body, and you can focus on it and make it more and more intense, more and more of an issue. That’s one thing you … 
  10. Mindfulness Immersed in the Body
     … That’s the mind’s relationship to sensuality. It keeps gnawing, gnawing, gnawing on sensual thoughts but doesn’t get any substance out of it, any real nourishment. As Ajaan Lee says, all of the flavor is in the dog’s own saliva. In other words, the flavor lies in what you put into it. And is it worth putting anything into it? The … 
  11. Brahmaviharas at the Breath
     … Part of the mind may say, “It’ll be good for them, teach them a lesson,” but how many people really respond well to suffering, to pain? The usual reaction is to find a scapegoat outside. That doesn’t help. What you want is for them to understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them. No matter … 
  12. Guided Meditation
     … And what have you got? You’ve got the body sitting here breathing, and you’ve got the mind here thinking and aware. So you bring all those things together. You think about the breath. The way you keep the breath in mind, that’s mindfulness. Then you’re alert to how the breath is going, knowing when it comes in, knowing when it … 
  13. A Private Matter
     … So that takes you away from your direct experience, away from this very private matter of why the mind is causing itself suffering, how your intentions are causing suffering. So instead, try to approach the meditation from a standpoint that’s more familiar: How do you feel right now? Which ways of thinking about the breath, which ways of letting the body breathe, lead … 
  14. Respecting Death
     … So try to bring all your skills, all the skillful qualities of the mind, to bear. The Buddha said that skillful qualities are all rooted in heedfulness: the realization that there are dangers in life—aging, illness, and death being the big dangers—but we can prepare for them. If we couldn’t prepare for them, if we were totally left adrift, there would … 
  15. The Missing Truth
    The Buddha says that when we experience pain, stress, suffering, the mind has two reactions. One is bewilderment. We don’t understand how the suffering has come. The second is a search: “Is there anyone out there who knows a way or two to put an end to the suffering?” This means that we’re looking for three kinds of truth. We’re looking … 
  16. Karma as an Island
     … You establish an intention in the mind that you want the mind to settle down, and you don’t want to forget that intention. Otherwise, it doesn’t bear fruit. This is one of the reasons why we sometimes use a meditation word with the breath: bud—in, dho—out. Buddho means awake. It’s the quality we’re trying to develop here. But … 
  17. Delight in the Dhamma
     … The fourth one is to delight in seclusion—finding a space for the mind where you can put down your burdens, where you don’t have to deal with all the issues of other people, and you can focus on your own issues. Even if there are a lot of issues in the mind, the fact that you can focus on them and you … 
  18. True for What Purpose?
     … You want to focus on your own body as you feel it from within, to get the mind to settle down. This means you have to be selective in what you focus on, and also in what you say to yourself about it. You could be commenting on how your mind is not settling down, and how you’re a miserable meditator. Or you … 
  19. To Depend on Yourself
     … In other words, when you see that the mind is going in a particular direction, ask yourself: Is this really worth following? Because you do have that choice. Like right now, as you’re meditating: You can stay with the breath. If something comes up and you decide to take a little break from the breath and follow this other thing, or just cut … 
  20. Empathetic Joy Is Ennobling
     … Ask yourself, what do you get out of ill will? And there will be a part of the mind that likes to feed on ill will, likes to feed on anger, likes to get worked up, resentful. But you have to ask yourself: What kind of food is that? What kind of nourishment is that for the mind? It’s like food that tastes … 
  21. You Can’t Eat the Buddha
     … These are qualities we all have to some extent, but we’ve got to learn how to strengthen them, and they in turn make the mind stronger. So our food here isn’t bread and wine. Our food is concentration. The Buddha compared the different levels of concentration to different types of food. The first jhana, he said, is like grass and water. As … 
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