Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. 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.
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. Images for Right Effort
     … Do you want to die with hindrances like that, pulling you in the directions of things you might like to think about right now? Are they going to pull you down? Do you want to develop those ruts in the mind? Think in the long term. So just as you would take on a diet that’s healthy for you because you think in … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. Social Becomings
     … This is the way the mind works instinctively. It’s kind of like beavers. You take baby beavers—even ones who’ve been raised in captivity without parents—put them in the wild, and pretty soon they start making dams and lodges. That’s their solution to any problem: Build a dam. Our solution to any problem is: If you want something, what’s … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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