Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. A Pure Happiness
     … the sense of well-being, rapture, pleasure that comes as the mind begins to settle down into good, strong states of concentration. This is a form of happiness that the Buddha says to develop, work on it. Don’t be afraid of being attached here. After all, the nature of the mind is that it’s going to hold onto things, so give it … 
  3. The Brahmaviharas on the Path
     … It’s in this way that all the elements of the practice help one another along, and the whole day can be devoted to the practice of developing the mind. There’s a passage where the Buddha says that a stingy person cannot attain the noble attainments, can’t even attain jhana. But he also says that the quality of your generosity will grow … 
  4. The First Noble Truth
     … He says if you’re suffering from any of these things, it all comes down to this habit of the mind. And it’s impersonal: Your name isn’t stamped on any of these habits, because we all do these things. The fact that someone is born means that that person already is engaging in these habits. So it’s something we all engage … 
  5. Self-Reliance
     … They’re just formations, coming in and out of the mind, coming into shape, then dissolving, coming into shape in another shape, and then dissolving. So just allow that process to happen on its own without your having to get involved. Your responsibility right now is simply to be with the breath, that’s all. Try to be as continuously with the breath as … 
  6. The Path of Adventure
     … Now, that someplace else is not outside of the mind. It’s not as if we’re going to leave our mind to go someplace else. We stay right here, but the image of the path means that there are things that have to be done to achieve the goal at the end of the path. We have to keep following the path until … 
  7. The Stakes Are High
     … This is why we meditate focused on the present moment, so that we can see the mind in action, see what it’s doing, and learn to do it more skillfully. When you stay here with the breath, it’s a kind of karma. If you develop the right attitude as you’re working with the breath—the patience to sit with things for … 
  8. Noble Priorities
     … This is the suffering he was talking about, the suffering in the mind, the suffering that you feel inside and nobody else can feel for you. Nobody else can take it away. There’s that passage where Ven. Ratthapala is talking to the old king, one of those passages we chanted just now: The world offers no shelter. There’s no protection. The king … 
  9. Two Guardian Meditations
     … That’s a useful way of augmenting your breath meditation, giving the mind, as Ajaan Lee would say, a good place to forage for food. Another way is the development of goodwill. Goodwill is the wish for happiness—for true happiness. And it’s to be extended to all. Again, this is to lift your mind up above ill will for anybody, no matter … 
  10. Resources for Endurance
     … We sit to get the mind quiet, bring the mind to concentration, gain insight. If everything depended just on the quality of the intention, that’d be all you’d have to do, just hold on to that good intention. But the question is, does it work? A lot of times, other things need to be brought in as well. You check the results … 
  11. Happiness is a Skill
     … But he says you can train the mind so that it doesn’t have to suffer from those things. And even more directly, the fact that your body ages, grows ill, and dies: You can learn how not to suffer from that, either. But here again, it’s not simply a matter of accepting. To one extent you do accept these things, but to … 
  12. Adult Dhamma
     … That problem, of course, is the suffering that the mind creates. And the solution is a skill. It requires a lot. You have to sort out a lot of things inside yourself and shed a lot of your childish expectations. So the question is, do you want to be an adult? If you do, this is what you have to do. Look at yourself … 
  13. The Pursuit of Excellence
     … Until then, there’s a tendency in the mind to say, “Well, I can imagine something else I’d prefer.” But look at your imaginings. We’ve been led around by our imaginings for how long? We don’t know how long. We’ve been going around and around and around for countless eons, led by our desire to think up this, think up … 
  14. Goodwill as a Guardian
     … Real goodwill has to do with ‘May you be deeply happy at heart.’” That kind of happiness has to come from developing skillful qualities in the mind. Real happiness, of course, comes from seeing that what the Buddha taught is true: There is a deathless element; there is a dimension where the mind doesn’t have to suffer from aging, illness, and death. When … 
  15. Seriously Happy
     … Random thoughts come into the mind. Something that occurs to you in childhood can take over the whole rest of your life. The Buddha’s recommendation is that you find someone who really knows—those who really know, of course, are those who have attained awakening—and you go and you ask them, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term … 
  16. Working Hypotheses
     … He took something we’re doing all the time—shaping our experience—and asked, “What if you tried to shape it in the most skillful way possible? What would that entail?” And it turns out that it develops a lot of good qualities in the mind. Just that desire to find a happiness that’s more lasting, more solid, he said: That’s the … 
  17. The Buddha’s Buffet
     … So, one of the ways of getting beyond this addiction of clinging is to allow yourself to imagine that the mind doesn’t have to do this. Its habits, the ways it talks to itself, the ways it perceives the world, the ways it perceives itself, its ideas of what it has to do, its clinging to sensual pleasures or even just to the … 
  18. Play with the Breath
     … We’re doing something serious here in training the mind, but you don’t want to be grim. Otherwise, you start getting frustrated. You want to stay with the breath, other thoughts come in, and you run with those thoughts, and then you get upset because you ran away, and you yank yourself back to the breath. Sometimes you set up a bad relationship … 
  19. Compassion for People on Fire
     … It lifts the mind. You’re looking for a happiness in a place where you don’t have to fight anybody else off. No one’s going to come in and try to push you out of the way to watch your breath. It’s yours. And it does have a great potential. As the Buddha said, we have the potential for pleasure in … 
  20. Mindfulness of Death
     … You might think, “That’s pretty good, I can go where I want to go.” But the nature of craving is that it’s pretty blind, and if the mind is out of control—which easily happens if you’re in pain or drugged with painkillers—all kinds of weird cravings can come up at the moment of death and blow you off course … 
  21. When Attacked by Distractions
     … If it’s really worthwhile, if it’s really helpful, it’ll stick there in the mind. You’ll find that you have it in your pocket when you get to the end of the path, so you don’t have to worry about carrying it or trying to memorize it. If it’s worthwhile, it’ll follow you there. The problem is that … 
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