Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 167
  2. A Tradition of Ingenuity
     … Ajaan Chah in all his many similes, Ajaan Maha Boowa in the questions he asks, say, around pain or other issues that come up in the mind. He’s very good at framing unusual questions, getting at the issue of the relationship between the pain and the mind and the body in different ways, because, as he saw, you can approach pain in one … 
  3. Fighting off Ignorance
     … This is having a good or a bad effect on the body; it’s easy for the mind to stay with this kind of breathing or it’s hard. You can also experiment with where to focus. Are you going to focus at the tip of the nose, middle of the chest, the abdomen, the middle of the head, the base of the throat … 
  4. Defiant Like the Buddha
     … You’ve got to have that attitude that regardless of what the mind is doing, you’re not going to give in to its unskilful moods. If something comes up—regret over the past, anger over the past, any of these things—you keep reminding yourself, “You don’t have to go there.” It’s as if the mind opens doors to various directions … 
  5. A Sense of Duty
     … The real hope is the solidity we can build inside, the qualities we can build in the mind. Some of those qualities are dependent just on how we relate to ourselves, and others are dependent on how we relate to others. There’s a passage where the Buddha said that if you look out after others, you’re looking out after yourself. In other … 
  6. Happiness – Yours & Others’
     … You’re trying to see if what the Buddha taught was true, that we gain happiness by training the mind. And you do it the only way you can do it: by training your own mind, by putting his teachings to the test. This, of course, puts you to the test as well, because if you’re going to give a fair evaluation of … 
  7. Ego
     … It’s the Buddhist strategy for sublimation, to give the mind a sense of wellbeing that’s blameless, that’s reliable. In the beginning, it’s not all that reliable, but over time you can turn it into a skill. Then, once it’s a skill, you can tap into it whenever you need it. When you think about the ease and wellbeing that … 
  8. Other People
     … As you get more and more interested in this, you get a sense of well-being not only in the body but also in the mind—because it’s not running around all over the place. It can rest. Now, be careful when you rest not to drift off. You have to be very, very mindful of what you’re doing. This is why … 
  9. Staying Grounded
     … It gives the mind more time to be by itself, to be with the body, and not get blown around. So try to keep the mind grounded in both senses of the term, like the teenager who’s been traveling around too much and getting into trouble. You’ve got to ground the teenager. And then, also be grounded in the sense of feeling … 
  10. People of Integrity
     … What happens when the mind wanders off from the breath? You bring it right back. The “how to” part is a necessary part of the meditation. But there’s also the “why”: What are your values? And how honest are you in maintaining those values? I’ve known a lot of cases where people meditate and they start getting visions: visions of what other … 
  11. Family Ties
     … So you focus here where the work can be done and, at the very least, you can be a good example to others to show that it is possible to train the mind. It is possible to step back from your own greed and learn how not to identify with it, and the same with your aversion and your delusion. This is where the … 
  12. Pro-self, Pro-help
     … Once you see that there are unskillful and skillful qualities in the mind, you’ve got to do something about them. You’ve got to make sure the unskillful qualities don’t arise. If they do arise, you try to get rid of them. As for skillful qualities, you try to give rise to them. And then, once they’re there, you try to … 
  13. Self-Control
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, to make the mind strong. And we develop discernment to figure out what our real battles are. You’re sitting here with the breath, and nothing outside is happening at all, but you find the mind wandering out of control. If that’s the way your mind is, how can you trust it not … 
  14. Everything You Need
     … You’ve got the mind, thinking and aware. You’ve got everything you need to make you happy. You also have everything you need to make yourself thoroughly miserable. The trick lies in knowing which is which. There are lots of potentials in the body, lots of potentials in the mind, and they can take us in all kinds of directions. This is why … 
  15. Infinity
    Infinity September 26, 2023 All too often, we come to the meditation straight from the narrative of the day, and then the narrative becomes part of the meditation, where it interferes with the mind’s settling down. If you managed to do something klutzy during the day, then if your meditation is not going well, that becomes part of that same klutzy narrative. If … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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