Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Five Steps to Insight
    When you try to get the mind to settle down, you’re doing two things. One is to keep the object of your meditation in mind. In this case, it’s the breath. Each time you breathe in, try to remember—this is where you want to be. The second thing is putting aside any interest in things outside. Thoughts may come up about … 
  3. Elemental Energy
    When we get in touch with the breath, we’re getting in touch with the spot where the mind and the body meet, which makes it a really good place to focus. You look in one direction, and there are physical events; you look in the other direction, there are mental events. You see how they come through the breath to each other, how … 
  4. The Five Precepts for the Mind
     … The second reason is that you have precepts for the body and speech and you also have precepts for the mind. There are five precepts for body and speech, and there are the same five precepts for the mind. You’ve probably heard enough about the ones on body and speech, so I’d like to talk about the ones concerning the mind. The … 
  5. Something Good to Cling to
     … These are the qualities of the mind that you can depend on. As you strengthen them, they turn into the factors of jhana. The mind settles down and has a sense of well-being right here in a centered state of concentration. This is the strength that the Buddha compares most often with food. As the mind settles down and it gets clear, then … 
  6. The Same but Different, but the Same
     … But the important element is that you first get the mind to settle down; and to get the mind to settle down, you have to find a topic that you find congenial. Some people find simply repeating a word like “buddho” over and over in the mind congenial. Other people find it more congenial to focus on the breath and to make the breath … 
  7. All About Change
     … So in that way, exercising the mind and exercising the muscle are the same. The difference, of course, is you’re exercising the mind to get quiet. When you exercise the body, you have to move it around. But exercising the mind means getting it quiet, more and more quiet, more and more quiet. As you peel away the different layers—first the distractions … 
  8. Farming Your Body & Mind
    We focus on the breath so that we can observe the mind. But begin by giving your full attention to the breath. Try to make the breath something you find interesting. Be sensitive to how it feels as you breathe in, as you breathe out. Where in the body do you feel the sensations around breathing? And not just the air coming in and … 
  9. How to Save the World
     … That has an impact both on the body and on the mind. As the mind gets a greater sense of well-being being with the breath, just sitting here watching the breath for a while and letting go of everything else that tends to weigh on the mind: Just that simple act, as long as you keep it up, is very liberating for the … 
  10. Discernment on the Path
     … You look at it—not only at the stress, but also at the mind—because the cause for the stress, at least the part that’s weighing the mind down, is actually coming out of the mind itself. This is one of the reasons why we want to have this all-around view of what we’re doing right here. It’s one of … 
  11. Samatha, Vipassanā, Jhāna
     … As for samatha and vipassanā, he explained those as qualities in the mind. He didn’t have a specific samatha technique or vipassanā technique. He said you needed both qualities to get the mind to settle down, depending on what the problem is. Sometimes you can lull the mind into a sense of comfort just by staying with one thing. That’s the samatha … 
  12. Why We Practice the Way We Do
     … So this is why we train the mind. We don’t just observe the mind, watch the mind as it does its thing. We try to bring it to a state of good, solid concentration. In the course of doing that, we learn a lot about it. And in learning about the mind, we learn to see through the ways in which it prevents … 
  13. Even Animals Can Be Trained
     … But when you realize that you’re causing yourself suffering, that’s when you begin to be more willing to listen to the Dhamma, and the mind gets a little bit more pliant, so that you can train it. As you get the mind deeper and deeper into concentration, you get more sensitive to what the mind is doing. Your standards for what counts … 
  14. Secluded from Sensuality
     … In other words, it lowers the status of the mind. And by sensuality, here, we mean not only the actual pleasures themselves, but more our fascination with fantasizing about them. That’s what we tend to go to first when there’s pain—but we find that that pulls the mind down. There are some people who say, “Well, maybe pain purifies the mind … 
  15. To Discern Suffering
     … Sometimes there’s a lot of physical pain but the mind is perfectly fine. Other times, little tiny things set you off. Well, why is that? It shows that there’s no an automatic correlation between the physical pain and the mental suffering. Which means that the cause of mental pain is in the mind. You’ve got to look into how the mind … 
  16. Adjusting the Flame
    The Buddha compares getting the mind in concentration to lighting a fire. You want the fire to burn just right. Remember the ordinary mind is like a blazing fire. The mind in concentration is like a well-adjusted one. So calm things down. Adjust the flame. Remember the verb we’re using here, jhāyati, is used with a steady flame, not one that’s … 
  17. The Constancy of the Body
     … He says, “Meditate making the mind like earth… make the mind like water… make the mind like fire… make the mind like wind,” in the sense that none of these things are disturbed by beautiful things or ugly things, clean things or disgusting things. You can throw garbage down on the earth, but the earth doesn’t shrink away; you throw perfumed water on … 
  18. The Steps of Breath Meditation
     … And the breath is the topic he recommends most highly, most frequently — because the breath is not only a place where the mind can settle down and gain concentration, but it’s also something the mind can analyze. It’s where all the insights needed for Awakening can arise — while the mind is being mindful of the breath, alert to the breath, and also … 
  19. Concentration Develops Right View
     … He learned one big lesson about sensuality—that if you’re going to train the mind, you have to get it past its fascination with sensual thoughts. This is a deep-rooted tendency we have: When we’re looking for a little pleasure, we think about sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, thoughts of lust. We get really fascinated about these things. The mind … 
  20. Endurance Training
     … Breathe in a way that gives the mind strength. Develop good qualities in the mind. When we meditate, we’re feeding the mind, but at the same time, we’re exercising it. Now, if the mind just feeds, feeds, feeds, that’s the image for clinging. You feed off something but you don’t get any genuine nourishment out of it. But as we … 
  21. Fabricating the Present
    Fabricating the Present August 20, 2004 Bring the mind to the breath, for this is where everything important is happening. You want to be as still as possible so that you can catch sight of all these important things happening, because most often we don’t see that there’s anything important here. The breath goes in, goes out. That’s all we see … 
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