Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 170
  2. A Recipe for Jhana
     … But that’s not how you get the mind to settle down. You get the mind to settle down by focusing on the breath, with some very simple instructions: Be sensitive to when the breath is long, when it’s short. Once the breath is comfortable, spread your awareness to fill the whole body and then notice how the breathing has an impact on … 
  3. Suffering Comes from Those You Love
     … It’s good to think about these things because, as the Buddha said, when you think about them it inclines the mind to release. You see that getting out of this system would be a good thing. Often it’s hard to admit. A couple of cases in the Canon: A man who’s lost his only son goes every day to the charnel … 
  4. True, Beneficial, Timely
     … You do have to think to get the mind to settle down. So you have to be able to judge what kind of thinking is the kind of thinking you want to engage in right now. What kind do you not want to engage in? You ask yourself those same three questions. First, is it true? Two, is it beneficial? And three, is this … 
  5. Evaluating the Practice
     … Some of the commentaries say that directed thought is when you bring the mind to an object, and then vicāra is just keeping it there. But the word* vicāra* in Pali—and its derivative, wi-jaan in Thai—both mean evaluation. Ajaan Lee really stressed the fact that you are evaluating. It’s a wisdom factor, a discernment factor, and it’s really important … 
  6. Skillful Thinking
     … what do you have to do to stay in the present? Sometimes the mind just refuses to settle down. So you find other topics aside from the breath in the present moment to focus on. If you’re really having trouble focusing on the present, think of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Those topics help foster conviction in the path and in … 
  7. Questioning & Acceptance
     … After all, when you bring the mind to stillness, it’s not just the stillness that’s going to bring about awakening. You have to pose the right questions in that stillness: That’s when awakening can happen. I was talking last night to someone who was of the impression that insight meant a sudden energy flow in your body and that was it … 
  8. Free from Buddha Nature
     … But notice that once you get the mind ready to settle down, you come back to the breath. So you put the directed thought and the evaluation together with the breath. In other words, you apply verbal fabrication to your physical fabrication. Then the third level of fabrication, mental fabrication, has two elements as well: feeling and perception. Once you’re directing your thoughts … 
  9. Happiness Comes from Inner Strength
     … This creates a really good feeling in the mind. You find that you can feed on that feeling and it gives you strength. Virtue is also a kind of gift. You realize that you can restrain your less skillful impulses. You can refrain from harming other people. You give them safety, and in giving them safety, as the Buddha says, you gain a share … 
  10. Selves with Skills
     … As you’re trying to get the mind into a state of concentration, you have to use those same processes to gather around your object. To begin with, you’ve got the breath that you’re focusing on. Where in the body are you feeling it right now? Focus your attention there. Try to keep it there. That’s going to require that you … 
  11. Goodwill Is Respect
     … The voice of the commentator in the mind, which is one of the roles that our self plays, can often be very cruel, harsh, filled with ill will. That’s a lack of respect. So that voice has to be trained, because we do need a good commentator. As the Buddha said, you nourish the Dhamma by committing yourself to it and then reflecting … 
  12. Get Out of Yourself
    When the mind’s narratives seem oppressive, it’s good to think about the Buddha on the night of his awakening. You think you have narratives. The first knowledge he gained consisted of many, many, many narratives, many, many eons of lifetimes. He could have dwelled on the details, but seeing the huge number, he began to reduce things to their common terms. With … 
  13. The Demands of Goodwill
     … Then, as I pointed out, you can bring the mind to fairly deep states of concentration with the practice of goodwill, even deeper states with equanimity—and then you have to analyze them. One, use the power of your concentration to look at your fascination with sensual pleasures. See why it is that you go for those things. See what the allure is, see … 
  14. Count Yourself Lucky
     … You’ve got the body sitting here breathing; you’ve got the mind thinking and aware. That’s plenty right there. Think about the breath; be aware of the breath. Do what you can to make that thinking and that awareness as continuous as possible. When they’re continuous, the thinking turns into mindfulness: In other words, you keep reminding yourself to stay with … 
  15. At Home with the Breath
    One of the Buddha’s terms for concentration is vihāra-dhamma, a home for the mind. It’s like that definition of home in the Robert Frost poem: “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” The breath is the object; it’s the primary vihāra-dhamma. When the mind settles there, the breath has to take … 
  16. The Power of Attention
     … If you find that it’s best to start out with something else to get the mind to settle down, that’s perfectly fine. You can focus on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity, and develop these attitudes in an all-around way. You can focus on analyzing the body into its parts. Your choice is going to depend on what you’re bringing into … 
  17. Path & Raft
     … Why does the mind keep on creating stress and suffering for itself? And where are you going to look inside? How are you going to notice what the mind is doing to create these states of becoming that cause that stress? This is where you bring in the other elements of the path, and then you make the effort to stick with it. This … 
  18. Proactive Mindfulness
     … If you do, then the breathing process starts getting uncomfortable, and the mind won’t want to stay there. It’ll want to move around, get away, think about other things, do other things. So whatever spot in your body you’re focused on, think of the breath energy flowing in, flowing out naturally, with nothing to obstruct it. At the same time, don … 
  19. The Path to the Top
     … These are all good qualities to develop in the mind: persistence, patience, endurance, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, compassion. The balance of these qualities as you develop them in the mind is a good thing. So you don’t lose out. What you may lose are a lot of the pleasures the world provides right now—sensual pleasures, everyday pleasures—but are those the things we … 
  20. Generating Desire
     … Look for the poison and then remind yourself that it is possible to get past that, it is possible to get the mind in a state where it doesn’t like that anymore, doesn’t need it anymore. And try to cultivate a desire for a safe place. As the Buddha says, see renunciation as rest. See that by letting go of the things … 
  21. Focus on the Precepts
     … That’s developing three important qualities in the mind right there: mindfulness, keeping things in mind; alertness, watching your actions while you’re doing them; and ardency, fighting off unskillful qualities. These are the qualities you need to develop mindfulness and concentration. Of course, when you get the mind into concentration—the Thai translation of samadhi is “firm intent”—you’re firmly focusing your … 
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