Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 171
  2. Cultivate a Limitless Heart
     … On the one hand, it’s good that the sufferings that weigh down the mind are things that come from within, because otherwise we’d have to depend on help from somebody else outside to put an end to them. It’s good that we can put an end to them ourselves. But there’s the other hand: times when the practice can seem … 
  3. Focal Points
     … If there’s no sense of well-being, no sense of gratification, no sense of nourishment that comes with staying with the breath, then the meditation gets very dull, very tedious, and the mind is going to be very quick to want to look outside for other things, to find some sort of satisfaction there to get its visceral hit. But if you can … 
  4. What You Bring to the Moment
     … On the other hand, there’s a certain amount of insight that arises as well, as you begin to see, “Oh, simply sitting here breathing, there are already other conditions.” The mind shapes the breath, shapes your experience of the breath. The perceptions you bring, the feelings you bring to it, can filter the way you relate to such a basic process. That should … 
  5. Delight in Conviction
     … This is why we meditate, bringing the mind into the present moment where we can see it in action and figure out where we’re causing ourselves suffering—and where we can find the strength inside so that we don’t have to suffer. One of those strengths is conviction in the Buddha’s awakening—not just that it was a good event for … 
  6. A Producer Mentality
     … These are precisely the things you need to give up in order to get the mind to where it’s secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful thoughts, unskillful mental states, so that you can get into the first jhana. But there are steps in between. One of the big steps is effort, just as desire is followed by persistence in the four bases for … 
  7. Circumspection
     … Then you look at the mind. Make sure that both of them are snug together. This is how you turn your practice into a skill. You keep looking at what you’re doing. You look at the results, and then you don’t blame the results on the weather. You don’t blame them on outside factors. You say, if it’s not right … 
  8. The Energy to Be Generous
     … It’s like food for the mind. This is why we say that practicing meditation is a gift, not only to yourself but also to others. When you have more energy, at the very least it’s easier to be more forgiving, it’s easier to be less of a burden to others. Sometimes you find that you can actually have the strength to … 
  9. Always Willing to Learn
     … We like to think that real meditation is when you settle down with the breath, with no distractions, and the mind doesn’t wander off anywhere. But learning how to deal with distraction is one of the major learning opportunities in the meditation: seeing how the distraction begins, how there’s a little stirring in the mind and then, depending on what you want … 
  10. Goodwill Is Respect
     … Sariputta—his foremost student in discernment—could see all kinds of mental activities going on even as the mind settled into very deep stages of absorption. So there are things to observe here. You want to see how you’re putting this state of body and mind together: by the way you breathe, by the way you talk to yourself, by the perceptions you … 
  11. Dharma Warriors
     … We all know that eventually we want to gain insight and eventually there are lots of things we want to do on the path to gain insight, to gain understanding about the ways of the mind. But if your foundation isn’t solid enough, you’re not going to be able to tackle these things properly. They can overwhelm you. So in particular: As … 
  12. Ajaan Suwat’s Gift
     … The word for perfection that they use in the Canon applies to qualities you develop in the mind. That’s where perfection can be found. The world is always going to be imperfect, but there is such a thing as perfect happiness. And it doesn’t harm anyone. It doesn’t place any burdens on anyone at all. The Buddha gives us that test … 
  13. Push Yourself
     … But you have to remember how the Buddha said there are causes of suffering in the mind, and not all of them respond to simply watching them. Some of them require that you, as he said, exert a fabrication. That can require a lot of effort. He also said that sometimes the path is painful, sometimes it’s pleasant, sometimes your intuitions come quickly … 
  14. Intelligent Equanimity
     … That’s when the mind gains release. So you develop universal equanimity in accepting the principle of karma, but in applying it to your past and present choices you need a selective equanimity up until the endpoint of the path. That way, instead of being a blanket indifference to everything — which would be like being a dead person — equanimity becomes an important tool in … 
  15. Protect Your Energy
     … to train the mind—first to be sensitive to what we’re bringing and then learning how to change what we bring to our situation in any case where what we’re bringing is causing stress and suffering. Simple things, like the breath: the way you breathe, the way you relate to the breath energy in the body. That’s one of the things … 
  16. Noble Priorities
     … So even though the precepts are focused on what you do in terms of your speech and your physical actions, the real focus is on the mind, so that you get to know your intentions. This gets you ready for concentration practice. They also promote right view in the sense that you realize that your intentions are going to be really important in determining … 
  17. Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself
     … And the parts of the mind that say, “Ah, you’re not up to this, you can’t do this,” strike those out, too. After all, which part of the mind doesn’t want you to practice? It’s the part siding with the defilements, siding with the idea of going back to your old ways. But we all come here because we realize … 
  18. Learning from Determination
     … Get the mind to settle down. You’re going to learn a lot about the aggregates as you get the mind to settle down. Remember: The aggregates are activities, not things. The translation “aggregate” for khandha is kind of unfortunate. It sounds like they’re bits of gravel. They’re actually activities. You see that the first aggregate is form, so you might wonder … 
  19. Training Heart & Mind
    We talk about meditation as training the mind, but we have to remember that the Pali word for mind, citta, covers both what we think of as mind and also what we think of as heart. So we try to develop both a good mind and a good heart. Some people miss this fact. They think it’s simply a matter of training the … 
  20. Questioning Your Conviction
     … The tendency of the mind is to fall back to its old perceptions. But you’re trying to see: How far can I push in another direction? That’s because you want to make a path. The path is something you do make. It doesn’t happen on its own. The same principle applies to thought-fabrications. And if you want to change what … 
  21. Protective Meditations
     … So, given that it could come at any time, you have to ask yourself, “What can I do with the moment I have now? What good things can I do right now?” To begin with, focus on training the mind, looking after your intentions. As you’re sitting here meditating, try to make the most of the fact that you’ve got time to … 
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