Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 173
  2. Prerequisites for the Practice
     … There may be external causes for pain and misery in the world, but, as he said, you don’t solve those problems without solving the problem of why the mind is making itself suffer inside. You want to see when suffering comes, how it comes; when it goes, how it goes. This ties into appropriate attention, because that’s precisely one of the issues … 
  3. Conviction in the End of Suffering
     … Spend time practicing concentration, developing discernment into the areas where the mind is less than honest with itself. Take these things apart. You can follow this path only if you have a certain amount of conviction that it could be true. Then, as the Buddha said, when you reach stream-entry, your conviction is verified. In other words, it doesn’t suddenly appear then … 
  4. Whole-body Consciousness
     … It really hits home that there’s no alternative but these constructed states, and yet the mind wants an alternative that’s deathless, that doesn’t have to require this constant maintenance. That’s when there’s an opening to something that’s not constructed, and it’s so very different. It, too, is a kind of consciousness but it has nothing to do … 
  5. A Sense of Yourself
     … And in seeing the parts of the mind that don’t want to stick to the promise, that’s where you gain a lot of insight. But you don’t want to give in to them. In fact, if you give in to them, then the chance for insight is gone. It’s like finding out about the hidden currents in the bottom of … 
  6. Tenacity
     … This is why the Buddha stressed the principle of respect for concentration, having some trust in your concentration—not that everything that pops into your mind as you sit here meditating is going to be reliable, but at the very least, when you’re mindful and centered, you’re a lot more likely to get good responses, good inspirations out of the mind than … 
  7. You Should Heed These Shoulds
     … After all, the mind is an active entity. It’s constantly shaping the present moment. And it needs instructions on how to do it skillfully, because right now it’s causing suffering by shaping the moment in a very ignorant way. The Buddha responds to this need by giving you examples, ideas, opening opportunities: “You can do this; you can do that.” He’s … 
  8. To Know the Buddha
     … He talks about what you can learn by learning how to breathe aware of the whole body, learning how to calm the breath, learning how to breathe in ways that give rise to rapture, pleasure, to breathe in ways that allow you to be sensitive to how feelings have an impact on the mind, how your perceptions have an impact on the mind, and … 
  9. Some Assembly Required
     … Something comes up in the mind and you have no choice—you tell yourself—in whether you’re going to follow through with it or not. You’re unprotected in the sense that you could do a lot of unskillful things and just tell yourself, “Well, it’s because I was born with a certain DNA.” Or simply because, “That’s the way the … 
  10. Anybody Home?
     … As the Buddha said, the mind is so quick to change directions that there’s no image, no simile adequate for how quickly it can change. And it’s capable of all kinds of things. So there are beings, but beings are very unstable, very changeable. In fact, this is the way the Buddha has you deal with grief of separation, either the death … 
  11. Doing Favors & Making Merit
     … It’s not right that I don’t give them something.” Higher than that is, “Giving makes the mind serene.” You just feel good giving the gift. The highest is when giving doesn’t expect anything in return. The act of giving is simply an ornament of the heart and mind. This is the giving of a non-returner. So we’re working in … 
  12. True Honesty
     … digging down into the mind. As the Buddha said, the possibility for true happiness lies right here. It’s a deathless, a timeless well-being. What obscures it? Our actions. The way we act lies in the way of that happiness—which is why we have to pay extra special careful attention to how we act. What does it mean to act? Where does … 
  13. Freedom Undefined
     … First the tools help you look at the habits, the things the mind is doing. Then, when you notice that what you’re doing is causing suffering to yourself or other people, you have the tools to change those habits. If the classic tools don’t work, you can use your own ingenuity to extrapolate on them. When you find that that captures your … 
  14. The Buddha’s Relationship Advice
     … So train the mind so that your relationships don’t get in the way of good kamma but can actually foster it. That way, the relationships are good while they last and also good in retrospect when they end.
  15. Thinking About Rebirth
     … And Buddha says, when you think in those terms, the mind hungers for the path, the path out. When the Buddha talks about the ills of samsara, often he’s talking to kings or in reference to kings, because they seem to be having the best time on the human plane, but even their “good time” is still subject to all kinds of limitations … 
  16. Anti-slacker Dhamma
     … In terms of concentration, anything that comes up in the mind that’s going to pull you away from your object is fair game for applying the three perceptions. As for discernment itself, every way of thinking that’s not in line with discernment, you’ve got to develop dispassion for that. Only then, when all these factors of the path have done their … 
  17. Metta Math
     … But goodwill raises the level of the mind. It’s not innate. You start out having goodwill for some people. The normal human attitude is that you have goodwill for some but not for everyone. But with the sublime attitudes, the brahmaviharas, you’re trying to raise the level of your mind to a brahma level. It’s the brahmas who have goodwill for … 
  18. Accepting Yourself
     … Always try to keep this point in mind because it helps clear up a lot of the other difficulties that the mind creates for itself —so that we can start using the word “should” in the right way and we can start using our powers of judgment in the right way, a judicious way; —and so that these powers of ours actually work to … 
  19. The Karma of Narratives
     … It’s in the evaluation that you develop discernment, so you’re trying to figure out how to get the mind out of everything that’s not related to the breath right now. That’s the purpose of your thinking right now. Try to make the breath as interesting as possible. Think of the breath not just as the air coming in and out … 
  20. The Good Side of Kamma
     … Pay attention to the breath, stick with it, learning how to focus on it in a way that doesn’t put too much pressure on it, so that you’re not forcing it too much, or in a way that’s not to so loose that the mind keeps slipping away. You find just the right amount of focus, just the right amount of … 
  21. The Duties of Compassion
     … developing our mindfulness, developing our concentration, trying to foster the qualities of the mind that allow us to see suffering clearly. Exactly where is there stress right now? And what can we do to minimize the stress? What can we do to understand why it’s there? Ajaan Fuang once noted that one of the major turning points in his meditation was after he … 
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