Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Gratitude to Things
     … Can you get the mind to a point where it doesn’t have to come back and use material things again, again and again? The simple fact of our being born means that we come in with a huge gaping hole: the need for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. Which means that our lives depend on suffering, not only our own, but also that … 
  3. On Your Own
     … We’re not following the path of pigs here, just lying around and wallowing in comfort.” So you can ask yourself when you’re feeling the impulse just to let the mind wander as it likes and let yourself relax as you’d like, “Whose path are you following here?” The Buddha’s path is the path you would follow if you really felt … 
  4. Sensitivity All the Time
     … They give you the sensitivity you need to find more stable states of concentration, to figure out the techniques you need in order to get the mind to settle down when it’s obstreperous. But again, once you’ve learned those lessons, it’s not the case that you can turn off the effort to be sensitive, the effort to be fully engaged. It … 
  5. Helping Others
     … So you hold back, but you don’t just stuff your words into the mind and wait for them to explode. You hold back, but you remind yourself, “Maybe the right time hasn’t come yet, but I’ll keep my eyes open for when it does come.” And of course, goodwill reminds you that you want to find happiness in a way that … 
  6. The Flood of Views
     … In other words, an idea comes up in the mind and you can ask yourself: Is this part of the path? Or is this going to sweep me down? No matter how right the opinion might be, remember that there are a lot of right opinions about all kinds of topics, but they’re not right view. They may be right about the world … 
  7. Swept Downstream
     … So where is your island? The Buddha says you try to establish your mindfulness—ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world—so that you can get the mind into concentration. This gives you an island that gets you out of the flood for a bit, but you’re still in the middle of the river. You haven … 
  8. Count Your Blessings
     … At the same time, recognize where you have problems, recognize that there are difficulties, recognizing that there are parts of the mind that are not one hundred percent with the practice. Sometimes we try to deny that, which doesn’t help. We’re not living in Pollyanna-land. Or we may not like the idea that there’s a part of us that doesn … 
  9. Karma Storms
     … It means finding something to do in the meantime, both in terms of finding a source of pleasure inside someplace, and remembering that anything that’s coming up in the mind over which you have no control is past karma. This is what the result of past bad karma is like. Do you want to keep on creating more of that? No. So you … 
  10. Integrity — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … And the oneness of the mind is like going to a market and finding there’s only one fruit of a particular kind there. Imagine, if there were just one mango in the whole market, how valuable that mango would be. If there are lots of mangos, sometimes they end up throwing them away, because there are too many to sell. So don’t … 
  11. Why Limit Yourself?
     … Do you want that? Why would you want anything less than an unconditioned happiness? Maybe one voice in the mind might say: How can a conditioned path find the unconditioned happiness? But the way the Buddha explained causality shows that through a complex process—in which some causes give rise to results immediately while others take time: When you put those two principles together … 
  12. How to Be Self-Centered
     … Here, too, you can think of the committee of the mind. You’ve got to ferret out which voices are the ones really worth listening to. Just because one voice is loud and repetitive doesn’t mean that you have to take it seriously. Try listening to the voices that are compassionate, that do want you to do the practice well, and are happy … 
  13. Determined on Goodwill
     … I’ve often said that the mind is like a committee. Sometimes the good members are working on something, and some unskillful members sneak in. All of a sudden, you find that the task you had assigned to the good member gets taken over by somebody else. This is why the Buddha says you have to be determined on this mindfulness, keeping in mind … 
  14. Dhamma Medicine
    The Buddha often compared himself to a doctor treating the diseases of the mind, and the Dhamma was his medicine. This fact is directly related to his strictures for what he would say, what he would teach. One, it had to be true. Two, it had to be beneficial. And three, it had to be timely. These things are connected because that’s the … 
  15. You Can Do It
     … Whenever doubts come up in the mind, remind yourself: You’re a human being. What do you need beyond being a human being in order to mediate? You need some persistence and you need some truthfulness, so you stick with it. These are two qualities that are emphasized over and over in the forest tradition: that if you stick with this quest for true … 
  16. Teaching Old Selves New Tricks
    Our sense of self is basically a strategy for finding happiness, and there are lots of senses of self in the mind. They’re usually composed of a sense of the self as the consumer, the person who’s going to reap the happiness of the actions; then there’s the self as the producer, the one who does or doesn’t have the … 
  17. Deep Time
     … As they enjoy the rewards, the good qualities of the mind get worn away until they fall back down again. The proper response is the desire to get out, and not to get worked up about the individual stories in the meantime: the particulars of our stories, like the story of a tragedy. With the story of an injustice, there has to be a … 
  18. More Buddhist Engineering
     … You evaluate the mind. Do they fit together well? What way of breathing would provide a good place to stay? When you’re trying to develop a state of concentration, you want something pleasant to stay with, something all-around good, so that you feel really stable, solid here. What way of breathing would do that? Think of the breath not as the air … 
  19. The Gift of Spiritual Materialism
     … In other words, the good qualities you develop in the mind are not only for your own good. If you go down the list of noble treasures, you’ll see that they spread their benefits around. To begin with, there’s conviction, virtue, shame, and compunction. These four form a set. You believe in the power of action: that the Buddha really was awakened … 
  20. Songkran Blessing
     … As for beauty of the mind, that, the Buddha says, is the quality of your virtue. This is one of the reasons why, whenever we have a ceremony like this, we always take the five precepts to remind you that this is where genuine beauty lies. As you get older and you start dressing up, putting on makeup, trying to look like you did … 
  21. Talking to Yourself
     … You have to learn to turn* *the fact that the mind is talking to itself to your advantage, reminding yourself that this is really where you want to be. You want to be sitting down meditating. You want to be with the breath. See what happens when you can stay with the breath. Try to get interested in the breath. Ask yourself questions about … 
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