Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 2
  2. For What It’s Worth
    We focus on the breath to train the heart and the mind. In Pali they use one word, citta, to cover both what we mean by heart and mind. The mind is the calculating part, the part that reasons, takes things apart, tries to understand them. The heart is the part that wants true happiness, that wishes well, the good heart—and you’re … 
  3. Lessons from Stilling the Mind
     … In doing that, you’ll learn something interesting about the mind. Even though you’re not doing any directed thought and evaluation, there still is some mental signaling going on inside the mind, which you may not have seen if you had allowed the mind to wander around like the cows. This is an important lesson. If you really want to see the mind … 
  4. Working Ourselves Free
     … these barriers the mind sets up inside itself, like little screens to hide things from itself. It’s a peculiar habit we have. One part of the mind is lying to another part of the mind. Part of the mind actually does get fooled and another part really knows what’s going on but it pretends not to. This make-believe is what causes … 
  5. Clear of Defilement
     … In other words, you try to foster skillful desires in the mind. Because the mind isn’t totally defiled. As the Buddha once said, if the mind were totally defiled, there’d be no way you could develop it. But realizing that it does have its brightness, it does have its moments of clarity, you learn how to take advantage of those moments, so … 
  6. Breath Meditation: The Third Tetrad
     … The last step in this third tetrad is releasing the mind. Basically, this has to do with the mind’s burdens. There are things holding the mind down or holding it back. And release from these burdens can be of two basic sorts: temporary release and total release. Temporary release is when the mind has been burdened down with thoughts of work or thoughts … 
  7. Food, Shelter & Work
    Try to get both the body and the mind in position. The body in position: As you’re sitting here right now, place your hands in your lap, palms up, keep your eyes closed and your back comfortably straight. The mind in position: Think thoughts of goodwill, as we did in the chant just now: “May I be happy. May all beings be happy … 
  8. When You’ve Played Enough With the Breath
     … In the third tetrad, you’re focusing directly on what kind of states you want the mind to have. The steps are these: In the first one you breathe in and out sensitive to the mind, in the second one you breathe in and out gladdening the mind, in the third you breathe in and out concentrating the mind, and in the fourth you … 
  9. The Alternative of Concentration
     … It’s more a quality of the mind: the mindfulness that’s immersed in the body, the mindfulness that saturates the body, the awareness and alertness that saturate the body. That creates that sense of a field. Even though this isn’t the ultimate goal of the practice, it’s a good skill to master. It’s the path that we follow that gets … 
  10. Ignorance & Deception
     … And it’s when you’re able to deal with these sleights-of-hand in the mind that you actually begin to see things better in the mind. Once you see through this particular trick, you start seeing through a lot of the mind’s other tricks as well. You’re quicker to be up on things in the mind, and the insights you … 
  11. Calm
     … You point the mind—you don’t really force the mind to be peaceful, you give it good reason to be peaceful. You’re satisfied with good breath energy. When you’re satisfied with good ways of talking to yourself, good ways of perceiving what’s going on in the breath, going on in the body, going on in the mind, then the mind … 
  12. Keep Your Spirits Up
    When you’re training the mind, it’s very different from training an animal or training a child. When you’re training someone outside, it’s very clear who’s the teacher and who’s the student. But when you’re training the mind, it’s not clear at all, because one part of the mind is training another part of the mind. You … 
  13. Developed in Body & Mind
     … And what you’ve got right here, right now, is enough to give the mind some rest, to give the mind some energy. In Thailand, when people talked about making merit, Ajaan Fuang would ask them, “Where is your merit?” Well, the merit is in the heart. It’s in the mind. We make merit through generosity, we make merit through virtue. What we … 
  14. Sensitive to the Mind
    We practice concentration to get the mind in one place—right here. There are different ways of doing that. The breath is home base: Of all the meditation methods that the Buddha taught, this is the one he taught in most detail because it helps to clarify a lot of the big issues in the mind, especially around the issue of fabrication, or saṅkhāra … 
  15. Where the Brightness Is
     … Value the part of the mind that sees your choices, value the part of the mind that makes the skillful choice, because that’s the part of the mind that becomes the awareness that can cut through unawareness. That’s the part of the mind that forms the path.
  16. Start the Year Right Here
     … True happiness comes from building good qualities in the mind, because the mind is the source of all happiness and misery, the source of all pain and pleasure, so it’s through developing the power of the mind that we can create true happiness. If you want a happy new year, a happy life, a happy new century, a happy new millennium, you’ve … 
  17. Meditation as Play
     … In the same way, when you’re gladdening the mind, you don’t stop with gladdening the mind. Remember, you’re learning how to steady the mind or concentrate the mind, and then release the mind. So there’s a serious purpose here. You’re playing to win. But to steady the mind, release the mind, you have to know the mind. And what … 
  18. Survival Tactics
     … When we come to practice the Buddha’s teachings, we’re basically learning survival techniques for the mind, how to keep the mind’s good qualities going strong. Observing the precepts, practicing concentration, developing discernment: those are the tactics. The meditation we’re doing right now: that’s a survival tactic for the mind. Both on the everyday level and at the moment of … 
  19. The Rewards of Cleanliness
     … It’s the same with the mind. When greed, anger, and delusion come into the mind, if you just let them come in, come in, come in, you don’t really notice them, after a while they seem to be the normal way of the mind—almost as if they are permanent inhabitants. But you try to keep the mind clean every time something … 
  20. The Lotus in the Mud
    One of the traditional images of the mind in concentration or of the awakened mind is of a lotus growing out of the mud. In the tropics the mud is pretty rank. And yet out of the mud you get this lovely flower with a very gentle smell and leaves that repel the water, flowers that repel the water, so that they can grow … 
  21. Therapy for the Mind
    Therapy for the Mind September 13, 2020 The practice of the Dhamma is therapy for the mind, one that treats some diseases that are not mentioned in the psychologists’ handbooks. Greed, aversion, delusion: As far as psychologists are concerned, these things are normal. But the Buddha recognized that they’re diseases, illnesses of the mind. And he prescribed a course of treatment. Now, this … 
  22. Load next page...