Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Do Jhana
     … That’s an analogy for the mind observing the mind watching the breath. See if there’s anything in there that’s still causing you any stress at all, either in terms of the breath itself or with the mind’s own activities. This is an important principle in the practice: learning how to watch your actions while you’re doing them, seeing the … 
  3. Peace vs. Clinging
     … That’s because it’s peace of the mind that gives well-being. Even when we’re happy in the normal sense of smiling and cheerful, it’s because part of the mind is at peace. Things fit together. Of course, there are many levels of sukha, some of them worth pursuing, others not. But the really important ones are the ones that relate … 
  4. The Skills of Truth & Calm
     … Well, you’re talking to yourself about the breath, about the mind settling down with the breath, trying to get them snugly together. Then you’ve got perceptions and feelings. You’re trying to create a feeling of ease, well-being. And you’ve got certain perceptions about how the body relates to the mind, the mind relates to the body. Where is your … 
  5. Lessons of Right Resolve
     … And there comes a point where thinking wears the mind out. This is when the mind gets inclined to concentration. You need a place for the mind to rest. It’s in this way that mundane right resolve develops into transcendent right resolve. There’s a very clear connection between right resolve and right concentration. After all, what is concentration? The mind is firmly … 
  6. Pain & Patience
     … In every case where pain is weighing down the mind, it’s because of clinging—that’s the activity of the mind that causes the mind pain. Of course, there are causes for physical pain out there, but the fact that there’s pain in the body that weighs on the mind, the weight on the mind comes from your own clinging. And you … 
  7. Rightly Directed
     … Because once the mind is concentrated and you can maintain that concentration for a while, you begin to notice there are still little disturbances in the mind. At first they don’t seem all that serious, but then you realize that if you really want the mind to be happy, content, totally undisturbed, then you’ve got to get rid of even the tiniest … 
  8. Straightening Out the World
     … right here, right here in training the mind. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha noted that one of the main differences between wise people and foolish people is that wise people see the need to train the mind; foolish people don’t. Wise people see that everything comes out of the mind. It’s what makes all the difference in the world. Your actions, your … 
  9. Defilements with Their Bambi Eyes
     … Before introducing breath meditation, he talks about the contemplation of the body, contemplation of not-self, inconstancy—the point being that if you’re going to get the mind to settle down and pull away from its thoughts, you have to contemplate the drawbacks of your thinking to at least some extent. Otherwise, when the mind gets still, your old thoughts begin to invade … 
  10. Trustworthy Judgment
     … In this way the mind ends up being a traitor to itself. It can’t depend on itself because it doesn’t know how to test its ideas. It doesn’t know how to test its notions. As we practice meditation we’re trying to make the mind more reliable, more trustworthy. Just this simple process of focusing on one object: Can you do … 
  11. The Knife of Discernment
    The Knife of Discernment April, 2002 The mind feeds on its moods and its objects, so you’ve got to find something good for it to feed on. We have the choice. There are all kinds of things you could focus on right now. It’s up to you to choose the right place to focus, the right place to feed. So look around … 
  12. Truth Through Training
     … But when you learn how to overcome those resistances, you’ve learned a lot about the mind. So the training here is to get the mind to settle down, to be one with its object. In the beginning, you’re not quite one yet. You’re thinking about the breath and the mind, evaluating them so that they fit together. It’s like a … 
  13. The Primacy of the Mind (1)
    The Primacy of the Mind (1) June 21, 2021 Mano-pubbangama dhamma, the mind is the forerunner of all phenomena: the first line in the Dhammapada. It’s well known, yet all too often when we come to meditation we forget it. We think that meditation is about simply accepting what comes in through the senses and going with the flow—in other words … 
  14. Rhythms of the Mind
    Meditation practice is like medication for the mind. Just as there are a lot of different kinds of medicine, there are lots of different kinds of meditation. There’s a kind of meditation where the mind is soothed, where it’s nourished. And there’s a kind of meditation that cleans things out of the mind, just as there are medicines that nourish the … 
  15. A Foundation for Restraint
     … If we focus on the body to get the mind to settle down, we can focus on different aspects of the body and ask ourselves, “Why are we so attached to it?” So the body plays a double role. On the one hand, it’s our place of refuge, so that the mind isn’t running out all over the place. But at the … 
  16. Healing Skills
     … Keeping the mind in position: That’s the hard part, because it’s very easy for the mind to slip off. It’s the fastest thing to change that you can think of. You’re here with the breath and all of a sudden you’re someplace else. You don’t know where you were in the meantime. You thought you were here with … 
  17. Choices
     … When you’re trying to get the mind still, there will be voices in the mind, or sides of the mind, that you don’t like to see coming up. If you’re not confident that you don’t have to identify with them, it’s going to be hard to not get blown away by them. I was teaching another retreat one time … 
  18. Right Speech, Inside & Out
    To get the mind to settle down, you have to talk to it. Remind it of why it’s a good thing to be here, a good thing to be with the breath, how you don’t have to be responsible for anything else right now. Take some joy in that fact. Give it pep talks when it’s discouraged, rein it in when … 
  19. Freedom through Restraint
     … As you focus in, though, you find that things open up in the mind as you get to know the present moment a lot better. With the mind focused in the present moment, you see the mind a lot more clearly than you would if you just followed it as it wandered around. This is why even though the focus may be a little … 
  20. De-thinking
     … It’s not always the case that the mind is just reacting to its experiences. Sometimes it’s shaping its experiences, too. If we don’t get a sense of how we shape things, we never really get a chance to look into the mind. For starters there’s the concept of the breath not as the air coming in and out of the … 
  21. A Committed Relationship
    When we meditate, we’re trying to establish a good relationship between the mind and the breath: a relationship of harmony, trust; one where both sides benefit. It’s very much like establishing a relationship with another person. And so it’s useful to think about what the Buddha has to say about developing good relations with another person, and to see where we … 
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