Search results for: "Thought"

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  2. Agreements to Perceive
     … Another is the whole issue of thoughts coming into the mind. When a thought comes into the mind, a part of the mind will say, “I’ve got to look into this, to see what this is all about. Maybe there’s entertainment. Maybe there’s something important.” Learn to switch that perception around. Look at the thought as an energy that’s simply … 
  3. Analysis of Qualities
    It’s always good to start the meditation with thoughts of goodwill. Remind yourself that you do really want to be truly happy. That’s why you’re here. That thought helps to focus you. Where are you going to look for true happiness? You have to look inside. Every happiness based on things that you see and hear and smell and taste and … 
  4. Determination
     … Often, thoughts of anger, thoughts of lust, thoughts of whatever are our addictive escape. So look for the origination. What exactly sparks these things, and how long do they last? They come and then they go. Then they come again and they go again. You think you’re done with them, and then they come back. Why? What’s the pull? Then think about … 
  5. A Good Dish of Concentration
     … Thoughts of sensuality, thoughts of pride, thoughts of whatever that the mind gets involved in, you can see that they’re a pretty shoddy way of fabricating an experience, because you’ve been able to fabricate something better. And you begin to ask yourself, “Why do you want to feed off these things?” Because that’s what the aggregates are related to: the way … 
  6. Inner Baggage
     … You’re in a world composed of thought. Then the field of your experience is suddenly a thought field, whereas previously it was a body field. What you want to see is how you switch from one to the other, because it’s basically the same field, but in some ways you experience it as body; other times you experience it as a thought … 
  7. Choosing & Watching Your Choices
     … You want to learn how to see these choices you exercise even in the simple act of forming a thought. We often have the feeling that thoughts come in totally unbidden and willy-nilly. But as you begin to resist them, as you stay with your object of concentration, you begin to notice more and more: What are the processes of choice in the … 
  8. Things As They Function
     … Or you could take of thoughts of goodwill as your meditation object. It’s the same sort of thing. You have to breathe calmly as you’re developing goodwill and then you direct your thoughts to all beings: May all beings be happy. Then you evaluate that wish: Are there any beings out there for whom you feel hypocritical about saying that? Why? What … 
  9. Success Through Maturity
     … It’s very easy for the mind to start wallowing in a comfortable thought or a pleasant thought that has nothing to do with the meditation, nothing to do with thoughts of “skillful” or “unskillful.” It’s also easy to wallow in the comfort caused by the meditation. But then you forget the causes, and things fall apart. You have to work at maintaining … 
  10. Descartes’ Error
     … We think that happiness is something you have to stitch together from your thoughts about this and your perceptions and your sensations of that. Yet he’s saying that there’s more happiness in learning how to let go and be at peace. There are stages in letting go, which is why it requires a certain amount of intelligence, a certain amount of thought … 
  11. Alone with Your Mind
     … the thoughts that not only replace unskillful thoughts but also call the unskillful thoughts into question. Ask yourself, “Why should I be thinking that thought? What’s accomplished by it in the grand scheme of things? Is this something I really should be worried about? What’s the attachment here?” If you can actually locate the attachment, learn to look at it in ways … 
  12. W.W.B.R.
     … These thoughts are not yours. You don’t have to take them on. All too often, a thought gets proposed to the committee in the mind, and just the fact that it’s been proposed makes you think that everybody’s got to go along. Well, no. Somebody may be proposing the idea, but you don’t have to go along with it. You … 
  13. More Buddhist Engineering
     … Directed thought: You direct your thoughts to the breath. You keep them directed to the breath. And if those thoughts wander away, you can bring them back and direct them to the breath again. Evaluation: You evaluate the breath. 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 … 
  14. Right Learning
     … the mind is designed to churn up thoughts. We’ve been training it in that direction ever since we first learned how to speak. So it’s natural that these thoughts are going to come floating through. The problem is not whether or not they’re going to come floating through, it’s whether you try to catch hold of them. A thought may … 
  15. The Fourth Noble Truth
     … Noble right resolve is directed thought and evaluation together with singleness of mind. These are the factors that get you into the first jhana. You’re supposed to put aside thoughts of sensuality, thoughts of ill will, thoughts of harmfulness. When you really stick with that, the mind will naturally fall into a state where it’s pulling away from unskillful things. And you … 
  16. Stepping Back
     … Every time a thought comes up, here’s your chance: Are you going to fall for the thought or are you going to step back from it? The thoughts may be crazy, they may be things you don’t want to think about, but as long as you’re able to step back from them, you’re in a good position. This place where … 
  17. Metta Metacognition
    You want to start the day every day with thoughts of goodwill, metta, wishing for happiness—your happiness and the happiness of everyone else. We do that as a way of clearing our minds before we meditate. But metta, in and of itself, is also something good to contemplate. An important part of the meditation is the practice of alertness, watching what you’re … 
  18. Goodwill for the Real World
     … When you think about it in those terms, it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill to all. If it’s not there, you work on it. We’re sometimes told that goodwill is part of the innate nature of the mind. Now, it is possible for the human mind to have thoughts of goodwill, but remember, human goodwill is very different … 
  19. Delighting the Mind
     … Once he was able to step back from his thoughts and see them, not so much in terms of their content but in terms of the state of mind behind them and where they would lead—the skillful thoughts leading to good actions, the unskillful thoughts leading to unskillful actions—then he knew what to do: Abandon the unskillful thoughts and develop the skillful … 
  20. Pain & Distraction
     … Thoughts come up, and if you can distance yourself from them either by locating yourself in a particular part of the body or developing that sense of the separate observer that can choose which thoughts to go with and which thoughts to let go, you’re in a much better position. You’re not under so much compulsion to grab at something, because you … 
  21. Heedfulness All the Way Through
     … When the impulse comes to breathe in, where does that impulse come from? How does the breath then spread through the body? Does it spread smoothly? Does it spread comfortably? You can take advantage of that ability of the breath to respond to your thoughts. The thoughts in the mind can be fleeting. In the past, it was a problem. When a fleeting thought … 
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