Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Pain & the Middle Way
     … But the mind gets hungry. Without some sense of well-being that it can go for blatantly, it’s going to go secretly, when you’re not looking, trying to feed off this, feed off that. And that just opens up more avenues for pain to come into the mind, because now the mind is being dishonest with itself. So feed the mind well … 
  3. The Steadiness of Your Gaze
     … It plows right through the gaps in your awareness in which the mind hides things from itself, and it zeros in on the big issues in the mind: Why is the mind causing itself suffering? Why is it causing itself stress in ways that don’t have to be there? In the context of the Three Characteristics, the Buddha does point out that anything … 
  4. Maintenance Work
     … Then take that attitude of valuing maintenance work and apply it to the mind. Just staying with the breath for a few minutes doesn’t make that much of a difference. But if you stay with it all day, you find there is a big change in the mind. You get more and more reliable in your intentions. You get so that you can … 
  5. At Home in Jhana
     … Learn how to be good repairman, because without this home for the mind, you’re wandering around on the streets. With it, you’ve got a shelter for the mind, you’ve got a place where you can fix food for the mind. It’s a place to rest, a place to sit and examine yourself to gain knowledge. One of the amazing things … 
  6. Simple & Basic
     … When the mind wanders off and you’re bringing it back, all the factors of dependent co-arising are in there—if you want to look for them. When the mind is with the breath, it’s with all the sankharas: bodily fabrication, verbal fabrication, mental fabrication. They’re all right here. So everything you really need to know is happening right here. It … 
  7. When Aging Closes In
     … We develop concentration so that we can develop the strength inside—along with the discernment that goes with that strength—to get the mind in a position where even though it lives in a body that’s ill, the mind isn’t ill. It lives in a body that’s aging, but the mind isn’t aging. Even when the body dies, the mind … 
  8. Contentment
     … So the breath gives you a good vantage point, and you can use the breath to soothe the body, to make the body more healthy; and at the same time to soothe the mind and to allow the mind to get to know itself. There’s so much ignorance in the mind about its own self—all those hidden corners and closed rooms in … 
  9. Mindful All the Way
     … Which shows the importance of training the mind. The mind is so changeable, so quick to change its direction. We have to train it to be mindful, to resist that tendency. Especially if the direction you’re going in has been good, you want to make sure it doesn’t turn around and go someplace bad. So work on your mindfulness. What is mindfulness … 
  10. To Strengthen the Path
     … doesn’t harm you; doesn’t harm the people around you—a happiness that leaves the mind clear, unlike the happiness, say, that comes from gaining sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations that you really like or things that you can fantasize about. Those things can be pleasant, but they leave their imprint on the mind. They cloud the mind. What we want is … 
  11. The Role of the Observer
     … Those are the ones that you may know are unskillful, but part of the mind really likes them. You’ve got a battle going on in the mind, and that’s the area where the Buddha says that you have to “exert a fabrication.” Now, we know the different kinds of fabrication. There’s the breath, which is bodily fabrication; directed thought and evaluation … 
  12. Like Earth and Space
     … And the mind has to be very still to see those subtle things: the difference between breathing that’s easeful and not easeful; that gives rise to rapture or doesn’t; that calms the mind or doesn’t calm the mind; that steadies the mind or doesn’t steady the mind. You have to be very sensitive. The more you can make your mind … 
  13. Protection from Fools
     … And this is why the mind is to be very still, because if you’re not still, you don’t notice the waves that come through the mind. If you’re moving around all the time, another wave comes in, and you don’t notice it because you’re obsessed with the motions you’re already making. A few extra motions don’t register … 
  14. Working with Nature
     … As Ajaan Lee points out, when you’re trying to get the mind into concentration, directed thought, evaluation, and singleness of preoccupation are the causes. You keep directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating it to make it a good place to stay. All of this may involve some activity. You want to get the mind still, but to get it still, you … 
  15. Love Me, Love My Defilements
     … In fact, he never talked about the innate nature of the mind at all. And two, the fact that the mind has defilements doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily good or bad or anything. It’s just a recognition that some states of mind obscure our awareness. They obscure the clarity, the brightness that can be found in the mind. The problem is … 
  16. A Gift of Strength
     … So take this time to work on the strength of the mind. First there’s the strength of conviction: that your actions really are important, the things you do, the things you say and think, really do shape your life. What does that mean? It means you have to look after the source of your actions, which is the mind, the intentions in the … 
  17. Grasping the Snake
     … Actively develop new thought patterns in the mind so that when an angry thought comes up—and you know the kind of conversation the mind has with itself when it’s angry—you have an antidote ready. If anger does come into the mind, use the antidote to get rid of it. At other times, think in the terms that would undercut the anger … 
  18. A Cure for the Sluggish Mind
     … Or you’ll drift off into delusion concentration, where the mind is still, but there’s not much alertness, not much awareness—which is not what you want. So energize the body. Then look at the mind: Is it too energetic, or is it too sluggish? From that, figure out what needs to be done. If it’s too sluggish, think of the Buddha … 
  19. A Safe Haven Through Alertness
    One of the Pali terms for concentration is vihāra-dhamma, “a home for the mind.” It’s a place where you settle in and dwell with a sense of peace, security, well-being. And as we all know, it takes a heap of living to make a house a home. Sometimes it’s easy to settle down with the breath and sometimes it’s … 
  20. The Need for Evaluation
    When you focus on the breath, when you try to bring the mind to a state of concentration, you’re trying to do two things at once. One is to give the mind a place where it can rest, gather its strength, heal its wounds, and in general develop a sense of ease and well-being. The second purpose is to be able to … 
  21. Chopping Off Thoughts
     … You find that that helps cut right through things to get the mind to settle down. Because all too often, the pattern is that if you know you have an hour to meditate, there’s a long slow steady decline of thought as the mind begins to settle down, and finally it’ll settle down toward the end of the hour. If you give … 
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