Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Toward Release
     … the breath, the feelings that come up with the breath, and then the mind state that watches and that is soothed by the breath. The mind is both on the receiving end and on the proactive end in its relationship to the breath. On the receiving end, it’s alert to the level of comfort coming from the breath and its effect on the … 
  3. Mindfulness & Effort
     … It’s a good object for the mind. The mind likes to feed on its objects, so you give it something good to feed on. Here you’re feeding on the sensation of the breathing and also on the good intentions that go into keeping you with the present moment. Because the most nourishing food for the mind is just that: its intentions. We … 
  4. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … But, as the Buddha noticed, you could think skillful thoughts for a whole day and a whole night, and it wouldn’t cause any harm, wouldn’t have any drawbacks, except that it would tire the mind. And you know what happens when the mind gets tired. The body gets tired. When the mind and body are tired, you don’t have the strength … 
  5. Random Word Generators
     … The amount of talking we do with other people is nothing compared with all the conversations going on in the mind. You’d think that by now we’d be fairly tired of the whole process. But there’s a part of the mind that’s always fascinated by what’s being churned out. In fact, it’s our fascination with all our conversations … 
  6. Heedful of Death
     … Because it’s in those gaps in your alertness that important things are going on in the mind. The mind does have a tendency to place a curtain over its workings, like the wizard in The Wizard of Oz, who likes to hide behind the curtain as he manipulates his machinery. Once the curtain is stripped away, it destroys the illusion. But the mind … 
  7. Unchanged by Loss
     … The precepts are there as shortcut guides, quick notes in the mind—no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no intoxicants, ever—because they’re most needed when the mind is overcome with emotion, and when the mind is overcome by emotion, it’s very easy to forget. If the precepts were complicated, with lots of exceptions, the mind would certainly find … 
  8. The Wisdom of Wising Up
     … This can take time, getting the mind and the breath to settle down together. During that period of settling down, the mind can get discouraged and bored. It can find all sorts of reasons for not staying in the present, which aborts the process. To settle the mind takes not only time but also as few interruptions as possible. Ultimately, though, the mind can … 
  9. Antidotes
     … You have to develop your discernment by learning how to use the concentration and the mindfulness and the alertness. Discernment is not automatic. It’s not the case that once the mind gets very clear, all these wonderful insights will suddenly come springing up that you can trust 100%. After all, some of the worst delusions that meditators suffer from come from a concentrated … 
  10. Discernment in Concentration
     … It’s not the case that when you’re practicing concentration you have to get the mind still and then sometime later use your discernment. You first have to use your discernment to get the mind to settle down to begin with. Only when you can get the mind to settle down can you really understand it. Because discernment is about understanding the mind … 
  11. The Languages of the Mind
     … Why is it talking to itself? What does it have to tell itself? Why does it have to tell us things? You’d think that if the mind knew something, it would know it, without one part of the mind having to inform another part of the mind. There’s also the question of what language the mind is talking in. Even stream-of … 
  12. Doing Meditation
    One of the Buddha’s major insights is that the mind spends its time doing. We’re always doing something: thinking about this, getting the body to move and do that, getting your mouth to move to say those things. There’s always a doing, there’s always a choice going on in the mind. This is what lies at the essence of karma … 
  13. Ready to Evacuate
     … Usually, the mind is divided up into lots of different things. There’s this part of the mind holding on to this, and that part of the mind holding onto that. When the mind gets divided up like this, though, each part gets weaker and weaker and weaker. It’s when the mind is whole that it’s strong. It’s like fruit in … 
  14. Different Minds, Different Bodies
     … You come in with different raw materials, especially when you’re dealing with the mind. Sometimes you bring a really hyper mind into the practice and you’ve to do what you can to calm it down. At other times, the mind is sluggish. Or you’ve got a particular issue you’re dealing with, carried over from something somebody said in the course … 
  15. A Sense of Direction
     … At the same time, it allows the mind to see itself clearly. Because when you get the mind well-settled in concentration, mindfulness and alertness come to the fore. You can see the motions of the mind and their results: when they cause harm, when they don’t cause harm. In this area, though, the harm is very subtle, it’s hard even to … 
  16. Resisting the Germs of Defilement
     … And you cultivate the desire to develop them more in the mind, realizing that this really is a worthwhile process. Too many people think, “Oh well, whatever goes through the mind just goes through the mind. It comes in, goes out, and that’s it. Nobody else knows what’s going on in my mind, so it doesn’t matter.” But it does matter … 
  17. A Gentle Touch
    Give the mind a chance to settle down, and try to learn just the right amount of pressure to put on the breath to keep it there. For a lot of people, if you could take a picture of what they’re doing to their mind as they’re practicing concentration, it’s as if they’re strangling it, which is why the mind … 
  18. Evaluation: The Voice of Heedfulness
     … And this back and forth—trying things out, then evaluating, then trying out your conclusions—is a really important part of getting the mind to settle down, because you’re trying to get the mind to fit with the breath, the breath to fit with the mind. At the same time, you’re developing your own powers of judgment, your own discernment. You’re … 
  19. Concentration as a Skill
     … The breath may be something very ordinary, but working with it does a lot of extraordinary good for the mind. The mind in concentration may not be interesting, at least from the outside. There’s not a lot of creative thinking going on once the mind finally does settle down. The creative thinking is in getting it to settle down. Once you’ve got … 
  20. Dwelling in Emptiness
     … As we’re working on bringing the mind to stillness, it’s pretty obvious when you’re struggling with it, that the inability to get the mind to settle down is suffering. Once the mind does get settled down, there’s going to be a sense of ease. But that phase of being unable to get the mind to settle down: It’s good … 
  21. Sucked into the Tube
    One of the most important skills you can develop as a meditator is catching the mind in the act. To begin with, this means catching it in the act of wandering off. You make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath. You stay for a couple breaths and all of a sudden you find yourself someplace else. So you come … 
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