Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Appropriate Attention
     … So for this question the mind always has—“What should I do now?”—he provides an answer for it. This is why the Dhamma is so good for the mind, so right for the mind, because it answers your burning question: You’ve got these responsibilities. How do you handle them, for the sake of a happiness that’s worth the effort that goes … 
  3. You’ve Got Friends
     … If the mind resists, well, watch it for a while and see what the resistance is coming from. One of the peculiar things about the mind is that a lot of the painful things that we carry around have their allure. Part of the mind likes them. And again, that’s something we don’t normally want to see. But once the mind gets … 
  4. Taking a Stance
     … In Pali, the word for the object of the mind, arammana, literally means a “support” for the mind. When you meditate, you want to find a good, solid support, because when your support is solid you can deal with whatever’s coming at you from whatever direction, whether thoughts inside the mind or things people do or say from outside. Your response — if it … 
  5. Attention with an Agenda
     … You’re trying to get the mind into concentration. So you breathe in a way that will give rise to a sense of comfort for the sake of getting the mind into concentration. You use directed thought and evaluation, again for the sake of getting the mind to be willing to settle down, giving it a good place to settle down so that it … 
  6. Duties in the Present
     … After the mind has developed a good solid foundation with the breath, then you can notice where there’s any stress, any pain in the body. Look at how the mind reacts to it. You’ll begin to see that there are lot of unskillful thoughts surrounding the pain. Your duty there is to abandon them, because the mind usually doesn’t just look … 
  7. Clearing a Space
    Practice would be easy if the problems of the mind were neat and orderly, if they fit into nice categories and came in nice, graduated steps—starting first with the easier problems and moving up gradually to the harder ones. That way the practice could be neat and orderly, too: You’d start out with virtue, and when your virtue is perfected you could … 
  8. Training Your Commentator
     … what’s going on with the breath, what’s going on with the mind. If you’re constantly commenting, it gets in the way of seeing what else is happening in the mind on a deeper level. There may be an issue left over from the day that you have to deal with first before the mind will be willing to settle down. And … 
  9. The Skillful Heart
     … The same way when you get the mind really still, get the body really still: The little things that are happening in the mind, the subtle movements of the mind, become very clear. This is the other lesson of discernment, which is that the suffering that’s weighing down the mind is not being imposed on you from outside. It comes from within. Craving … 
  10. Samvega First
    It’s a common pattern that when you clear out some time to meditate, sit down, make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath, there’s a part of the mind that sees this time as an opportunity to think about all kinds of other things. So you’ve got to nip that tendency in the bud. That’s one … 
  11. Vitakka & Vicara
     … Is this going the way you want, or is it not? You have to apply these fabrications not only to the breath, but also to the mind. What is your mind doing right now? If it’s slipping off, is the problem with the breath or with the mind itself? Where is it slipping out to feed? If you find the mind feeding on … 
  12. Equanimity on the Path
     … For instance, when you’re getting the mind into concentration, anything that comes up that’s not related to the concentration, you’re just going to have equanimity for. Now, this may be temporary. It may be an issue that you have to deal with when you leave concentration. But for the time being, you want to keep the mind on an even keel … 
  13. Pleasant Practice, Painful Practice
     … Where is there still any stress here? You look for what you might be doing to cause the stress, and you notice that by keeping track of the rise and fall of the level of stress in the mind while it’s in concentration. If you catch the activity of the mind that brings on the stress, drop that activity right then and there … 
  14. Shelter
     … You have to be willing to take time, with a sense of confidence that this project we’re working on right here—getting the mind to settle down, getting a good place for the mind to stay—is going to take time because the mind is a very complex phenomenon. Part of it is willing to settle down and another part is not. This … 
  15. A World Apart
     … So we’re looking after the mind both for its own sake and for the sake of the duties we have in the world outside. It’s obvious that when the mind is calmer and clearer, then when you engage in the world outside, you can engage in a way that’s more skillful. But it’s important that we keep our priorities straight … 
  16. Using Your Many Minds
    You’ve probably noticed as you meditate that the mind has lots of minds, lots of different opinions on things, lots of different desires, often in conflict. It’s a major problem, but you can to turn it to your advantage. After all, suppose that you did just have one self, one that was all confused and basically corrupt in its motives. You couldn … 
  17. Concentration
     … You can read as much as you’d like about discernment, inconstancy, stress, not-self, emptiness, whatever, but it’s not really going to have a hold on the mind until the mind settles down firmly and can be still. However much the mind likes to read about those things, its feeding habits are still low. Ajaan Chah’s image of Westerners is one … 
  18. How Right Mindfulness Leads to Right Concentration
     … In Ajaan Lee’s explanation, it watches both the mind and the breath to make sure they’re together. And then ardency is the desire to do this well, which means, one, if you notice that the mind has wandered off the breath, you bring it right back. And then two, once it’s there, you try and make sure it stays there. When … 
  19. Inner Discontent
    Training the mind is like training a child. You have to have a sense of when to be gentle with it and when to be strict. This is a sense that you can develop only over time—which means that there are going to be mistakes in the practice, times when you push yourself way too hard, you get frazzled, and you begin to … 
  20. Solving Real Problems
     … If he was going to look for something that didn’t age, didn’t grow ill, didn’t die, he would have to look in the mind. He would have to train the mind so that even with the death of the body, the mind wouldn’t suffer. That right there requires that we have choice in the present moment. And this is what … 
  21. The Dualistic Path
     … And watch for the mind’s tendency to jump away. Usually it’s avoiding boredom or a little bit of tension. Sometimes even the slightest thing can send the mind off. Learn how to resist that habit. When you resist it, you can stay here. You begin to see, “Oh, there was that little bit of dis-ease that set the mind off, and … 
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