Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Respect for the Mind
    Why do we show so much respect for the Buddha? Because he teaches us to have respect for our own minds, and two aspects of the mind in particular. One is our desire for true happiness. And the other is our ability to attain that true happiness. Some places you’ll hear it said that true happiness is impossible. “You have to accept whatever … 
  3. The Mind Comes First
    One of the basic principles of the Dhamma is that the mind comes first—in two senses of the term. One is that the state of your mind is the most important thing in your life. It has to come first in all your considerations. When you think about what you’re going to accomplish in life, the greatest accomplishment is, as the Buddha … 
  4. Dhamma Medicine
    The practice of meditation is medicine for the mind. It cures our diseases of greed, aversion, and delusion. In fact, the practice as a whole is medicine. The Buddha often compared himself to a doctor, and to get the full implications of that image, you have to think about what old-fashioned medicine was like. To begin with, the doctor didn’t give you … 
  5. The Guarantee of Concentration
     … And the commentary that the mind runs all the time: You have to learn how to be a little bit leery of it. The mind is so quick to make comments on things. When you’re getting the mind into a state of concentration you’re stepping back a bit, you’re not singing along with the voices in the mind. You’re just … 
  6. True to the Breath
     … If you want to find the truth about the mind, you’ve got to stay right here to watch it in action. Even though it may move, you don’t have to move along with it. There’s a part of the mind that just observes the whole process of fabrication. The Buddha compares fabrication to streams in the mind that go flowing out … 
  7. The Need for Stillness
     … The cause of suffering, he says, is sending the mind out, sending your attention, sending your awareness outside, and suffering is what results from that. The path, he says, is having the mind watch the mind, having the mind see the mind. The end of suffering is what results from that. So it’s the movement that makes us suffer, and just having the … 
  8. Purity Comes Through Discernment
     … On the one hand, you use them to bring the mind to concentration. They’re factors in the first jhana. Direct the mind to the breath; evaluate the breath. That right there is a kind of fabrication. It’s a good tool to have. It’s the normal thinking process, the normal verbalization process in the mind: You think about something and then you … 
  9. New Feeding Habits for the Mind
    New Feeding Habits for the Mind August, 2001 The juxtaposition of those two chants just now—the one that says, “subject to aging, subject to illness, subject to death, subject to separation,” and the other that starts out, “May I be happy, may all living beings be happy”: That’s the human predicament. We’re sitting here in this body that’s going to … 
  10. The Skill of Restraint
     … These three aspects of sensory input are what the mind is feeding on all the time. The basic skill in learning new ways to cook this food is to focus on the breath and get the mind centered inside. You’re actually changing the level of the mind when it’s inside the body in this way. Instead of being on the sensual level … 
  11. Monastery Standard Time
     … Sometimes it takes months to observe a pattern in the mind. But once you’ve understood it, it’s worth all the time that it takes. So try to keep your mind on monastic standard time—or at least part of the mind on monastic standard time. The rest of the mind can go live by lay time. But let part of the mind … 
  12. Discernment Fosters Concentration
    There are a lot of mental qualities that go into training the mind, and the Buddha has several lists. In some of the lists, concentration fosters discernment; in other lists, discernment fosters concentration. The five faculties, five strengths: Those are lists that put the concentration first. You start with a certain conviction in the Buddha’s teachings and you get to work, get the … 
  13. Normalcy
    When the mind is really released, its release is said to be unprovoked. In other words, it’s not dependent on conditions. There was a theory in the time of the Buddha about how physical events happened. There were different elements or properties, dhatu, and they either existed in a calm state or a provoked one. When they were provoked, they would act up … 
  14. The Third Frame of Reference
     … That’s uplifting for the mind. So these are some of the tools that are useful in gladdening the mind, satisfying the mind, or uplifting the mind, when you feel that it needs that kind of nourishment. Another step in breath meditation is to steady the mind. This is for times when the mind is really scattered all over the place. What can bring … 
  15. Into Position
     … That means that the insights are going to be about the mind as it’s acting in the present moment. So get used to watching the mind right here and now. When the Buddha divides breath meditation into four issues—issues around the breath, issues around feelings, issues around the mind, and issues around mental qualities—issues around the mind start with learning how … 
  16. Why Now
     … Focus directly on the needs of the mind because your mind is your most important possession. If the mind is in good shape, then you can be in horrible situations and not suffer. If the mind is in bad shape, you can be in the best situations outside and still create a lot of suffering for yourself and the people around you. So the … 
  17. A Post for the Mind
     … You get closer and closer to what’s stirring the mind to go out, even when you’ve got this sense of well-being here. How does the mind get bored with it? What is it that wants change all the time? What lack is still there? Even when the body feels nourished and when most of the mind will feel nourished by the … 
  18. Equanimity in Heart & Mind
     … This is why we come to train the mind—but not just the mind. In Pali they use the word citta, which means both “heart” and “mind.” As you look through the various Buddhist cultures, you can see that there’s no clear distinction between heart and mind—the mind being the mental function that figures things out, analyzes reality, and then the heart … 
  19. Questioning Your Unconscious Actions
     … But the unconscious and subconscious are not spaces in the mind. They’re activities that the mind does without being fully conscious of them—and there are a lot of those. If there are walls in the mind that prevent us from seeing them, we’ve put those walls up right before our eyes. What’s subconscious is not located in any particular hidden … 
  20. Riding an Elephant to Catch Grasshoppers
    The Thais have an expression, “riding an elephant to catch grasshoppers.” It’s a good image to hold in mind when you find yourself obsessed with minor things, things that are less important than the practice — and “minor things” here may in the eyes of the world seem major, but you remember from the point of view of training the mind to put an … 
  21. Concentration Isn’t Dumb
     … They can’t get the mind to settle down at all. They don’t know how to do it because they haven’t had to figure the mind out before. The people who like to think a lot are the ones who have to figure concentration out: how to get the mind to want to settle down, how to talk to it, how to … 
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