Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Learning & Respect
     … There’s so much going on in the mind that’s subterranean. When we talk about the subconscious, it’s not like a basement, a different place in the mind. Subconscious things are actions in the mind that come very quickly. We’re barely aware of them, but they’re there and they leave their traces. The Buddha points out that there are intentions … 
  3. Investigative Work
    **Ajaan Chah once said that one of the first things you notice when you really look at the mind is how much it lies to you. It promises happiness through the way it thinks, the way it sees things, and then it doesn’t deliver. Actually, it delivers a lot of stress and suffering. Then it hopes you forget. Then it promises more happiness … 
  4. Capture Your Imagination
     … You’re creating a world in the mind—but not solely in the mind. It’s also in the body. As you may have noticed, when you’re thinking about things, there’s a spot of tension or a pattern of tension someplace in the body that goes along with the thought. This means that any act of the imagination, any act of the … 
  5. Around in Circles
     … just the mind staying alert to the breath right here. There are not too many variables, it would seem. But it’s plenty enough to keep you busy, plenty enough to give you all the raw material you need to learn about the mind in the present moment. Because that’s when the mind does all its work: in the present moment. We often … 
  6. The Four Precepts
     … Remember, the word “meditation” in Pali, bhavana, means developing the mind. And you don’t develop the mind solely when you sit here with your eyes closed, not doing anything. You also have to develop it while you’re doing things—while you’re acting, while you’re moving, while you’re speaking. It’s like learning how to chew gum and to walk … 
  7. A Post by the Ocean
     … In other words, if you take on too many responsibilities out in the world but don’t have a firm foundation for the mind, the mind ends up getting smashed to pieces. And it’s of no use to anybody. So while you’re focused on one small point right here — just the breath, just the body — it may seem like you’re neglecting … 
  8. From Heedfulness to Purity
     … Do you want to hold onto it or do you want to let go? So you bring the mind to the concentration usually with some confused motives. And the concentration, the mindfulness, allow for the discernment that’s going to allow us to see where the confusion lies, because we begin to see that it really does cause suffering, causes stress one way or … 
  9. Booster Stages
    The Buddha was a master of the apt simile, the apt comparison, but even he found himself stymied when it came to finding comparison for how quickly the mind can change. Attitudes you may have held for a long time, you can drop in a fraction of a second. Intentions that you sincerely wish for, you can drop very quickly—and then you want … 
  10. Generating Power
     … We often think of it as a place for the mind to rest, and it is, but it’s even more a place for the mind to recharge its batteries. That requires energy, requires effort, requires work. In Thailand the idiom for meditation is “to make an effort.” And in meditating there very definitely are things we have to do. It’s not just … 
  11. Cut the Currents
    When you practice concentration, you have to gather the mind around one object—all the various strands, all the various wanderings around, trying to bring them together right here. The good thing when you’re focusing on the breath is that the breath is quite large. It has space for all the movements of your mind because it’s a whole-body process. When … 
  12. Undefeated Goodwill
     … Actions come out of the mind, so the mind has to be trained. Again, it’s not innately skillful. There are a lot of voices in the mind that want to get a quick and easy happiness, with no concern for the consequences. There was a book of positive psychology I read a while back when I was asked to review it for a … 
  13. Do Jhana
     … Once the mind is in jhana, then it can develop your tranquility and insight even further. All these qualities go together and help to develop one another. In fact, for him, vipassana was not a name of a meditation technique. It was the name of a quality of the mind: a clear-seeing quality. Samatha was also a quality of the mind: calm, tranquil … 
  14. Collecting Your Tools
     … learning how to put the mind in the spot where it doesn’t have to carry its tools around, but its knowledge is there when it needs it. We try to find a balance as we’re meditating, how to be quiet and yet alert at the same time, so that when issues arise in the mind, we know what we should do. Then … 
  15. Choiceful Awareness
    There’s a passage where the Buddha says that it’s possible to abandon unskillful qualities in the mind. If it were not possible, he wouldn’t teach it. It also is possible to develop skillful qualities in the mind. And again, if it were not possible to do that, he wouldn’t teach it. The underlying principle here, of course, is that we … 
  16. Bases of Power
     … So whatever your motivation might be, you use that to remind yourself of why you want to be here, especially as the mind starts to wander away from the breath. You’ve got to be able to pull it back, and part of the mind will say, “Hey, this is entertaining, what I’m thinking about here,” so you’ve got to have good … 
  17. Bursting Bubbles
     … These potentials are here in the mind. For example, with restlessness: We talked about this a little bit today. When the mind seems overcome by restlessness, you’ve got to remember that there’s a part of the mind, there are these potentials in the mind that you can be bringing to the fore. One of the potentials is that even though the thoughts … 
  18. A Passion for the Path
     … You have to prove to yourself, on the one hand, that this is the best thing the mind can create. It’s the best state of becoming you can experience: the mind in concentration. And you have to see at the same time the extent to which you’ve fabricated it. That’s where right view comes in to keep reminding you: When the … 
  19. Permission to Play
     … This way you get a sense of when you should try to change things, and when you shouldn’t; which problems in the body or in the mind respond to active intervention, and which ones respond better when you simply watch them with equanimity. As you put the mind in a better mood through giving it a good comfortable place to stay, or giving … 
  20. In Charge of Your Moods
     … You’re trying to develop a special quality of the mind: the mind when it’s still, at ease, solidly here in the present moment. When it’s here, it can observe itself. If you go running off after thoughts, you know about the thoughts, but you don’t know about yourself. Yet, as the Buddha says, it’s because of the mind that … 
  21. Challenges
    There are two big dangers when you try to get the mind to settle down. One is pain and the other is pleasure. And it’s through learning how to be intelligent around pain and pleasure that we can stay settled down. Otherwise, the mind goes flying off in other directions. With pain, of course, the issue is how not to feel irritated by … 
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