Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Mindworms
     … As I said, this is where the image of the committee of the mind is useful. Not everybody in the mind has to be in that thought, and not every member of the mind *is *in that thought. It’s just that one ego-centric person has taken over and dominated things, but there are other Yous in the mind as well. So even … 
  3. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
     … These two qualities – discernment and concentration, as they’re supported by mindfulness and alertness – bring the mind to greater and greater stillness, greater and greater clarity. So as we’re working with the breath, we’re not just working with the breath. We’re also gaining insight into the processes in the mind. This is a very useful and important investment of our time … 
  4. Driving Lessons
     … In particular, you’re trying to remember things that are useful to remember right now as you try to get the mind into concentration. After all, as a meditator you’ve had some experience of how the mind can settle down—what works, what doesn’t work—and you want to have that at hand. Not that you’re running it through the mind … 
  5. Breaking Old Habits
     … What are the things that weigh down on the mind, that oppress the mind? If you ask most people, they’ll talk about things outside: their job, their family, their worries about the economy or the environment. But if you look deeply in your own mind, you’ll realize that the main burdens on the mind are the things that come from within. This … 
  6. The Intelligent Heart
     … The training of the mind, as the Buddha said, is the primary requisite for a happiness that lasts: both because it gives you the strength to give up the other pleasures that would leave wounds on the mind, and because it allows you to see more clearly into what your own mind is doing. When the mind feels an urge to go off someplace … 
  7. Delight in Stillness
     … Right there, where the mind is disturbing itself, that’s suffering. You want to figure out why: What’s the craving that’s getting in the way? What are you clinging to? So do your best to get the mind to settle down. Find the greatest point of stillness in the body and stay there. Connect with it and keep your gaze as steady … 
  8. Guarding Against Trouble
     … What are the effluents? The Pali word asava literally means *things that flow out. *In this case, they flow out of the mind. In some cases, the Buddha defines them as sensuality, becoming, and ignorance. But there’s a sutta where he talks about the effluents and they sound like anything that would create trouble for the mind. He lists seven different ways of … 
  9. Food for Consciousness
     … And it really gives a lot of good nourishment to the mind. It really strengthens the mind. We need to develop a taste for the good types of food because there are foods for consciousness that are like junk food—whole cupfuls of sugar in a little can of soda or huge amounts of fat in hamburgers and fries. For instance, we feed off … 
  10. Mindful & Discerning 24/7
     … One of the reasons we do concentration practice is to give the mind some rest between the battles. But also, the process of getting the mind concentrated teaches you some important things about its workings. As the mind begins to settle in, you use directed thought and evaluation—verbal fabrication—to get the mind still. Ideally, you should get to a point where you … 
  11. Choices Now & at Death
     … Have confidence that you can change the mind. You have that choice. And the mind does have possibilities, many of which are more than you can imagine. So, train the mind in the direction where it will go for the best possibilities. Keep in mind the principle of choice and have the confidence that, yes, you can learn how to make better and better … 
  12. Success Through Maturity
     … Breathe in a way that steadies the mind, gladdens the mind, or releases the mind, depending on what the mind needs. What all of these steps have in common is that they’re very proactive. They’re aimed at giving rise to certain states, getting the mind into right concentration. There is a purpose to all this. The Buddha’s instructions on mindfulness, if … 
  13. Pleasure on the Path
     … Then as you find yourself getting more and more interested in this flow of energy in the body, the mind begins to settle down. A quality of ease comes with that, when the mind has one place where it can stay and doesn’t have to go jumping around. It’s like trying out different places to sleep and none of them quite work … 
  14. What Should I Do?
    One of the questions that gnaws most frequently at the mind is, “What should I do?” It goes deeper, it eats deeper, than questions, say, like, “Who am I? What am I?” because our identity isn’t always an issue, but we’re constantly called on to make choices as to what to do. And that question, “What should I do?” implies a couple … 
  15. Immersed in the Body
     … They can hit the mind with a lot more violence, with a lot more force than the wobbling or sudden braking of a subway train. So the mind needs a really solid stance. This is why we work on providing this support for the mind not only while we’re sitting here meditating but also throughout the day. Some people complain that it’s … 
  16. Contentment vs. Initiative
     … the wandering-on of the mind. It keeps creating new worlds to think about and then to inhabit. You follow them for a while and then, when you get tired of one world, you create another one. You’ve got lots of worlds going on all at once: That’s the normal habit of the mind. So it’s going to take some effort … 
  17. Perceiving the Breath
     … You want to have that sense of allowing the mind to relax fully into the body in the same sort of liquid way. What you’re doing is giving the mind something good to return to here in the present moment because, especially as you’re beginning to meditate, you find it has other things going on as well. You’ve told yourself you … 
  18. Hindrances Based on Delusion
     … to see what kind of thinking leads to calming the mind, centering the mind, so that you can get past these obstacles and get the mind into a good, solid state of fixed penetration.
  19. Thinking & Not Thinking
     … At the same time, look after the mind. Be sensitive to the mind. Try to gladden it so that it’s happy to be here. Part of gladdening requires talking to yourself about what a good thing it is that you’re able to meditate. And then you can gladden it further by making the breath really comfortable, so that it’s very pleasurable … 
  20. Fear of the Truth
     … Ultimately, the Buddha says the highest noble truth—the truth of liberation, the truth of nibbana—is the ultimate protection for the mind, the ultimate place of security and safety. That, too, is a possibility in the mind, a potential in the mind—in your mind. So don’t let all the unskillful potentials scare you off. There are plenty of good things to … 
  21. Breath, Tranquility, & Insight
     … Verbal fabrication is your directed thought and evaluation, as when you bring up a topic in the mind and then evaluate it. This is how we create sentences in the mind, ask questions in the mind. The third type of fabrication is mental fabrication, which is composed of feelings of pleasure, pain or neither pleasure nor pain, and then your perceptions. Those things—feelings … 
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