Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 49
  2. Arising & Passing Away
     … So you have to look into the mind to see how the mind stitches things together in this process of upataan , stitching little sensations together and making a bigger deal out of them than they have to be. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha has us focus on just arising and passing away; what’s immediately apparent, immediately present to the … 
  3. Heedfulness All the Way Through
     … So if you’re really heedful as you’re mindful, you want to get the mind concentrated and still. This is the fourth strength. That’s when the mind gains power, because it can rest. Of the different qualities involved in the practice, concentration is the one the Buddha identifies with food. You nourish the mind. You nourish its sense of well-being simply … 
  4. Three More Recollections
     … There are other times, though when the mind refuses to settle down. In the words of the suttas, there’s a “fever” in the body that arises when you start focusing on the breath, or there’s sluggishness in the mind, or the mind gets scattered. No matter how much you tell it to stay with the breath, it resists. When that happens, then … 
  5. Doing Nothing
     … Right effort means distinguishing what’s skillful and what’s unskillful in the mind, and learning how to block or end any unskillful states in the mind and how to give rise to skillful states and then how to develop them further. That’s ardency in the practice. The effort here is not just a blind effort. It has to involve a certain amount … 
  6. How to Fall
     … When the mind slips off its object, you get faster and faster at bringing it back. Notice, the answer isn’t: The mind doesn’t slip off at all. It’s: You’re expected to slip off; it’s a normal part of the practice, a normal part of the training. The point lies in being more alert to what’s going on and … 
  7. Stillness & Clear Seeing
    Each time you start to meditate, you should remind yourself that this is a very high level of work for the mind—an honorable level of work, a noble level of work. So put yourself in the mood to do something noble. You’re not going to just sit here and follow your thoughts wherever they go. You’re going to stand above them … 
  8. The Analytical Mind
     … We’re trying to get the mind quiet, so that it learns the skill of how not to think. And sometimes the mind is willing to settle right down, like some of us tonight. It’s been a rough day with the heat, a lot of us are braindead, and the mind is ready just to settle down and rest. But the problem there … 
  9. Directing the Flow
    The mind well trained brings happiness; the mind untrained brings suffering and stress. The Buddha once said that it’s a sign of a wise person to realize how much the mind needs training. If it’s untrained, it’s like an untrained animal. If you have a dog that hasn’t been trained, it can’t live in the house. If a horse … 
  10. What to Tolerate, What Not
     … That way, even though there may be stress in your experience, it doesn’t weigh on the mind. The stress in the four noble truths is the only thing that really weighs on the mind. The stress in the three characteristics is not a problem if you don’t pull it in. Clinging and craving pull it in, make it weigh the mind down … 
  11. Strengthening Concentration
     … What you’ve done is that you’ve changed your perception, changed your understanding, in a way that enables you to strategize more effectively in overcoming resistance in the mind. The same thing applies with concentration. The Buddha talks about times when you’re trying to focus on the breath, and the mind says: “Oh, I’m not willing to settle down.” He calls … 
  12. Success with Breathing
     … There are also the potentials of the mind that are applied here, where you can watch to see how the mind fashions its experiences with its perceptions, with its ways of talking to itself. You can fashion them in all kinds of ways. But you want to fashion them in a way that leads the mind to want to settle down. These potentials are … 
  13. The Four Biases
     … So this is why we work on the meditation, getting the mind to be solid here in the present moment. It’s not just the case that virtue allows the mind to settle down. Once the mind is settled down and solid, it allows your virtue to become more and more solid and reliable, too. And it’s not just an abstract thought. There … 
  14. Recovering Your Balance
     … The Buddha has that statement about the mind being luminous but darkened by visiting defilements. He said this is the fact that allows us to train the mind. Now, he’s not saying that the mind is naturally good. He’s just saying that it’s bright, which means that when the defilements come, they’re like clouds blocking the sun. When the clouds … 
  15. The Cool Fire of Jhana
     … Now, in simply getting the mind to stay here, you’re getting some benefit from the concentration already. That’s one of the uses—the sense of well-being—and there’s also the opportunity to observe your defilements, to see more deeply into them. You see more and more clearly where their allure is: why there’s that part of the mind that … 
  16. Ready for the Truth
     … focusing on the breath, trying to make the breath comfortable, putting the mind at ease with the breath, and seeing that this really is a good place to be. Then, the Buddha said, you would be ready for the four noble truths. So you can see what he’s doing: On the one hand, in many places the prerequisite for getting the mind to … 
  17. Negotiating with the Committee
     … Because the mind does like to feed, and it likes to feed on pleasure. So as you negotiate with all the unskillful thoughts and voices in the mind, it’s really good to be able to throw them a little pleasure. What this comes down to is that every voice in the mind, every identity, every self, you’ve ever created, is created for … 
  18. Discernment Performs
     … He’s also interested in seeing the impact that they have on the mind: on the minds of the people who listen, the mind of the person speaking, and the mind of the person thinking. That moves on to a third quality, which is that speech be timely. You want your thoughts to be timely as well. Certain truths are useful at certain times … 
  19. A Good Place to Not-Self
     … You want to focus on the mind that’s doing the actions, the mind that’s making the intentions, and then train that well. Ajaan Suwat made this point. He said the Buddha talks about all the things that are not-self, which are the results of actions. He said the Buddha, however, does say that we’re the owners of our actions. That … 
  20. Changing the Pleasure Equation
     … Turn around and look at the mind that’s making these comments.” In other words, the fact that things change is not a big deal. The problem is that the mind is looking for happiness in things that change, looking for its happiness in things that are stressful, for happiness in things that are not-self. It’s that search for happiness: That’s … 
  21. Choices
     … And I said, “Well, the best way to figure out why is to go ahead and do it and see which voices in the mind complain.” It’s the same as when you’re working with the breath. Other things will come in and you say, “Oh, there’s that in the mind and there’s this in the mind.” Some people complain they … 
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