Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Determined to Be Undefeated by Death
    Sometimes when you come to meditate and you tell the mind to stay with the breath, it’s pretty obedient. It settles down. It’s happy to be here. And sometimes it’s not. When it’s not, that’s when you have to be determined to get it to settle down. And there are four steps to a good determination. The first is … 
  3. Above & Beyond Suffering
    We sometimes think that meditation means not thinking, just making the mind very, very still. But you can’t really make it still unless you think about it, think about what you’re doing, take stock of where the mind is right now. There’s an old Thai meditation guide that says, “Is your mind leaning forward? Or leaning back? Leaning to the left … 
  4. Tranquility, Insight, & Concentration
     … Then as you stay here, the mind settles down with a sense of well-being. When the Buddha would tell people to go meditate, he’d say, “Go do jhana.” He never said, “Go do samatha,” or “Go do vipassanā.” Basically he’d say, “Go get the mind settled in concentration.” But he also said that, in order to get the mind into concentration … 
  5. Make a Difference
     … That’s when you get the mind into the second jhana. You’ve done your work in adjusting the mind, you’ve done your work in adjusting the breath, and they fit. All you need to keep the mind with the breath is just the perception of breath, or the perception of oneness with the breath. This is like going even beyond being a … 
  6. Learning from Sensual Desire
    Learning from Sensual Desire March 5, 2021 In Buddhist traditions, they tend not to make a sharp distinction between the heart and the mind—the heart being the part that wills and desires, has feelings, emotions; the mind being the part that thinks, calculates, and tries to reason things through. As they say, “The heart has its reasons.” And the mind has its desires … 
  7. Pleasure & Pain
     … There’s a lot to be learned about the mind by getting it to settle down. That’s because the process of getting the mind to be concentrated, in and of itself, requires some discernment. For example, when you’re dealing with distraction, you want to figure out why the mind gets distracted, why it can lie to itself when it’s about to … 
  8. Reflect on Your Actions
     … Then, two, as you leave meditation, you want to look at what the mind picks up as it leaves. Learn to see that as strange. We live with our normal level of pressure in the mind, our normal conversations in the mind, and everything seems very normal and taken for granted. Often we can’t imagine what the mind would be like without that … 
  9. Right Livelihood
     … You support the mind. The mind does have its own belongings, all the karma it creates. Those are the belongings of the mind. That’s what supports the mind. And just as your physical belongings can either weigh you down or support you, in the same way your actions weigh you down or support you. When you think about the fact that your livelihood … 
  10. Magha Puja
     … When you’ve got everybody right here, that’s when you really can cleanse the mind. This leads to that other teaching about the mind: lifting the mind so that it’s heightened. This refers to getting the mind into concentration but also to lifting it above its ordinary concerns, seeing that a lot of the things that you’re concerned with out in … 
  11. On Denying Defilement
     … There is this darkness in the mind. Fortunately, it’s not innate to the mind. It can be cleansed away. And we can cleanse it away ourselves. That’s what the luminosity is all about. There is one faction in the mind that doesn’t like the teaching on defilement because it suggests that we need somebody else’s help to cleanse ourselves, but … 
  12. Holding On to the Path
     … In the third set, when your focus is on the mind, you sensitize yourself to the mind, you begin to notice when the mind needs gladdening, when it needs stabilizing, then you find ways of using your perceptions, using the breath to gladden and stabilize the mind. This is breath meditation over time, as you gain more and more skill in reading what the … 
  13. Negative Emotions
    We try to train the mind because it’s the source of all our real problems. We tend to think that our problems come from outside, but it’s the way the mind deals with those outside issues—that’s the real problem. It’s always looking for trouble. Lust comes, and it goes looking for something to feel lustful about. Anger comes, and … 
  14. The Power of the Mind
     … You can do something new, something skillful, and it starts by having that confident sense that things do start with the mind. Regardless of what mood the mind has been in through the course of the day, you can change it. After all, as the Buddha said, nothing can change as quickly as the mind. So, take advantage of that tendency. Feel free to … 
  15. Interested in the Breath
     … It’s the same with the different movements in the mind that cause suffering. You want to see them in action and to see where what you’re doing is unnecessary. And it does create a weight on the mind. How can you see that? Well, you have to be very careful to watch for the level of stress in the mind as it … 
  16. A Willingness to Learn
     … In other words, you pull back slightly so that you can observe the mind. You don’t totally leave concentration but you’re not fully absorbed either. This is what Ajaan Fuang called lifting the mind a bit above its object. And the purpose of that is to see what the mind is doing, so that you get a perspective not only on the … 
  17. The Brightness of Life
     … The word defilement is one of those words that Western Buddhism tends to shrink away from—as if the mind doesn’t have any defilements at all.** **We don’t like the word defilement, but what the Buddha’s talking about is something that clouds the mind, makes it impossible to see clearly. And you have to admit: The mind has lots of those … 
  18. Giving Ballast to the Mind
     … This is why we have to train the mind, because it’s when it’s really well trained that you can depend on it. So find something to give the mind ballast, not for the purpose of burdening it, but for making sure that it doesn’t fly away fast. And because the mind is so finicky, you’ve got to give it something … 
  19. Feeding on the Breath
    Feeding on the Breath July 25, 2012 The mind’s basic habit is that it’s constantly feeding. Just as the body feeds on physical food, the mind feeds on sensory contact, its awareness of things at the senses—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas—and its intentions with regard to these things. It’s always trying to fix its food. So … 
  20. The Right Time at the Right Place
    You want to observe the mind in the present moment. So, what do you have to keep you anchored here? You’ve got the breath. So take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body, settle your awareness there, and watch it to see if it’s comfortable. If long breathing feels good … 
  21. Analysis of Qualities
    There’s a passage where the Buddha says that getting the mind into strong concentration requires both tranquility and insight. We tend to think of insight as something that comes after the concentration, but the Buddha’s making an important point: If you’re going to get the mind to settle down, you have to understand what you’re doing. At the very least … 
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