Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 52
  2. Success on the Path
     … As Ajaan Fuang said, you lubricate the mind so that it doesn’t seize up the way an engine would seize up when it runs out of lubricant. You give rise to the desire to stick with the path. From that desire develops persistence: the energy, the stick-to-it-iveness that’s required in training the mind. After all, the mind has a … 
  3. The Heart to Keep Going
     … We’re here for all the other skills that go into training the mind. Each time you find the mind wandering off and you bring it back, that’s strengthening a very essential skill—the skill to get your mind off a bad topic and bring it back to a good one. Even though this may happen many times, the fact that you’re … 
  4. Attention to Your Potentials
     … The remaining factors have to do with getting the mind into good concentration: rapture, calm, concentration, equanimity. These are things you develop. You look for the potentials there in the mind for it to settle down—because the mind does have these potentials. The present moment as it comes is not just a finished product. It’s a work in progress. And there are … 
  5. Mindfulness Aims at Concentration
     … Well, think of it as meaning, literally, “with-a-center.” The mind is centered and it’s strongly focused. Without that strong focus, people like Ajaan Lee wouldn’t be able to develop psychic powers based on samādhi. You have to lure the mind into that state—you can’t just force it—which is why, when the Buddha talks about using the breath … 
  6. Protection
     … Part of the mind will be willing to make that trade, and part of the mind will not. So it’s good to have a sense of well-being right now, so that the part of the mind that wants instant gratification has something to feed on. It’s in this way the mind gains strength. And again, you do this because of heedfulness … 
  7. Joyous Endurance
     … The nature of the mind is that it doesn’t just sit in one place. It moves. The problem is that it moves in many different directions and can change direction very quickly. In fact, there’s nothing that can change direction as quickly as the mind. When the Buddha talks about change, this is the big change he’s worried about: You try … 
  8. Reflect on What You’re Doing
     … That thought occurs naturally to the mind only when you’ve seen something that’s not originated. Remember, origination means, one, something caused, and two, the cause came from within the mind. Because you’re so perceptive and so alert, you can tell when something is caused by the mind and when something is not caused by the mind. So here again, you have … 
  9. The Buddha Respects Your Potential
     … The ability to get the mind concentrated can do an awful lot for the mind, for your life, and for the people around you, so bring an attitude of respect to what we’re doing here—respect for concentration, as we said in the chant just now. It seems such a little thing—the mind, still. We think that most of the great things … 
  10. Right Next to Ignorance
     … If the mind resists for a long time, you might have to find another way of getting the mind to settle down. The Buddha talks about there being a fever in the body or a fever in the mind, which means you’re getting antsy and you don’t want to settle down right here. Well, you find another topic. Find something you find … 
  11. Mindfulness as Refuge
     … This is where you’ve got to train the mind so that it can depend on itself, so that it doesn’t add any unnecessary suffering. And as we find out, the unnecessary suffering is the suffering that weighs the mind down. The necessary pains of life don’t have to weigh the mind down. That’s the Buddha’s message. And so it … 
  12. A Good Purpose in Life
     … that to really develop the mind, to have the discernment that you need in order to see through how you’re creating suffering for yourself and suffering for others, you also have to develop qualities of the good heart. The good mind and the good heart go together. You look at the list of perfections. Discernment, the perfection focused on the development of the … 
  13. A Concentration Diet
     … The most interesting answer, though, is the answer to, “What is one?” And that is, “All beings subsist on food.” And here when the Buddha says “food,” he means both food for the body and food for the mind. Food for the mind includes things like contact at the senses, consciousness at the senses, and intentions. Our mind feeds off of these things. This … 
  14. Engaging the Whole Mind
     … It’s not simply a mechanical process that you put the mind through, where you do the steps, without any observing on your part, and somehow the mind will come out awakened. This is not a meat grinder. It’s not an assembly line. It’s a skill. And as with all skills, it requires that you have a sense of what works and … 
  15. The Observer
     … Rule number one in either case is to keep the mind on an even keel. Have a strong sense of the observer, the part of the mind that’s simply watching what’s going on, and identify as much as you can with that. Ajaan Suwat once mentioned that when he first went to stay with Ajaan Mun his mind seemed to be all … 
  16. A Heart Wider than the World
     … When the mind is undisturbed, you can see very clearly what’s going on inside. This takes you back to your discernment, so that what you’ve taken on as a working hypothesis becomes clear as you see what’s happening in the mind: where the mind grabs on to things, clings to them, thinking that it’s going to find happiness, and in … 
  17. To Discern Suffering
     … So when the Buddha said, “discerning suffering,” what he meant was really understanding what it is, where it comes from, what can be done about it— particularly the added suffering that’s totally unnecessary and yet is really the suffering that weighs the mind down. Without all that added stress, the mind would not suffer. There might be pain in the body but there … 
  18. To See What You’re Doing
     … In the beginning, the mind may not be that still. The breath may not be all that still. But you’re working in that direction. You want to breathe in a way that makes the mind more and more interested in staying here, because one of our big problems in seeing the connection between our actions and their results is that we run around … 
  19. Guardian Meditations
     … This is one of the reasons we have the practices for calming the mind: not only so that we can see the defilements as we’re getting them calmed down but so that we can challenge them as we try to get the mind to calm down. That begins to stir them out of their lair a little bit. So to get the mind … 
  20. How to Be Happy
     … And there’s a bliss that comes with the mind’s ability just to settle down, be with one object. At first, you have to make adjustments so that the mind fits the object and the object fits the mind. In other words, what kind of breathing would feel good now, what way of conceiving the breath would be good both for the mind … 
  21. Boring
     … He was watching the mind in relationship to the breath, seeing a lot of subtle movements going on in the mind. Those are the really interesting things. And everything you need to know for awakening is right here. It’s just that your powers of observation are not subtle and all-around enough. And if you can’t even see the subtleties of the … 
  22. Load next page...