Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Comprehending Suffering
     … If the mind refuses to settle down, maybe the problem is not with the breath, maybe it’s with the mind. This is where you may have to do a little detour. Think in ways that incline the mind to want to settle down. If you’re carrying issues from the day about who said what to you and how you don’t like … 
  3. A Divine Seat
     … The Buddha talks about getting the mind into concentration as a divine seat. Get the mind into the first jhana, and there’s a sense of ease and rapture filling the body. You can work it through the body. When you’re sitting in that state, you’re in a divine seat. So create a divine seat for yourself tonight. Focus on the breath … 
  4. Right Speech
     … As they say in the sutta on mindfulness of breathing, there are times when you need to gladden the mind. There are times when you need to release the mind from its attachments. Learn how to breathe in such a way that helps you do that. And learn how to talk to the mind in such a way that helps you do that, too … 
  5. Everybody Benefits
     … Sometimes when you read about the different teachers who emphasize just watching the mind or observing the mind, you might say, “Why are we spending so much time with the breath? Why aren’t we focusing directly on the mind?” Well, working with the breath helps expand your sensitivities, making you sensitive to areas of the mind you wouldn’t have known otherwise. If … 
  6. Delight in Concentration
     … After all, this is the mind’s question all the time: The mind is an active principle, it’s constantly acting, and the question it asks itself always is, “What to do next? What to do next?” The Buddha’s giving you a good answer for that. So take delight in that fact. The next two objects of delight are a pair. You delight … 
  7. Strengthening Your Goodness
     … You have to figure out why the mind likes to go for those unskillful things, what the allure is, and then provide arguments against the allure. And you may say, “I came here to get some peace of mind, and here I am arguing with my own mind.” It’s an important part of the exercise in getting the mind trained. You don’t … 
  8. Dethinking Thinking
     … And sure enough, the mind will start creating little becomings, just like those beavers building dams, but you want to nip them in the bud. You have to see: What is it that goes into those becomings? The Buddha said that two of the aggregates are especially active in shaping the mind or shaping these becomings: feelings and perceptions. And you want to learn … 
  9. Full, Focused Attention
     … One of the best cures for that is to really take an interest in what you’re doing, to realize that even though it may not seem as if much is going on, the mind is calculating, the mind is adjusting, the mind is doing all kinds of things. And of course the body is functioning. Lots of things are going on in the … 
  10. Tranquility & Insight
     … You’ll also see that the way you breathe creates feelings that will have an impact on the mind. The mind is also shaped by the perceptions you have about the relationship between it and the breath and the body, and all the other things coming in and out: in through the senses, out through your activities and intentions. As you practice the steps … 
  11. Discernment in Concentration
     … On the one hand, your powers of observation will get better as you get the mind more still. But on the other, the needs of the body, the needs of the mind are going to change from day to day, sometimes in a single day from session to session. You have to learn how to read that, to figure out: “What does the body … 
  12. Accepting the Way Things Function
     … But, even then, you begin to realize that if you thought all day about good things, it would tire the mind. The mind needs to rest. So you use the directed thought and evaluation to bring the mind to rest. That, too, is a kind of right resolve. And it’s interesting that the Buddha draws the connection here. Right resolve, which is one … 
  13. Turning Points
     … On the contrary, it was a pleasure that allow the mind to see things clearly. In fact, he discovered as he pursued that path that it led to a state of concentration with total purity of mindfulness and equanimity. The mind was clear, malleable, and bright. This is how right concentration became the first factor of the path the Buddha discovered. The other seven … 
  14. What You Don’t Like About Yourself
     … Images can come up in the mind. Sentences can come up in the mind and you just let them be there in the background. You don’t have to get involved. Think of them as the results of past karma. And your question is, “Do I really want to create a new present moment out of that thought or that emotion?” There may be … 
  15. Thinking Your Way to Stillness
     … He said to keep these things in mind while you’re living at home with your children and you’ll find that it will lead the mind to a sense of well-being, a sense of confidence, and from that sense of confidence the mind will eventually get concentrated. So these are ways of thinking that actually lead the mind into concentration. They’re … 
  16. Making a Difference
     … Once the mind is more under your control, then the whole issue of the happiness that you’re looking for in life becomes more manageable, because the major factor that’s going to shape that happiness is the mind. When it’s in better shape, more under your control, then it’s not a traitor to your happiness. All too often the mind seems … 
  17. The Path of Questions
    The Path of Questions July, 2001 Let the mind settle down comfortably on the breath. Don’t push it too hard and don’t let it float away. Try to find just the right amount of pressure for staying with the breath. Let there be just that one question in the mind right now: how heavily to focus on the breath. Other questions you … 
  18. The Middle Way
     … Something in the mind might ask, “Now what? What’s next?” The answer is, “Just stay right here.” And this is the important point: learning how to stay. This is right concentration, after all, learning how to keep the mind established. It’s going to want to think about this, and move around about that, and do all those other old things it’s … 
  19. Feeding Instructions
    We read in the Buddha’s descriptions about what happens when the mind gets into jhāna that rapture and pleasure spread through the whole body, saturate the whole body, so that there’s no part of the body not saturated by them. We read in Ajaan Lee’s descriptions of the breath energy flowing throughout the body. We begin to think that we have … 
  20. Enjoying the Path
     … That gives you an interesting insight into the movements of the mind, what they do, what they leave in their wake. You may have hardly even noticed that the mind was wandering off, or that it was oblivious to certain things, but then you come back and you see it. That gives you a lesson in ignorance: how the way the mind deliberately closes … 
  21. Respect
     … But also in our ability to bring the mind back from distraction: As you pay more and more attention to this process of trying to stay with the breath, you begin to notice that there are warning signs for when the mind is about to leave. It all happens very quickly, but the more carefully you pay attention, the more respect you have for … 
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