Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. All Fabrications Are Stressful
     … Only then can you do the real therapy, analyzing what’s going on in the mind so that you can come to some resolution—finding out, “Where in the mind is the mind telling itself stories that are harmful, hurtful? Why is the mind so rough with itself?” It’s got lots of assumptions, and many of these assumptions go *way *back: back to … 
  3. Delight in the Path
     … Delight in the fact that you’re able to get the mind in a place where it’s no longer fooled by the false, dark values of the world. Delight in the fact that you’re able to develop skills in the mind that you never anticipated before. Seeing through a lot of the ways of the mind, gaining some mastery over them: That … 
  4. This Fathom-Long Body
     … how the mind relates to the body. All the unskillful things the mind does around its experience, it’s going to do first to the body. And most consistently with the body. So if you want to understand the movements of the mind, if you want to understand how the mind creates a sense of self, how it can begin to let go of … 
  5. A Rare Gift
     … Everything else you do comes out of the mind. Whether it’s things you do with the body, words you say with your speech, it all has to come from the mind. Your interactions with other people are going to be skillful or unskillful based on how well your mind is trained. So this should be the prime focus, your first priority when you … 
  6. The Current News
     … What’s going on in the mind? Don’t try to stir things up, just keep an eye out for it. This is what alertness is for, to be not only with the breath but also with the mind. That way, if anything’s going to come in and invade, you see it. And you begin to see the stages by which you get … 
  7. Staying True
    Focus the mind on the breath. Notice where you feel the breath in the body. Any spot where the sensation is very clear that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out: Focus on that spot. It doesn’t have to be at the nose. It might be in the chest. You can feel the rising of the chest as … 
  8. Your Hair Is on Fire
     … Still, how are you going to see which movements in the mind are going to be unskillful unless you have a skillful, still place to stay. This is one of the reasons why we stay with the breath. It’s a good place to stay so that when the mind moves away from the breath, you can recognize that something’s wrong and that … 
  9. The Complexity of Pain
     … The pain that really weighs down the mind comes from a lack of skill in our understanding. It comes from acts of the mind in the present moment. We learn this by trying to find a way in which we don’t have to suffer so much from the pain. Someplace in the back of the mind is the desire for the pain to … 
  10. Knowing the Body from Within
     … This is important, because the more things come to balance and stillness like this, the more clearly you’ll be able to see what the mind is doing right here—and particularly the very peculiar activity that the mind has of taking a sensation in the body and using it as a kernel for a thought. It becomes a little symbol in the mind … 
  11. At Home with the Breath
    One of the traditional terms for concentration practice is vihāra-dhamma, a home for the mind, a dwelling for the mind. The verbs for different states of jhāna show what you do: You enter and dwell. You make yourself at home. So here’s the breath, coming in and going out. That’s going to be your home for the next hour. And as … 
  12. Look in the Mirror
    Ajaan Lee talks about using the breath as a mirror for the mind. As you focus on the breath, you’ll notice that if you’re putting too much pressure on the breath, the breath feels uncomfortable. You want to give the breath as much freedom as possible to flow throughout the body—and that requires a light touch. Even though he talks about … 
  13. The Swinging Balance
     … Finally, though, they would all get to a point where they could settle down, and the mind would be really still. In fact, both the mind and the body would be so still that even the breath itself would stop. Once they had gotten to that point in their meditation, everything would seem balanced. The mind was balanced in the present moment, the body … 
  14. Monologue on the Breath
     … And it’s a part of the mind that’s going to rebel. It’s going to want to talk about other things. Or it’s going to comment on you as a meditator. The mind keeps wandering off and the commentator says, “There it goes again,” and you can get involved in all sorts of useless conversations, useless diatribes. An important thing to … 
  15. The Languages of Right View
     … That changes the whole discussion, and it has a different impact on the mind. This is what you’re looking for: how to talk to yourself in a way that has a good impact on the mind, that gives the mind energy when it needs it, calms it down when it needs to be calmed, frames things in new ways so that you can … 
  16. Restlessness & Anxiety
     … The future’s going to bring a lot of unexpected things, and these are the qualities of the mind that can deal with the unexpected, that can be sensitive to what’s going on and see opportunities that you wouldn’t see if the mind is all frazzled. So when there’s a voice in the mind that says, “You’ve got to worry … 
  17. Getting the Most Out of the Present
     … When the mind can rest a bit, then it can look at itself more clearly. So whatever lessons you’ve learned on how to let the mind rest with the breath and let that sensation of resting spread out: Remember them. Then, of course, there will be a lot of other things from the past coming up that are not really relevant right now … 
  18. Behind the Scenes
    One of the reasons why we start the meditation with thoughts of goodwill for all beings in all directions—along with thoughts of compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—is to put the mind in the right frame to meditate. Otherwise, we bring the issues of the day into our meditation. Instead of focusing on the breath, we focus on what we did or somebody … 
  19. The Science of Meditation
     … that the mind can be trained, that your actions can actually make a difference, and that it’s worthwhile to train the mind, because the mind is what determines what actions you’re going to take. You’re also assuming that there’s a pattern to the way action plays itself out. Certain actions are going to be skillful. In other words, they lead … 
  20. Skillful Desire
     … As for the mind, it can do even more good things. Simply having an alternative place to stay aside from your pain, aside from the sorrows and ups and downs of daily life, puts the mind in a much better position to deal with those things and not feel threatened by them. For instance, if you’re sitting here with a pain that doesn … 
  21. Concentration Nurtured with Virtue
     … They don’t guarantee your awakening, but they do give you food for thought, they do train the mind in the qualities of mindfulness, alertness, ingenuity, discernment, compassion, and empathy. In a sense, they soften the mind so that you recognize a mistake when it happens. You’re not stubborn. You don’t put up walls of resistance and denial. That makes the mind … 
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