Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Mindfulness, the Gatekeeper
     … In training the mind, there are three qualities we have to develop. This is why the word for meditation is developing: bhavana. The three qualities are right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Our understanding the need for right effort starts with the recognition that there are skillful and unskillful qualities in the mind, and we have them all mixed together. The effort itself … 
  3. Ripples Go Far
    We develop the sublime attitudes every evening as a way of opening up and airing out the mind. When you’re focused on your troubles, your suffering, your issues, you suffer a lot because the range is small and the pain is big. So of course it seems overwhelming. When you expand your range, you begin to realize that the pain is a lot … 
  4. Focusing on the Breath to Learn about the Mind
  5. Measuring Progress
     … Because it’s only when you’re aware that you can deal with what’s going on in the mind. So much of this has to do with how much you admit to what is going on in the mind, how sensitive you are to those little voices in the mind that used to be below the radar, or used to be inaudible, and … 
  6. Patient & Inquisitive
     … When the mind is thinking in ways that drive you crazy, why is it doing that? We develop concentration so that we can put the mind in a place where it can look at the mind. If we think about the mind as a committee, we’re trying to train the members who are the investigators, the watchmen, so that they can watch what … 
  7. Turtle Meditation
    One of the reasons concentration is so central to the path is that the mind can see things more clearly when it’s still. Not only that, it can feel things more clearly as well. As you get more sensitive to the breath, you become more sensitive to the whole range of energy in your body. You can see where you’re holding things … 
  8. Respect for Suffering
     … And an important step in our system is to give the mind a place to settle down. Once you understand what we’re doing here, try to bring the mind into the present moment. And develop the good qualities you’re going to need in order to deal with the suffering. You find that craving and ignorance are actually part of the problem, so … 
  9. Broad, Tall, & Deep
     … So this ability to depersonalize things is what heightens the mind, raises the level of the mind, so you’re up on the tower looking down at people on the ground below, or up on a mountain looking down at the people in the valley, seeing your life in a broader perspective. As for deepening the mind, the Buddha usually uses “deepening” to refer … 
  10. Fangs in the Static
     … The idea of dispassion, cessation, peace in body and mind may not sound all that attractive now, but as you practice meditation, you get more sensitive to what really is the mind’s well-being, what really does weigh the mind down. You find that you get more and more attracted to the idea the mind’s not being weighed down by anything at … 
  11. Adbusting the Mind
     … You’ll find that part of the mind resists that. In that way, you learn some really interesting things about the different parts of the mind. One thing I’ve noticed is that there’s a part that engages in magical thinking, believing that if you can fantasize about something, it’s going to happen. And that’s absolutely crazy. We’re not living … 
  12. Sensitivity & Skill
     … And as you care for this, the mind is very clear, which is very different from the pleasures that depend on sensuality. With those, the mind gets clouded with sensuality. And a lot of our desires for sensual pleasures require that we take something from somebody else. When we’re nice, we do it when they’re willing. But there are a lot of … 
  13. Overwhelmed by Freedom
     … all these huge defilements of the mind. But they don’t come as an avalanche of huge boulders all at once. They’re little tiny things, one by one by one, as they come through the mind. And they come in lots of different guises. Anger for instance: There’s not just one reason why we’re angry, which means that when you work … 
  14. The Care & Feeding of the Mind (Reading of Ajaan Lee)
  15. Analysis of Dhammas
     … Which thoughts side with the dark side of the mind? Which ones side with the bright side of the mind? Here again, there’s an assumption—that the mind is the cause of the actions, and you do have choice. There will be some actions that lead to good results, and others that won’t lead to good results. If you pay appropriate attention … 
  16. One Hand Clapping
     … Sometimes it’ll switch to the mind. Is the mind steadily with the breath? Or is it beginning to waver a bit? And again, as long as you’re focused on how the mind relates to the breath and what can be done to make it relate in a better way, that’s fine as well. You’ll be going back and forth among … 
  17. For the Cessation of Dukkha
     … We get the mind quiet so that we can see the mind. The mind has so many things going on. It’s like a corporation: a big building with lots of people. And for the most part, as with any corporation, nobody really knows everything that’s going on in the corporation. So things that are important and things that are unimportant all get … 
  18. Mindfulness Immersed in the Breath
     … In this way, as you get absorbed in the breath, you’re not even thinking about trying to make the mind concentrated. The concentration comes from your interest in the breath. If the mind is not interested in the breath and keeps wandering off, ask yourself: What is it that’s attracting the mind away? Sometimes it’s random stuff. In that case, you … 
  19. Acceptance
     … You learn how to get the mind into concentration, how you get the mind to become more mindful, more discerning: all these skills that we work on as we meditate. So when we find that the mind is not getting concentrated, we don’t just sit there and accept it. We say, “Okay, what’s wrong?” We try to figure things out. If the … 
  20. Make Yourself Reliable
     … Ajaan Chah once said that one of the first things you notice when you really look at the mind with all honesty is how dishonest it can be. So, both the mind and the body can be dishonest, but they also have their potential for honesty. Particularly the mind. It’s the mind that we’re training. We use the body to get more … 
  21. The Skill of Not Suffering
     … But here you’ve got a diffuse light that spreads throughout the body, so that if any thoughts come up in the mind—any intentions, any questions, any comments, any complaints—you’re going to see them. And you have to learn how not to run with them. You see them and think of them going right through the mind, like a breeze going … 
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