Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. The Wisdom of Tenacity
     … These are the states that are really worth getting the mind into. They may seem fabricated and constructed, and sometimes you wonder how something constructed like this could be worthwhile. But the mind is used to constructing things, and as long as it has this habit you might as well construct things that help take you further. That’s part of the genius of … 
  3. Appreciating Goodness
     … We do this because the mind needs to be trained. Try to find a breath that feels comfortable so that the mind will be happy to stay here, because you want to get the mind under your control. We live in a world with lots of dangers, and you don’t want your own mind to be a danger to you. But if your … 
  4. Right Here, Right Now
     … That’s the knowledge that’s going to clear away all the bonds of the mind, all the fetters on the mind. Now, what are those fabrications? There’s the bodily fabrication, which is the breath. Verbal fabrication: directed thought and evaluation. When you focus your thoughts on the breath, you’re evaluating the breath, okay, verbal fabrication is right there. And then mental … 
  5. Assumptions
     … If you wait until everything is nice and calm before you meditate, you don’t get really much practice in understanding the mind, shaping the mind, getting it out of an unskillful state. This is what right effort is all about. As the Buddha says, it starts with desire: the desire to do what’s skillful. You hold onto that even if it’s … 
  6. Steps in Concentration
     … That means keeping watch over the breath and keeping watch over the mind at the same time. Ajaan Lee makes a comparison with a pulley: You pull the rope back and forth over the pulley. You pay attention to the breath; you look at the mind. Is the mind staying with the breath? Is it happy with the breath? If it’s not, turn … 
  7. At Ease with the Breath
    For the mind to be steady, it has to feel at its ease. This is why the Buddha taught so many different topics of meditation. The commentaries list forty in all. Ten recollections, ten contemplations of corpses—some people find that a congenial topic, it’s easy for the mind to settle down there, it’s really riveting. Then there are the four sublime … 
  8. Joyous Discernment
     … Don’t let the mind take the course of a whole hour to settle down. Say, you give yourself two hours to meditate. You say, “Oh, a whole hour for it to settle down, then once it settles down, I’ve got a whole hour of stillness.” Don’t think that way. Try to make the mind as still as possible from the very … 
  9. How to Use the Three Perceptions
     … You have to work on the concentration, and only when you’ve got it really solid and it has done its work on the mind—calmed the mind, soothed the mind, nourished the mind, given it a good place to stand so that it can watch things clearly—then you start applying the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not self to the aggregates that … 
  10. The Breath Soufflé
     … It’s same with the mind. The more skill you develop in getting the mind to settle down and to cut through the issues that prevent it from settling down, the more you’re going to know your mind. But particularly, the more you’re going to know about how to train the mind not to create suffering for itself. So you can think … 
  11. Directly & Indirectly to the Breath
     … As you think about it and the mind gets calmed down, gets put in a better mood, the breath will change. So you work with the breath either directly by focusing on it, or indirectly by putting the mind in the right mood. Ajaan Suwat talks about this a lot. He said you sit down to meditate and you’ve got to get the … 
  12. A Position of Strength
     … It could be in the middle of the chest or right over the navel—any spot in the body where the mind finds it easiest to stay snug with the sensations there, and there’s a certain steadiness to those sensations. From the steadiness of the breath sensations, you can allow the mind to get steady as well. This is where the Buddha’s … 
  13. Unhindered at Death
    When we usually think about the hindrances, we think about the Buddha’s comment that before you get the mind established in its frame of reference, before you establish mindfulness properly, before you get into concentration, you’ve got to clear the hindrances out of the way. So we tend to think that the hindrances are mainly a problem with getting the mind into … 
  14. The Six Properties
     … You breathe in ways that gladden the mind. You breathe in ways that concentrate the mind, release the mind. That’s proactive. It’s a skill you’re developing, but you can’t develop the skill unless you have that ability to be non-reactive, so that you can be with mental states and physical states that you don’t like, and you can … 
  15. The Bridge to Concentration
     … You begin to see certain ways that you relate to sounds and sights, etc., that give rise to greed, anger, and delusion in the mind. So you’ve got to learn how to relate in different ways. If you don’t, these things take root in the mind and then grow. Every time you look in those unskillful ways again, it’s like adding … 
  16. Where Perceptions Can Take You
     … When something comes up in the mind—perception, feeling, thought construct—ask yourself, “What is this for? Where does this lead?” Have a clear idea that it can lead in these different directions: Either it can pull you down, or it can stabilize the mind, or it can lead the mind to even more distinctive levels of being stable, or it can take you … 
  17. Your Main Foundation
     … Those stories come from perception and fabrication in the mind, which gets you more into the framework of mind states or mental qualities. Also, the line between mind states and mental qualities is very hard to pin down. You might think of the mind state as being when the whole mental committee has agreed on something, whereas the mental qualities are the specific members … 
  18. Location, Location
     … That effort is directed here at getting the mind into concentration. As you give the mind a location, you give your craving a location. You’re going to stay here with the breath and you’re going to watch over it to make sure it doesn’t move. And, of course, it will move, but you want to be alert to its movements. You … 
  19. For Your Benefit Here & Now
     … how to bring the mind into the present moment in a way that’s alert and quiet at the same time. You come to the breath because that’s your anchor in the present moment, and you try to stay here. To stay here solidly, figure out how to keep the mind interested in the breath. This is one of the reasons why Ajaan … 
  20. Old Movies & New
    One of the best ways to get the mind to stay with the breath is to realize that there’s a lot going on here when you breathe. It’s not just in and out. The energy flow of the whole body is involved. For most of us, it’s terra incognita, a place we don’t know, unexplored jungle. But then as you … 
  21. Food Insecurity
     … This need to feed is what keeps the mind anxious: Where is the next meal coming from? Is it safe? Can you guarantee there’s going to be food? As long as you feel secure about the answer, the mind is at ease. When you begin to realize that it’s very tenuous, this network of systems that have to work in order to … 
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