Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 79
  2. Things As They Function
     … In other words, we practice generosity, we observe the precepts, and that trains the mind. Then we use that trained mind to look deeper into the mind. But it’s never a question of just sitting there and looking at whatever comes up in the mind. You’re trying to get the mind to act in as skillful a way as possible in its … 
  3. A Frame of Reference
     … This ensures that you don’t tighten up around it, so that the mind doesn’t feel restricted, the body doesn’t feel restricted. You have a sense of openness, even though you’re centered: staying right here with a sense of openness and ease around. That’s the quality you’re working toward, so that the mind can have a foundation. Only when … 
  4. Mindfulness of Death
     … The heedless are as if already dead.” There is a deathless element in the mind that can be found if you work on your meditation. If you develop good thoughts in the mind, good qualities in the mind, they can lead you to something beyond death. So make the most of them.
  5. Worlds
     … We ordinarily think of thoughts as filling the mind, but they also take place in the body as well. The mind is what does the thinking, but parts of the body get involved in the process. This is how we carry those whole worlds around. You sit here with your body, and all of the sudden it turns into someplace else. It’s all … 
  6. Take Your Time
     … Your mind is ready, you see the value of training the mind, and so you can focus in on the breath. But sometimes you find that it takes a while to get into the mood, and that’s perfectly fine. If there are mental habits or ways of thinking that get in the way of the mind settling down, sometimes you have to spend … 
  7. Awe
     … You’ve got the mind. What shape is the mind in? Fortunately, the Buddha doesn’t leave us stranded here. All too often in the West, this sense of awe is left simply as an aesthetic sense or a vague religious feeling. But the Buddha gives you further instructions on what to do with it. Take that sense of the earth and think just … 
  8. Commit, Reflect, Discern
     … You’re sitting here with your breath, but the mind is unwilling to settle down. Okay, what’s the problem? Is the problem with the mind, or is the problem with the breath? You can change the way you breathe to see if that makes any difference. Or you can switch to another topic, such as spreading thoughts of goodwill. When you spread thoughts … 
  9. Tenacity
     … So, prepare a place where you can sit down and stay for a long period of time with as much ease as you can manage, because we’re here to see things in the mind, and the best way to see subtle things in the mind is to be as still as possible, so that the slightest disturbance, the slightest movement, will be clear … 
  10. Moral Intelligence
     … There’s that line of thought that says, “Well, I’ve stacked up all this merit and all this goodness, so I can afford a little slack time.” That doesn’t work, because the slack time in the mind starts leading to slack behavior and you have to fight to get back to where you were. Once the mind is in good shape, try … 
  11. There’s Work to Be Done
     … So, as we get the mind to settle down, we’re trying to unwind some of that tension. But it’s still work. It’s like a big ball of rubber bands. Some rubber bands are easier to pull off; others are more entangled. After all, as you get the mind to settle down, things should open up inside. But there are parts of … 
  12. The Path to Stream Entry
     … And the cause comes from within the mind. Basically what it’s saying is that whatever is caused by the mind is going to cease. That insight appears spontaneously when you’ve seen something that’s not caused by the mind, and it doesn’t cease. Whereas, everything else that was caused by the mind does cease in that experience. Which is why you … 
  13. Invest in the Breath
     … If things get too still in the mind, you blank out. If they’re not still enough, you don’t see things clearly. It’s when you have the sense of just right that your discernment gets exercised, and you can start seeing deeper and deeper and deeper into the mind: levels of attachment that are very subtle but very tenacious. Things you never … 
  14. The Essence of the Dhamma
     … in other words, taking delight in developing skillful qualities of the mind and delight in abandoning unskillful ones. This is one area where you don’t just rest content with what you’ve got. You’re always trying to improve things in the mind. The Buddha himself said that part of the secret of his gaining awakening was that he didn’t rest content … 
  15. Skill
     … As you get more sensitive to issues of skill and lack of skill around the breath, you begin to see them in the mind as well. There are skillful qualities in the mind, unskillful qualities in the mind. The more you pursue this question, the more you begin to sense which is which. Some ways of thinking, some attitudes, some intentions lead to short … 
  16. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … You want to have the mind leap up at the prospect of what we’re doing. You want it to be confident. And the confidence here, you may find, has to be adjusted as you get more familiar with what’s going on in the breath, what’s going on in the mind. But you won’t know until you say, “I’m just … 
  17. The Riddle Tree
     … So in that case, it’s going to be important to gain insight into the nature of feeling just to get the mind to settle down. This is how discernment fosters concentration. The typical pattern, of course, is that concentration fosters discernment. But as the Buddha said at one point, to get the mind to settle down to good strong concentration you need both … 
  18. Thinking & Evaluating
     … When, as right now, you’re trying to get the mind quiet, they’re not going to be helpful, because they’re going to pull away from what you’re trying to do here—at least what part of the mind is trying to do. What this means is that the level of thinking you have to do to get the mind into right … 
  19. Metta Can Hurt
    To get the mind to stay in concentration, you need an object that you like, and this will be a very personal, individual matter. Some people like the breath. Some people find that the mind can settle down really well when thinking of the different parts of the body. Some like to repeat a word like buddho or dhammo or sangho, and some like … 
  20. Decisions
     … That task is to get the mind to be as stable and clear as possible in the present moment so that you can see even more clearly what you’re doing. It’s a process of developing sensitivity. The more you watch the movements of the mind and the breath, the more familiar they become. As they become more familiar you start seeing subtleties … 
  21. Clinging to Karmic Diarrhea
    For the mind to settle down, you have to find something it likes, something it finds engaging. This is entirely up to you. If it’s the breath, what kind of breathing do you like? Where do you like to focus on the breath? What kind of perception of the breath helps you settle down? This is something you have to evaluate for yourself … 
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