Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Clearing Your Space
     … And the same with the mind: Sometimes really persistent thoughts keep coming back again and again and again. You try to think about the drawbacks of those kinds of thoughts, and they still come back again. This is where you have to think about the committee of the mind: There will be some members who just keep talking, and they’re not going to … 
  3. Greed for Outer & Inner Wealth
    When the Buddha lists the qualities that set the mind on fire, the list is passion, aversion, delusion. When he lists the qualities that are the basis for unskillful mind states, he has a different list, similar but not quite the same: greed, anger, and delusion. The big difference there is between the greed and the passion, because not all passion is unskillful. After … 
  4. Distraction & Drowsiness
     … That way, the mind gets more rest in the present moment. But if you try to stop your evaluation when you’re not really ready, you can start drifting off. Our two main problems as we try to get the mind to settle down are distraction on the one hand and drowsiness on the other: what the Buddha calls a scattered mind as opposed … 
  5. The Path Converges Right Here
     … Where does the suffering come from? It comes from the mind. Why does it come from the mind? Because the mind is ignorant of itself. So this is why we practice concentration. This is why you’re here: to learn about yourself right here to see what you’re doing right here that’s causing unnecessary suffering right here. As for right resolve, that … 
  6. Sense Pleasures & Sensuality
     … When you’re dealing with sensuality, it’s a matter of seeing the drawbacks, developing an alternative absorption for the mind, getting the mind absorbed in the sense of the body as you feel it from within, and finally changing your perception of sensuality all together—so that you no longer miss it. That’s when the mind really is free. Up to that … 
  7. Escape Routes in the Present
     … When you find them arising in the mind, do what you can to get rid of them. One way of getting rid of them is to focus back on your meditation. This is your refuge. The more you work with the breath, the more familiar you are with the breathing, then the more alternatives you’ll have for whatever comes up in the mind … 
  8. Blowing Bubbles
     … That’s when you begin to understand, “This is what made that thought so interesting or attractive.” You don’t have to stay with the thought to understand the process of why the mind is getting involved with these things. You actually learn a lot by cutting things away as quickly as possible. When the mind is churning out thoughts, it’s like a … 
  9. Motivation
     … Everything you can do that can get you here, training the mind, is part of the training. Other people can give you ideas, but you’re the one who has to figure out your own mind to see: What is it about the mind that resists? Or what is it about the mind that gets so easily distracted? Then come up with your own … 
  10. Recognizing Fools
     … One of the reasons why we meditate is to give the mind something wise to do. Get settled, get still, so that you can observe the mind more carefully. Any thoughts that don’t have to do with getting the mind still, you can—for the time being—label as fools. Even relatively good thoughts about fixing potatoes for tomorrow, or making merit in … 
  11. Karma-ism
     … What does it mean for things to be *going on? *How do things *go on? *And in particular, what are we contributing to the going on of things? This is why meditation focuses on the mind. Not just to get the mind into pleasant states: You attain the pleasant states so that you can understand, “Exactly what is the mind doing? How does it … 
  12. Remember This
     … If your energy level is down and the mind is getting depressed, what can you do to lift your spirits? When the mind is wired and scattered all over the place with lots of frenetic energy, what can you do to calm it down? If the mind isn’t concentrated, what can you do to get it concentrated? If the mind isn’t in … 
  13. Mistakes
     … If you punish yourself, the mind won’t want to stay. It’ll find even more reasons to get away. But if you reward yourself with some very pleasant breathing, then the mind will be more and more inclined to want to come back. This is an important principle in the meditation: learning how to deal with your mistakes, how to correct them without … 
  14. Stern Kindness
     … It’s especially true when the mind feels lazy or more inclined to wander off someplace else or not even meditate at all. That’s when you have to keep in mind the dangers of not meditating, and the rewards of meditating. Sometimes the mindfulness can cajole us into meditating, and other times it has to use threats. The cajoling is when you remind … 
  15. Focused on Your Duties
     … What was the appeal of that thought? What was the appeal of this thought? Why does the mind go for these things? Here you are sitting, and everything is perfectly still, perfectly calm, and yet you can still fall for random cravings. Why is that? Which part of the mind is lying to another part of the mind? You want the mind to be … 
  16. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … Your actions come from where? They come from the mind. So if you want to find happiness, you’ve got to train the mind. As for anyone who you were angry at in the course of the day or even irritated, just spread thoughts of goodwill, both to yourself and to the other person, realizing that goodwill for yourself means you’re not going … 
  17. Emptiness
     … They’re events in the mind. As far as the meditation is concerned, they’re distractions, so you can put them aside. This is one of the meanings of the word emptiness. In other words, you empty the mind of all of its philosophical speculations, you empty the mind of its narratives, leaving just the narrative of what you’re doing right now: You … 
  18. The Treasure Hunt
     … When you focus the mind, you know you’re focusing the mind. When the mind settles down, you know it’s settling down. When the mind wanders off, you know it’s wandering off. These are things you really know here and now. When you experience suffering, you know. When you experience a lack of suffering, you know. So those are the two issues … 
  19. Give Before You Get
     … You step back from it and say, “Okay, there must be part of the mind that doesn’t like this. Is this a part of the mind I want to continue identifying with? Or is this something I need to give up—that I’d be better off giving up?” Try to develop the attitude that this is a practice where you give. You … 
  20. How to Think about Death
     … As soon as we learn how to put words together, the mind just keeps churning out words. The mind can churn out all kinds of words, words that are helpful to us, words that destroy us, words that make us happy, words that make us miserable. One of the most important skills we need to learn is how to turn off thoughts, or at … 
  21. Accepting the Buddha’s Standards
     … There has to be at least part of the mind that’s standing very still and watching whatever is happening, not the least bit stirred by those things. Otherwise you just slip along with them, accepting this as the normal way of the mind. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Part of the practice is learning that the mind at normalcy … 
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