Search results for: "The Mind"

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  2. Balanced Meditation
    There are two ways of calming the mind down. One is through giving it something tranquil to think about or to focus on. The other is through some new insights. Something that’s been bothering you, something that’s been eating away at your awareness because you don’t understand it, suddenly becomes clear. That brings calm to the mind as well. So both … 
  3. The Best Use of Your Time
     … Why do they do that? Because the mind isn’t trained. So even the goods of the world are not necessarily good. They depend on the goodness of the mind, “goodness” here meaning that you have control over your thinking, because you understand where your thinking can lead. Thinking has consequences. Your ideas have consequences. They can lead to benefit or harm. If the … 
  4. No Mistakes Are Fatal
     … Sometimes it comes down to a basic level of dishonesty in the mind. One part of the mind is very good at lying to another part of the mind. So you can start asking yourself, “Who’s actually fooling whom here?” “Where’s the curtain, the window shade, the wall that allows one part of the mind to fool another part of the mind … 
  5. Chewed Up by Your Food
     … the ability to be independent, so that things outside don’t have to be a certain way for there to be a sense of well-being in the mind. This is how this good food develops the strengths of the mind: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. This way, the mind, more and more, can stand on its own two feet. And unlike the … 
  6. A Position of Strength
     … If your actions are going to be skillful, they have to come from a place where the mind can consider things carefully, clearly, and quickly. The more the mind is still, the more it’s able to do these things. Above all else, the mind needs strength, and it gathers its strength from meditation. When you sit here with the breath, tell yourself that … 
  7. The Uses of Pleasure & Pain
     … That’s when you really gain interesting insights into the mind, seeing how it goes flowing out after things, rushing to grab hold of this, rushing to push that away. The Buddha talks about effluents in the mind, things flowing out of the mind, and when you can maintain your center you actually get a physical sense of the energy flowing out as the … 
  8. Exploring Possibilities
     … You see possibilities in the mind, possibilities for letting go of old habits that create suffering. So when anything new comes up in the mind, keep reflecting back on that question: What does this new mind state show about the mind’s possibilities? What does it show about how the mind can relate to things in a way that involves less suffering? Keep your … 
  9. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … We have to take very good care of the mind because it’s going to be our refuge. When the Buddha says, “The self is its own refuge,” he’s referring primarily to the mind. We have to create good qualities of the mind so that the mind doesn’t get frazzled and frayed, doesn’t become its own worst enemy. You want the … 
  10. Lifting the Mind
     … This is where you begin to develop that sense of the observer inside, the part of the mind that simply steps back and watches the causes, watches the results. That puts you in a position where you can actually gauge the causes and gauge the results. It leads to the next step of lifting the mind, which is that once the mind really can … 
  11. Directing & Not Directing the Mind
     … To help give the mind these two types of reasons, the Buddha teaches two approaches to meditation: You either have to direct the mind to get it to settle down, or you can practice not directing the mind. Directing the mind means giving yourself reasons to settle down. You try to stay with the breath, but you can’t stay with the breath. You … 
  12. The Basic Medicine
     … The breathing is soothing the body, soothing the mind right now, so the mind feels that it can melt in with the breath. The awareness melts into the breath. They become one. However, the meditation is not just a bubble bath for the mind. There’s the healing, comforting, soothing aspect, but remember medicine comes in all sorts of forms. Some of it can … 
  13. Pain
     … If you maintain that, then all the Velcro hooks that tie the mind to the pain or tie the mind to the body get cut. It can be a mind well-gone because it’s lived well, meditated well, developed good qualities in the mind, so that when the time comes to go, you’re ready.
  14. A Stranger to Your Thoughts
     … Because after all, to get the mind to settle down and be still, you have to discern what’s going on in the mind. And to discern really clearly, you have to get the mind to be still. But this is not a Catch-22. These two sides develop gradually. It’s not an all-or-nothing kind of affair. As the mind gets … 
  15. Where Your Mind Gravitates
     … When the Buddha talks about being sensitive to the mind as you breathe in, sensitive to the mind as you breathe out, this is what he’s talking about. The ajaans will talk about how when you sit down to meditate you should ask yourself, “Where is your mind leaning?” Leaning to the future; leaning to the past; leaning to things it likes; things … 
  16. Put Your Heart into It
    The Pali word for “mind”—citta—also means “heart,” which means that when we’re training the citta, we’re training both the heart and the mind. A lot of times the emphasis is on the mind, in the sense that we’re trying to figure things out, and that is an important part of the practice. I’ve heard some people say, “Don … 
  17. Diagnosing the Mind
     … The purpose of thinking in meditation, the purpose of discernment, is to help the mind get more and more still, to deeper levels of stillness, more secure levels of stillness, so that you can see deeper into the mind, so that areas the mind that tend to be hidden start coming up to the surface. Especially as your alertness gets more and more quick … 
  18. Heedful of Ruts in the Mind
     … In the Buddha’s list of blessings or protections, being heedful of the qualities of the mind is one of your best protections. That means taking seriously the principle of kamma: The thoughts that you have will lead to states of becoming in the mind; states of becoming in the mind will lead to becoming on the large scale. It’s there in the … 
  19. A Quiet Spot
     … Is it coming in? Is it going out? Is it comfortable? Is it not comfortable? If the mind wants to analyze things, there’s plenty to analyze right here. If it wants to settle down, just make the breath comfortable and allow the mind to settle down. But do your best to monitor what the mind is doing so that it stays alert and … 
  20. An End to Suffering
     … You’ve got to go through the steps, giving the mind a place to stay and, at the very least, being mindful to know when something unskillful is going on in the mind and latching onto that realization, “Okay, this is unskillful, this is not going to lead to anything good.” That way, you learn not to act on whatever is going through the … 
  21. The Wall of Discernment
     … So this is the first duty of discernment, to get the mind willing to work on concentration. Then the next step, once you get started, is to use your directed thought and evaluation to figure out how to get the mind to settle down. What’s the most effective way of breathing right now? What’s the most effective way of focusing the mind … 
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