Search results for: "The Mind"

  1. Page 90
  2. Learn from the Ants
     … They devoted good qualities of the mind to this, but they rested content with something that wasn’t ultimate. He, however, wasn’t satisfied. So he looked further. He tried austerities. Maybe by getting the mind totally free from the dampness of sensuality, as he saw it, he might set it on fire—just as when you take wood out of a wet place … 
  3. Where to Look in the Present
     … You get to see the movements of the mind. And you begin to realize that the more you exercise the choice to do the skillful thing, the more freedom you have, and the more clarity there is in the mind. It’s right around the element of intention and attention that you’re going to see all the important things you need to see … 
  4. The River Gauge
     … When you’re looking at your practice, you have to develop that same quality of the mind. There has to be a part of the mind that doesn’t go up when things are going well, doesn’t go down when things are not going well, so you can gauge the level of your practice and figure out what needs to be done. In … 
  5. Breathaholic
     … But as the breath gets more comfortable, and you get a sense of how the breath will have an effect on the body and on the mind, it becomes more and more the mind’s inclination to look for the breath while you’re driving, while you’re working—while you’re doing any activity. And you learn to breathe comfortably regardless of what … 
  6. A Refuge from Death
     … This is why we practice concentration, to keep the mind on one object and give it something good to hold on to, so that it doesn’t feel tempted to go wandering off and feeding in its old ways. So when you find the mind wandering off, bring it back to the breath. If it keeps wandering off, look at the things that you … 
  7. To Be Your Own Teacher
     … If you look at the process of how the mind goes about looking and listening, you see that the details themselves are not that much. Your motivation to go looking and listening to begin with: That’s one of the big problems. In this way this practice turns you back more and more on the mind and its intentions. That’s when you begin … 
  8. The Breathing Game
     … You begin to see through the mind’s subterfuges: the way it lies to itself about its intentions and the way it lies to itself about the results of its actions. This is where the mind develops skill. You become a better judge of what intentions to act on because you’ve seen what intentions have worked in the past to actually create a … 
  9. Acceptance & Equanimity
     … With the concentration, of course, it means getting the mind into jhana. You don’t go straight to equanimity. Get the mind focused in such a way that it’s feeling rapture and pleasure. Rapture may be too strong a word sometimes. Sometimes it’s simply refreshment. In other cases, though, it really is that strong. But the point here is that if you … 
  10. Virtue Fosters Concentration
     … If you tell yourself, “Okay, I’m not going to do this,” and then five minutes later find yourself doing it, you haven’t made much of a change in the mind; you haven’t trained the mind. But if you make up your mind, “Okay, no more killing, no more stealing, no more illicit sex, no more lying, no more taking of intoxicants … 
  11. Four Determinations in One
     … When it really hits home that no matter where you go, it’s going to be fabricated, the mind finally has no desire to fabricate for becoming or for not-becoming. When there’s no desire for fabrication, the mind is released. At this point, the Buddha says you’ve completed not only the duty with regard to discernment, but also the duties that … 
  12. Goodwill as Wealth
     … You’ve got this sense of well-being filling the body and filling the mind, and the ability to extend thoughts of goodwill to everybody, without exception, makes the mind even more expansive. Then it’s like living in a much larger house, a much larger home. So as you meditate, stop every now and then to take some time to spread thoughts of … 
  13. Hold on for All You’re Worth
     … And the result is that you get this sense of well-being, stability, that comes with right concentration, that allows you to understand the mind a lot better because you’ve learned how to master the mind. You can read about the five aggregates. You can read about the different types of actions that the mind engages in, but the best way to really … 
  14. The Positive Side of Heedfulness
     … You have to create good things out of them—as we’re doing with the mind right now. If you want to observe the mind, you have to put it into a state of concentration. You don’t just sit here watching it as it’s doing willy-nilly whatever it’s going to do. You have to direct it to an object. Bring … 
  15. Think Your Way to Stillness
     … The skill here is getting the mind to be with the breath in a way that the breath energy is nourishing for the whole body, and can become nourishing for the whole mind. Because we’re trying to develop a concentration that is centered but all-around. All the Buddha’s images for right concentration talk about full body, full body, full body. There … 
  16. Giving Meaning to Life
     … You really can cut through and free yourself from the defilements of the mind. When the path comes together in the mind, you see on the one hand that there is such a thing as the Deathless, and on the other hand that you’ve attained it through mastering your own intentions, understanding the process of the mind. There is more to experience than … 
  17. Fire Escapes
     … Why go out? The mind may come up with its reasons. But when you examine those reasons, you see that a lot of them have little real substance. They may be convincing if you glance at them—and this is how you often fall for a lot of things happening in the mind: A glancing idea comes in and then it’s gone. You … 
  18. Merit: Goodness of the Heart
     … When you gain a greater sense of control over the mind, that gives you a sense of lightness, a sense of happiness, a sense of ease. There’s the visceral ease of learning how to breathe in a way that’s comfortable. And the mental ease of realizing that when unskillful things come into the mind, you can fend them off. As you develop … 
  19. Weathering Karma Storms
     … They come roaring in and take over the mind. What you got to learn how to do is not let them take over. Remind yourself that this is just past karma coming in. You can’t do much about it. You can’t go back and undo the past karma. But you can turn your attention as much as possible to your present karma … 
  20. Potentials for Energy
     … So we’ve got to find the part of the mind that just doesn’t pay attention to thoughts like that. There is a part of the mind that simply watches what’s going on. Find that part inside you. Hold on to that, and anything that comes up that’s discouraging, anything else that comes up that’s frustrating, don’t be surprised … 
  21. Intro to Breath Meditation
     … But if you spend time with the breath—watching the breath, adjusting the breath, learning from the breath—you get sensitive not only to the breath but also to the mind, what the mind is doing in the present moment. And you begin to get sensitive to the ways that the mind causes unnecessary stress and suffering for itself. This is the big irony … 
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