Search results for: committee
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- Patient & Inquisitive… If we think about the mind as a committee, we’re trying to train the members who are the investigators, the watchmen, so that they can watch what’s going on in the rest of the mind and try to figure it out. The Buddha doesn’t want us to simply accept the truth of his teachings and say, “Oh yes, it’s true …
- Alone & Together… If you’re constantly dealing with other people’s issues, you don’t know about the committee in your own mind. Voices come up, and you don’t know where they’re coming from. Thoughts come into your mind. Who are they? Who do they represent? Where did you pick up those ideas? You want to be able to track it down. You can …
- Learning Through Healing… At first it doesn’t feel like you’re learning too much, but over time you begin to see deeper and deeper into all the different functions that the mind performs, all the different voices, all the different committee members you have in there. And as you deal with this one and deal with that one, you begin to get a better sense of …
- Genuine Happiness… It’s more like a committee or a whole corporation: a factory with lots of workers, lots of executives making decisions and doing things, sometimes without the people in the top office knowing what’s going on. This is where the top office has to come down and look inside. Otherwise the corporation starts churning out junk, which will bring the corporation down. You …
- Looking in Three Directions… Different members of the committee haven’t agreed on what you’re going to do for the hour. Some of them say, “Hey, now that there’s free time, we can plan for tomorrow or hash over what happened today.” And you have to develop the insight that enables you to say No to those things and to stick with the No. Once the …
Mindfulness of Breathing
… The first has to do with the image of the committee of the mind. If you see the mind as having lots of voices, with lots of different opinions, you might think of “mind” as a frame of reference concerned with the mind as a whole—the times when the committee has come to an agreement—whereas “mental qualities” refer to the individual members …- Papañca… This is where you start seeing the committee of the mind in action. Some of the members have decided they’re going to leave. As soon as you’re not fully alert, fully aware, they’re going to take off. Then they pretend that they didn’t make that decision. But it has been made. It’s simply waiting for the chance. Then another …
- Dhamma in Vinaya… What’s wrong? Is your motivation not solid? Are the members of the committee in the mind arguing about whether you should stay here or think about something else? If that’s the case, look into them. What other agendas do they have right now? This is where Ajaan MahaBoowa talks about using your discernment to foster concentration. Think about the drawbacks of that …
- W.W.B.R.… All too often, a thought gets proposed to the committee in the mind, and just the fact that it’s been proposed makes you think that everybody’s got to go along. Well, no. Somebody may be proposing the idea, but you don’t have to go along with it. You can see it as something separate, which is what the teaching on not …
- The Choice Not to Suffer… This is where it’s good to think of that committee in the mind, and learning how to make use of it. Some members may be yelling about the pain, but not everybody in the mind has to be yelling about the pain. Other members could be saying, “Hey, wait a minute, you have your skills.” The physical pain is one thing; your sensation …
- Training the Mind… You find, as you meditate, that the mind is like a committee. There are many different ideas floating around in your mind about what you should be doing, and many different ways of making the decision on where you’re going to focus. Sometimes it seems as if part of your mind is with the breath, and part of your mind is looking for …
- The Joy of Curiosity… Learn how to ask questions about this conversation in the committee of the mind because you find that there’s not just one commentator in there, not just one producer or one consumer. There are lots of them. You’re training the ones that try to master the issues of concentration, the issues of the meditation, and - to get past your defilements. All the …
- Passion for Dispassion… We talk about the committee of the mind, and that’s what it is—the different forms of craving. If you can clear them out, have some quiet time inside, some solitary time inside without your craving constantly making comments on things, you find you can be wherever you are, and you can be happy. Like that old Zen koan about the sound of …
- The Patience of a Hunter… What particular defilement is there in the mind? Which of the voices of the committee of the mind is running things without your realizing it? Just keep those thoughts in the back of your mind. That’s what you’re looking for. Otherwise, the signs can go right past you and you don’t see anything because they are going right past you all …
- Doing, Maintaining, Using… They’ve already taken over the committee and are running the show. But if you’re staying with the breath, you can catch them in the very beginning stages, you can breathe through the tension around them, and that helps to alleviate at least the physical sense of frustration around the anger. What you’re left with is the mental side, which you can …
- Strength of Conviction… So you try to get all the committee members on the same page. I once asked Ajaan Fuang what you need to believe in order to do the practice. He said to believe in one thing: karma, the principle that your actions really do bear results, and you really can develop skillful actions. You’re not stuck in old habits. You have choices. You …
- An Examined Life… There’s a whole committee in there. Everybody’s jabbering away for fear that there will be a moment of silence. That’s one way of thinking about death. The other way is to realize that there are things you can do to prepare. In other words, there are skillful and unskillful ways of living, skillful and unskillful ways of dying. I’ve seen …
- Contentment vs. Initiative… Then finally, having good friendship on this level means realizing which members of your mind’s committee you can trust and which ones you can’t. This is something you have to learn over time. Some of the voices—especially the strict-sounding ones—seem to be voices of Dhamma, but after you get to know them for a while you begin to realize …
- Conviction & Persistence… A better way of seeing it is as different members of the mind’s committee. Some of them are with the path and others would like to go off and do something else. The wisest thing is to realize, “Okay, this is ultimately what the solution is going to be, so why not stick with it now? Why not work on it now? Why …
- Everything You Need… We talk about the committee of the mind and that’s only part of the range of what you can latch onto here. There are times when you identify with the body. You want it to do certain things and you realize that it is to some extent in your power to do those things. If the body were totally out of your control …
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