Search results for: committee
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- Training in Happiness… Even though part of you may say, “Gee, I don’t like this,” remember that the mind is like a committee. There are lots of voices in there. You don’t have to trust every voice that comes up. You have to look at and see: Is this a reliable voice? Who’s speaking in here? Is it greed speaking? Is it laziness speaking …
- Addictive Thinking… You can train your own mind.” This is where the image of the mind as a committee is useful, because different parts of the mind are more skillful than others. You take the skillful parts and you basically make them stronger. Everything the Buddha taught was out of pure compassion. So that’s the voice you want to have in your mind, along with …
- Basic Intro… You begin to see that the mind is like a committee, with lots of different ideas, lots of different voices in here. For the time being, you’ve got to learn how to listen to one voice, the voice that reminds you to stay with the breath. The best use of your time right now is to develop these good qualities in the mind …
- Bad Friends Inside… If you think of the mind as a committee, there are lots of different voices in there, lots of different persons almost. And a lot of our problem is we don’t know who to choose as our friends inside. Sometimes we take greed as our friend, sometimes lust, sometimes anger, sometimes fear. We think these things can be relied upon, these things can …
- Refuge… The mind is a whole committee. And the Buddha’s teachings take advantage of that fact. If you had only one self in there, how could your self do anything to improve itself? But the fact is that you’ve got lots of different selves and they can look at issues from different angles. Some of them have better ideas about what’s skillful …
- Samvega… All the different committee members of the mind are eventually going to come here and have their say. If you can learn to step back and look at them, that gives you your chance to comprehend them. This ability to step back and look is equanimity. Learn to develop some equanimity around the pain. Just watch it for a while and see what happens …
- 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 …
- True Friends… As for the other voices in your mind that would suggest you go away, regard them not as your thoughts, just as committee members in your mind. We’ve picked up all kinds of voices inside our heads. Some from people we know—members of our family, teachers—others from the internet and other media, people we don’t know at all. You meet …
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 …- 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 …
- 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 …
- Dreams & Voices… We talk about the committee of the mind; Ajaan Lee talks about all the different consciousnesses that are in your body: your consciousness, the consciousnesses of the worms and the germs, and those of the various spirits that are in or around your body. It’s easy to get them mixed up. They slip into the mind, either consciously or just barely subconsciously. They …
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