Search results for: committee

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. Training Your Inner Critic
     … So just as the inner critic has to watch and train the other selves in your inner committee, the inner critic has to be watched and trained. Here it’s useful to see that it’s not just one critic. It’s a whole team. Sometimes they’re arguing among themselves about which standards to use, and sometimes they’re ganging up on you … 
  11. Sort Things Out
     … The thinking gets more refined as your concentration gets stronger, but in the beginning you have to ride herd on this committee inside the mind that has all kinds of opinions about what you want to do with this hour. When you focus everything on being right here with the breath, try to notice when you breathe in: Where do you feel it? It … 
  12. Thoughts, Wanted and Unwanted
     … That way, it stays focused on the best place to go—instead of being a committee that’s always at odds with itself, running off in every direction, like that man they talked about, who jumped on the horse and rode off in all directions at once. When the mind’s untrained, that’s what it tends to do. It rides off in all … 
  13. Responsible
     … This means a large part of the committee of the mind has to be on board. So it’s not just a simple matter of putting up a fence; you also have to reason with the mind to get your attitude right—thinking about the sights of the world, and the sounds of the world, not so much as your playground but as an … 
  14. A Handful of Leaves
     … It’s as if you have a whole committee in there: all the different identities you’ve taken on, which have worked to one extent or another. They’re all potentially there with their opinions on things. And many of them are very ignorant. But with the solidity that comes from concentration, you can begin to watch these identities in action and see that … 
  15. The Wisdom of Self-regulation
     … Think about the committee of voices in your head telling you to do this, not to do that. They have lots of different ideas. To learn how to not listen to the unskillful voices, and to listen to the skillful ones and to recognize which is which: That’s a real skill. A lot of discernment has to go into that. It helps to … 
  16. The Skills of Truth & Calm
     … So as you’re dealing with the obstacles of trying to master this skill, and things don’t quite fit—the mind doesn’t fit with the breath, the breath doesn’t fit with the mind, different members of the inner committee seem to be rebelling—you have to have a strong sense that, yes, you can do this. You don’t let setbacks … 
  17. Dhamma Medicine
     … In other words, learning how to talk to the various committee members in your mind, and learning strategies. Some of the meditation techniques we have are strategies, and sometimes you have to practice them in advance. The teaching on goodwill: Sometimes you sit here thinking thoughts of goodwill and you notice that your heart isn’t in it. The mind has no problem thinking … 
  18. Guardian Meditations
     … We talk about the committee of the mind with all its different voices, and you’ve been every one of those voices at some time in your life. That’s why the voice is there. You’ve adopted that view either from something someone else said, or just the tone of voice with which someone else said something to you, or sometimes you’re … 
  19. Conviction in Charge
     … It’s like a committee. It’s got lots of different opinions in here: your own opinions, other people’s opinions that you’ve picked up. You have to keep in mind the fact that you have to be very picky about what you choose to follow in the mind. When you choose the right voices, the mind can settle down: Choose the voices … 
  20. Many Desires, Many Selves
     … You’re just trying to create some order in this committee or this crowd inside, so that you can train the parts of the mind that can be trained to be focused on this one issue: putting an end to suffering. That’s where the unity lies: willing one thing above all other things and then submitting all your other desires to that. It … 
  21. Invest in the Breath
     … It’s a good place for seeing all of the members of the committee of your mind, all the ones that tend to hide out and stay behind the scenes. If you sit with pain for a while, they’re going to come up to the surface. Sometimes it’s a little discouraging to see how your mind comments to itself on pain and … 
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