… Is it good to regard the ten perfections as new members of the committee of the mind?
A: Actually, they already are members of the committee, simply that they may be weak at the moment. What you’re trying to do as you develop them is to take these weak members and train them so they have more power in the committee. This is …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… This is how the whining member of the committee comes, how it goes.” You get to see them all.
And as you see them, you learn how not to identify with them. Try to develop that sense of humor, that ability to pull yourself out of the narrative simply by analyzing what’s going on in impersonal terms. Develop goodwill for all beings. When …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… When we think of the mind training the mind, it’s useful to think of the mind as a committee, with different members playing different roles. These are the different senses of self you have inside that are in constant dialogue. In meditation, we’re training three of these senses of self in particular: (1) the self who wants to enjoy the results of …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… In other words, remember that you have other members of the committee as well. And knowing that you do have Darth Vader in your committee, you have to be extra vigilant. The fact that you can give him a name is a good thing. It allows you to separate yourself from him. And don’t be surprised when he shows up again. Just remember …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
… 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 …
An Overview | Good Heart, Good Mind
… Is it good to regard the ten perfections as new members of the committee of the mind? A: Actually, they already are members of the committee, simply that they may be weak at the moment. What you’re trying to do as you develop them is to take these weak members and train them so they have more power in the committee. This is …
