… You have to just stick with the breath, stick with it, stick with it, and don’t let the cynical and lazy members of the committee take over.
Because this is another thing you’ve got to keep in mind, which is that the mind is like a committee. Although it may have been that a few of the members were meditating really well …
… Every member of the committee of the mind
wants happiness, simply that we have different ideas about what it
means, what it would be, how to go about it. But if you can show the
impatient members of the committee that there’s a well-being that can
come right here in the present moment by being on the path, they’re
more likely …
… You’ve told
yourself you’re going to sit here and meditate, but who is there
inside you? Who told whom inside? You find that there’s actually a
whole committee here in the mind. Some of the committee members want
to meditate right now, and other committee members have other ideas.
They want to think about yesterday, think about tomorrow, think about
whatever …
… Otherwise, its greed, aversion, delusion, and ignorance will just take over, along with all the other members of the committee, and there will be nothing left of your meditation.
Notice that not all of the members of the committee are adults. We do have some children. The Buddha’s is attitude is not that you pamper your inner child, although, as the one psychologist …
… And as for the committee, just remember that some of the members of the committee are bad. They’ve been pretty powerful in the past, but they don’t have to maintain that power. You can learn how to change the balance of power in the mind. So see them as alien, too. That deprives them of a lot of their strength right there …
… You can think of the mind as being like a committee. A strength is a strong member of the committee, whereas a faculty is someone who has taken over the committee and runs it.
When you think of the mind as a committee, it’s important to realize that each member of the committee consists of what the Buddha calls a bhava, or becoming …
… In terms of the image of the committee of the mind,
there are lots of committee members who have their ideas about what’s
good about ill will, and you’ve got to learn how to reason with them
so that you can get the whole committee onboard with the practice of
universal goodwill. Only then can really trust yourself as you go
through …
… It’s like a committee discussing ideas: “How about doing this? Well, how about doing that?” You’ve heard about people with multiple personalities, the really extreme cases where they get schizoid and the multiple personalities refuse to recognize each other. That’s unhealthy. For most of us, though, there is a dialogue in the mind, and it’s healthy that there is. What …
… You want to
get down to the nitty-gritty because there are committee members of
the mind that are like dogs: They find something dead and they like to
roll in it. Other committee members are more fastidious in their
tastes, but you’ve got to admit to yourself you’ve got dogs in here as
well. And you get to know them because …
… Full set zip
Introduction
070606 The Noble Search for Happiness
111017 Why We Train the Mind
111222 Countercultural Values
120404 The Intelligent Heart
120620 Homeschooling Your Inner Children
050307 The Open Committee
110206 Organizing Your Inner Committee
060113 Unskillful Voices
050521 The Karma of Self & Not-self
050412 The Need for Stillness
050327 Everybody Suffers
040109 Why the Breath
100813 Why Mindfulness
090723 Concentration …
… When the members of the committee are getting obstreperous,
how would he describe the story? How would he describe the issue? How
would he sort things out among them? If Ajaan Fuang doesn’t seem to be
the one to settle things, think of the ajaan you most respect or the
person in the Pali Canon you most respect. Add that voice to your …
… It was during that period on the mountain that I began to realize that
my mind was like a committee: lots of different opinions, some of
which I could trace to my mother, to my father, different lessons I
had picked up at school, picked up from the culture at large. Being in
a place far away from my culture, far away from my …
… Remember the image of the
committee: lots of opinions in here. Some opinions want to stay; some
opinions want to go. Try to side with the ones who want to stay and
strengthen them by giving yourself something good to do here in the
present moment.
If working with the breath gets dull, then you can work on thoughts of
goodwill, you can contemplate …
… When we talk about the mind being like a committee, sometimes it seems
like that’s too small an image. It’s more like a crowd, and lots of
people in the crowd have different agendas. So as you’re meditating,
you have to realize that even though part of the mind is with the
breath, there are other parts that don’t want …
… In this way,
you straighten out the committee inside your mind. We have lots of
different opinions inside, lots of different ideas about what we should
do and shouldn’t do. Sometimes they’re in agreement, sometimes they’re
not. Part of the training of the mind is to learn to get everybody in
agreement that you want to behave in a skillful way …
… What every member of the committee—any
animal—here in the mind wants is happiness, a sense of well-being. And
in the beginning stages, you can provide that with the breath. As
different members of the committee become more inclined to look here,
you find that there are deeper and deeper levels of happiness that can
be found right here, until ultimately everybody …
… It’s as
if we have a committee inside, and not all the committee members are
on board with the meditation right now. Some of them would be all too
happy to use this hour to think about something else. You have to get
really good at saying No, No, No, again and again and again, until
those members of the committee finally realize …
… The image of the committee in the mind is very useful here. This inner committee is not a group of angels deciding to put on a charity event. They’re the city council in a really corrupt city. There are a lot of shady dealings going on behind the scenes. So when ideas come up in the mind, you have to learn how to …
Inner Voice Lessons
August, 2002
One of the first things you notice as you try to quiet the mind is the lack of quiet — all the chattering going on, all the discussions, the dialogs, the committee discussions going on up in your head, and sometimes all over your body. There seems to be never-ending chatter.
Often our first thought as we start to …
… Again, think of the committee of the mind. You don’t have to identify
with every voice that comes up in the mind. You don’t have to identify
with every feeling that goes through the body. Ajaan Lee’s picture of
what’s going on inside you is even more radical than the image of the
committee of the mind. He says that …
Introduction | The Five Faculties : Putting Wisdom in Charge of the Mind
… You can think of the mind as being like a committee. A strength is a strong member of the committee, whereas a faculty is someone who has taken over the committee and runs it. When you think of the mind as a committee, it’s important to realize that each member of the committee consists of what the Buddha calls a bhava, or becoming …
Talk collections | dhammatalks.org
… Full set zip Introduction 070606 The Noble Search for Happiness 111017 Why We Train the Mind 111222 Countercultural Values 120404 The Intelligent Heart 120620 Homeschooling Your Inner Children 050307 The Open Committee 110206 Organizing Your Inner Committee 060113 Unskillful Voices 050521 The Karma of Self & Not-self 050412 The Need for Stillness 050327 Everybody Suffers 040109 Why the Breath 100813 Why Mindfulness 090723 Concentration …
