… We sometimes call it a
committee, but it’s often more like a raucous crowd. You have to learn
how to be a patient observer to figure things out, the same way that
the people in listening stations during a war listen very carefully to
the enemy. They can’t let themselves get excited or depressed or
impatient. They’ve got to keep listening …
… You can deal with all of the committee members in the mind: all the ones who have other ideas about where happiness should be and why you shouldn’t be sitting here watching your breath right now, you should be thinking about something else. As you deal with those voices and can get past them, you find that there are other, subtler ones that …
… This is where the committee of the mind actually becomes a useful
thing. If there were just one of you in there, there’d be no way that
you could question your opinions, because your opinions would be your
opinions and that would be that. But if you realize that there are
other beings in here, other voices, other opinions in there, try to …
… After all, when you
really can’t figure out what’s going on, one of the best things to do is
to say, “I’ll just sit with it for a while.” But in sitting with it,
you’re creating an identity in this committee you have in the mind: the
identity of the watcher. And you’re going to hold on to that …
… Simply being with the sensation of breathing helps pull you out of a lot of your thoughts, that ongoing committee discussion in the mind. If you’re with the breath, you’re like an outside observer on the committee meeting. You’re not necessarily pushed around by the voices in the committee. In that way, you’re in a better position to see, “Is …
… You
can think of it as being like a committee where different members of
the committee watch other members—although as someone told me
recently, he felt that his mind was more like a nursery school: lots
of squabbling little kids in there.
But even in a nursery school, there should be an adult in charge. So,
you want your adult in charge right …
… We can learn to see the mind as a committee: the fact that unworthy impulses are proposed by members of the committee doesn’t mean that we are unworthy. We don’t have to assume responsibility for everything that gets brought to the committee floor. Our responsibility lies instead in our power to adopt or veto the motion.
At the same time, we should …
… There’s a committee in there, and the different members of the
committee have different ideas. Some of the tapes they’re playing are
things that were actually set into motion a while back. Now that your
mind is beginning to calm down a little bit and get quieter, you’re
beginning to hear things going on in the background that were obscured
before …
… This means keeping certain things in mind, one of which is
that—given that the mind is so complex and there are so many opinions
in there, so many members of the committee—it’s bound to happen that
when some of the members get well-trained, then others come barging
in, not well-trained, and they seem to destroy everything. Actually,
they don …
… And so the creature that comes out is like the old cartoon of a committee designing a bird: The bird looks pretty good to begin with, but then after the committee’s done with it, it looks like an ostrich with no legs. It can’t walk and it can’t fly, but it sells. In this country of ours, where democracy and the …
… All the
different voices in the mind, all the different committee members, all
our different identities are made up of these various forms of
fabrication. This is where the teaching gets useful. A thought comes
into your mind, an emotion comes into your mind, telling you that you
want to do this or that: If you realize that it’s not skillful, you
can …
… We’ve got to get the good committee
members of the mind watching over the ones that tend to misbehave—and
watch out for their every movement.
Some people say this makes them really tense. But if you can do it
with a sense of well-being with the breath it’s a lot easier. You find
actually that the more you can keep …
… You find that you pare down the members of the committee more and more and more until you don’t need anybody in the committee. That’s when you’re done. The different senses of self just don’t play a role anymore.
Q: My friends ask me why it matters which being I will reincarnate as, because it, she, or he will not …
… There are lots of
different you’s, different members of this committee inside. And some
of them will slip in with agendas that are not really in your own best
interest: maybe a short-term happiness but nothing really long-term.
But wisdom comes from seeing that happiness comes from your actions
and that there is such a thing as long-term as opposed …
… Think back on the image of the mind’s committee. Each committee member corresponds to a different desire, a different sense of who you are based around that desire, and a different sense of the world in which you can search for what will fulfill that desire. Your sense of who you are here is composed of two things: the self that will experience …
… There are good reasons
for why you’re staying here.”
Then when you try to settle down, you also want to deal with the
obstreperous members of the committee that are very picky about where
they want to settle. The mind is really strange this way. It can go
off and think about things that cause suffering for days and days and
days on …
… There are members of your inner
committee who are trustworthy and other members who are not—just as
outside, there are people who are trustworthy and people who are not.
You need to learn how to combine the inner trustworthy members with
the outer trustworthy people, to find a happiness that really does
satisfy.
Because a lot of what the world has to say …
… Learn to have
some conversations and negotiations with the different committee
members in the mind that are being recalcitrant. That way, this
quality of truthfulness really does become one of your qualities.
You look at the ajaans. All of them made up their mind to do something
and they did it. They didn’t talk about the difficulties involved, but
they would talk about …
… You might think of the mind state as being when the whole mental committee has agreed on something, whereas the mental qualities are the specific members of the committee.
The clearest line is between bodily phenomena and mental phenomena, and that’s an important distinction to focus on. You’ve got the breath coming in and going out, and then you’ve got the …
… You can think of the mind as being like a committee. Your old habits
are the members of the committee who have held power for a long time
over you. Whereas the members who want to meditate may not be quite so
strong, but you can strengthen them. You can side with them. The more
you develop your mindfulness, your alertness, your concentration, and …
The Road to Nirvāṇa Is Paved with Skillful Intentions | Noble Strategy
… We can learn to see the mind as a committee: the fact that unworthy impulses are proposed by members of the committee doesn’t mean that we are unworthy. We don’t have to assume responsibility for everything that gets brought to the committee floor. Our responsibility lies instead in our power to adopt or veto the motion. At the same time, we should …
