Search results for: committee

  1. Page 8
  2. Negotiating with Death
     … The mind, you could think of as the entire committee of the mind that has made a decision. It’s on the side of greed or on the side of anger—or on the opposite side. Or you’re trying to get the mind to settle down, so you check your progress against the Buddha’s list. Either it’s concentrated or it’s … 
  3. Timeless Practice
     … If you think of the mind as a committee, you’re developing a new member, a skillful member, to take over the committee. But the important thing is that you develop a sense of well-being with this focus. You do that by being, as the Buddha said, ardent, alert, and mindful. Mindful means keeping things in mind. Alert means being very clear about … 
  4. Laying the Infrastructure
     … Just make sure that the main member of your committee is right here. As for the other members of the committee, they can be off in the corner talking about whatever they want to, but you don’t have to silence them. If you don’t pay attention to them, after a while they’ll fall silent on their own. Otherwise, if you keep … 
  5. Take Your Time
     … It’s good to be thinking about that for a while because you’ve got to strengthen those members of the committee, the ones that want to meditate. If you’re willing to take some time to sort things out like this, you’re developing a quality that actually gets useful in the practice of concentration: evaluation, learning to evaluate all the problems that … 
  6. Be Decisive
     … And you don’t have to humor all the other members of the committee. Just plow right through. At the same time, don’t put a lot of pressure on the body as you’re doing this. There only has to be a mental kind of pressure. It’s the decisiveness that keeps you here, keeps you here. Because we do have to make … 
  7. Wearing the Breath
     … The reason you don’t like it yet is because it’s unfamiliar territory, and the mind has those committee members who want instant entertainment. But when you can settle down and gain a sense of being fully planted in the breath, fully wearing the breath throughout the body, then there’s the sense you’re at the spot where you should be. Everything … 
  8. Nuts & Bolts
     … So it’s good to think of these voices in the mind as being members of a committee. Like right now, you’ve got many of the members all together here working on the concentration, working with the breath. You’ve got some other members, though, that have other ideas. They’re waiting for a lapse in mindfulness and then they’ll come out … 
  9. Realities Right Here
     … But for the committee members who are not on board, you’re just going to have to let them go, let them go. Don’t pay them any mind; don’t show them any interest. You’ve got to hold on to your intention to stay with the breath and to stay with your awareness right here. When you breathe in, ask yourself: Where … 
  10. Self-reliance
     … This is where the fact of the committee of the mind comes in really helpful. One part of the mind can watch another part of the mind. In fact, as you develop this observer—that’s the alertness part—it becomes the part that’s also going to allow you to gain some discernment by stepping back from your actions to evaluate them. If … 
  11. Suffering is an Addiction
     … You have to hold that possibility in mind, and talk to all the members of your mind’s committee, because some are very fearful. Some are very close-minded. Some are very impatient. You tell them to try something new, and they try it for two or three breaths and say, “This is not working,” and they go back to their old ways. So … 
  12. How to Be Self-Centered
     … Here, too, you can think of the committee of the mind. You’ve got to ferret out which voices are the ones really worth listening to. Just because one voice is loud and repetitive doesn’t mean that you have to take it seriously. Try listening to the voices that are compassionate, that do want you to do the practice well, and are happy … 
    Show 2 additional results in this book
  13. Determined on Goodwill
     … I’ve often said that the mind is like a committee. Sometimes the good members are working on something, and some unskillful members sneak in. All of a sudden, you find that the task you had assigned to the good member gets taken over by somebody else. This is why the Buddha says you have to be determined on this mindfulness, keeping in mind … 
  14. Your Game Leg
     … Why? Which member of the committee is doing the listening: the greed member, the anger member, or the simple observer? If you see there’s any greed involved in your motivation for looking, don’t look. Also, check to see what’s happening as a result of your looking. What this means is that you’re looking at your engagement with the senses as … 
  15. Learning by Doing
     … This is where it’s good to think about the committee of the mind: The members are embryos of all kinds of different states of becoming, and they have their desires. Some of them want to get the concentration out of the way so that they can think about other things. They want to talk to this person, they want to deal with that … 
  16. The Buddha’s Wisdom
     … Or you can think of them as the committee of the mind. You have lots of old habits, old ways in which you’ve looked for happiness in the past, and they come bubbling up to join the committee and make their suggestions. As in a Thai phrase, “suam roi,” they step into your inner conversation. And they seem to be you talking to … 
  17. Sensitive in Seven Ways
     … As for groups of people, remember the committee in your mind. When greed, aversion, and delusion come in, with their tender, sweet voices—how do you deal with them? When they come with their harsh voices—they’re yelling at you, and as the Thais say, they’re squeezing your nerves: What do you do? You need to have techniques for recognizing different groups … 
  18. Seriously Happy
     … This is one of the reasons why it’s good to look at the mind as a committee or as a corporation. There are lots of you’s in there. You have to figure out which ones you can trust and which ones you can’t. Learning how to step back from all the different voices in your mind helps you to look at … 
  19. Slowing Down to Look
     … Think of your mind as a committee, and it’s not an ordinary committee. It’s like the Chicago City Council. Sometimes the impulse will say, “We know this is the right thing,” but that’s because Karl Rove is behind it—or the Chicago equivalent, okay? And other times you know because you know. But it’s only when you go through the … 
  20. The Size of Your Eyes
     … If you see that it’s an unskillful member of the committee of your mind, do what you can to counteract it. That way, when the time comes to sit down, here you are. You’re already looking after your mind, rooting out what’s unskillful. And sitting down and closing your eyes simply gives you a better chance to do it with a … 
  21. Practicing in Solitude
     … You’re adding new committee members with new ideas, new attitudes, in hopes that they’ll shake things up a little bit. This way, you can make the most of the freedom you’ve got. Because for a lot of us, having a big chunk of free time like this is daunting and almost a little scary. But as you gain a sense that … 
  22. Load next page...