Buddhism and Mind (Positive Control of Mind)

The whole thrust of Buddha's teaching is to master the mind. If you master the mind, you will have mastery over body and speech ... Mastery of the mind is achieved through constant awareness of all your thoughts and actions ... Maintaining this constant mindfulness in the practice of tranquility and insight, you will eventually be able to sustain the recognition of wisdom even in the midst of ordinary activities and distractions. Mindfulness is thus the very basis, the cure for all samsaric afflictions.
(Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Journey To Enlightenment)

In the Yogasutras, Patanjali lays down that man should control the ramifications of his mind. In the Bhagavad-Gita, while Lord Krishna enlightens Arjuna about the Yoga of equanimity, Arjuna makes a very pertinent objection. How can the turbulent ocean of the mind, in which mighty waves arise, be made waveless - he asks. The mind is restless; impetuous, strong and obstinate. Lord Krishna admits the force of Arjuna’s argument and says: 'Doubtless, it is hard to control the mind but by practice of non-attachment control can be acquired.'

We can eliminate negative characteristics by developing beneficial ones: in the words of the Yoga Sutras, 'Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.' (Yoga sutras)

The Words of Truth
Quotations from the Dhammapada (Ancient Indian Text, Translated by Radhakrishnan)

All (mental) states have mind as their forerunner, mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with a defiled mind, then suffering follows ..

All (mental) states have mind as their forerunner, mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts, with a pure mind, happiness follows one as one’s shadow that does not leave one.

This fickle, unsteady mind; difficult to guard, difficult to control, the wise man makes straight, as the fletcher the arrow.

Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good is it to control the mind. A controlled mind brings happiness.

He whose mind is unsteady, he who knows not the Good Teaching, he whose confidence wavers, the wisdom of such a person does not attain fullness

Whatever harm a foe may do to a foe, or a hater to another hater, a wrongly-directed mind may do one harm far exceeding these.

Neither mother, nor father, nor any other relative, can do a man such good as is wrought by a rightly-directed mind.

Make haste in doing good; restrain your mind from evil.

Watchful of speech, well restrained in mind, let him do no evil with the body; let him purify these three ways of action, and attain the Path made known by the Sages.

Excerpts from the discourses of Shri S N Goenka and Sayagyi U BA Khin on Vipassana

Observing, observing you will reach the stage when you experience that the entire physical structure is nothing but subatomic particles: throughout the body, nothing but kalapas (subatomic particles). And even these tiniest subatomic particles are not solid. They are mere vibration, just wavelets.
The Buddha's words become clear by experience: Sabbo pajjalito loko, sabbo loko pakampito. The entire universe is nothing but combustion and vibration.
As you experience it yourself you experience that the entire material world is nothing but vibration. We have to experience the ocean of infinite waves surging within, the river of inner sensations flowing within, the eternal dance of the countless vibrations within every atom of the body. We have to witness our continuously changing nature. All of this is happening at an extremely subtle level. These kalapas (subatomic particles) according to the Buddha, are in a state of perpetual change or flux. They are nothing but a stream of energies, just like the light of a candle or an electric bulb. The body (as we call it), is not an entity as it seems to be, but is a continuum of matter and life-force coexisting.

As you experience the reality of matter to be vibration, you also start experiencing the reality of the mind: vinnana (consciousness), sanna (perception), vedana (sensation) and sankhara (reaction). If you experience them properly with Vipassana, it will become clear how they work.

Buddha discovered the way: whenever you experience any sensation, due to any reason, you simply observe it. Every sensation arises and passes away. Nothing is eternal. When you practice Vipassana you start experiencing this.
However unpleasant a sensation may be - look, it arises only to pass away. However pleasant a sensation may be, it is just a vibration-arising and passing. Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, the characteristic of impermanence remains the same. You are now experiencing the reality of anicca. You are not believing it because Buddha said so, or some scripture or tradition says so, or even because your intellect says so. You accept the truth of anicca because you directly experience it. This is how your received wisdom and intellectual understanding turn into personally experienced wisdom.

Only this experience of anicca (impermanent) will change the habit pattern of the mind. Feeling sensation in the body and understanding that everything is impermanent, you don't react with craving or aversion; you are equanimous.
Practising this continually changes the habit of reacting at the deepest level. By observing reality as it is, you become free from all your conditioning of craving and aversion.

http://www.buddhanet.net/bvk_study/bvk21d.htm
(Sourced from ''Buddha's path is to experience reality'' by S N Goenka. OCT 95 Vipassana english news letter, ''Samma Samadhi'' April 95 hindi Vipassana patrika, discourses of Sayagyi U Ba Khin-Sayagyi U Ba Khin Journal-VRI Igatpuri)

Buddha on Mind and Matter

The Buddha described everything as made from mind and matter. He described the parts of the mind and the qualities of matter. These are called "elements" which is confusing today when we use the same word for chemical elements and I prefer the translation to be "properties". The 4 properties he described were likened to earth, air, fire and water .. but are to be understood as the qualities of hardness, cohesion, vibration and expansiveness. These are a correct description for a tensile aether, just like Maxwell arrived at later and which I was also convinced lay behind the structure of cycles and of the wave nature of matter. (Ray Tomes, WSM Group)

The Abhidhamma Pitaka investigates and analyses Mind (citta) and Matter (Rupa), the two composite factors of the so-called a being.(Pali term 'Abhidhamma' is composed of two words 'Abhi' and 'Dhamma'. Abhi means subtle, higher, ultimate, profound, sublime and transcendental, and Dhamma means Truth Reality or Doctrine)

PRIMARY ELEMENTS / PROPERTIES

According to the Buddhist conception, all inanimate objects are aggregates of the following five inherent elements, namely:

(1) The Element of Solidity (Pathavi),
(2) The Element of Fluidity (Apo),
(3) The Element of Heat (Tejo),
(4) The Element of Vibration (Vaya)
and (5) The Element of Space (Akasa) .

In the case of animate objects, all living beings are also aggregates of six inherent elements, i. e. , the above five with addition of mind.

By taking the whole view of the physical phenomena to one-pointedness, one should understand, discern and realize that the body composed of hairs,bones, teeth, blood, sweat, wind etc, is nothing, but the particles or atoms of these four primary phenomenal element which are for ever and ever arising and passing away without any stop even a very short moment.
Being so, the so-called body named such and such with a conventional term is, in the sense of ultimate reality merely proton, neutron and electron of physical phenomena, but not infinite soul; nor mine; nor am I, nor my personality nor ego or self.

Regarding the mind, there is no place where mind can be located. Evidently mind is not static thing, but a moving phenomenon. It is therefore, in reality, the process of consciousness arisen between sense organs and objects. When mind comes in contact with an object through any one of six sense-doors, a new mental phenomenon or consciousness arises and immediately it passes away. Even during such a very short moment of consciousness, the mental process has happened many times very swiftly.

So the comprehensive discernment of physical and mental phenomena in its real nature is called (Vipassana Ñ ana) Insight knowledge.

DHAMMA - The Noble Doctrine of The Buddha - Sayadaw Bhaddanta Pañña Dipa
http://www.erowid.org/spirit/traditions/buddhism/buddhism_dhamma.shtml