Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 102
  2. Honesty
     … This is why mindfulness is coupled with alertness. Mindfulness means keeping something in mind. For example, right now you’re going to keep the breath in mind. Each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, you remind yourself: Stay with the breath. You don’t go wandering off. Then you’re alert, both to what the breath is doing, and to whether … 
  3. Boring
     … He was watching the mind in relationship to the breath, seeing a lot of subtle movements going on in the mind. Those are the really interesting things. And everything you need to know for awakening is right here. It’s just that your powers of observation are not subtle and all-around enough. And if you can’t even see the subtleties of the … 
  4. Large Perspective, Small Focus
     … But the Buddha was able to see that the real suffering that weighs down the mind is not what’s going on out there in the world, it’s what the mind piles on itself in addition. That was his insight: that what was driving everything out there were these forces within the mind. He was able to identify them—certain views and certain … 
  5. Ingenuity
    There’s more to the mind than you can ever find in a book. This is why, when you meditate, you often are going to run into things that you never read about, which is why one of the important skills in meditation is, one, to be observant, and two, to use your ingenuity. There’s no way that the ways of the mind … 
  6. Only One Person
     … And particularly when you meditate, because you realize the mind right here is the source of everything, so you want to get it well-trained. All the teachings having to do with meditation are very closely related to the teaching on karma. When the Buddha teaches meditation, when he teaches mindfulness, he stresses three qualities: mindfulness, alertness, ardency. They all center on what you … 
  7. Attached to Concentration
     … On the top of that, the Canon and the commentaries tell of other ways in which people’s mind can settle down. There’s a story of a nun whose mind was just all over the place. Then one day she contemplated the fact that the people who work hard for their living are able to do it. “Here I am, with something easy … 
  8. Don’t Be Afraid of Jhana
     … In fact, this is where discernment arises, in this power of concentration that allows the mind to settle down, be still, and have a sense of well-being. If the mind lacks a sense of well-being, then whatever insights it gains are going to be distorted through aversion. But when the mind has a sense of pleasure, it’s like a person who … 
  9. The Raft of Jhana
    There’s a tendency when you hear the word “jhana” to think of some otherworldly state, something far removed from the mind as you’re experiencing it right now. But what is jhana made out of? In the passage we chanted just now, from the Analysis of the Path, it says that in the first jhana there’s directed thought, evaluation, pleasure, and rapture … 
  10. Events as Events
    When you establish mindfulness, the Buddha says that you focus on the body in and of itself, putting aside all greed and distress with reference to the world. The body in and of itself means precisely that—not the body in the world, but just the body as you have it right here. The body in the world would be thinking about the body … 
  11. Energizing Your Meditation
     … the rapture as a part of the mind; refreshment as a feature of the mind. You remember what fashions the mind: feelings and perceptions. So notice what kind of perceptions you have about the breath. As the Buddha said, once there is a sense of rapture or refreshment, you want it to spread to fill the whole body. Think of the bathman kneading moisture … 
  12. Metta Meditation
     … And where do the actions come from? They come from the mind, from your intentions. So you have to train your intentions if you want to make sure that the results that are going to come out are the ones you want. Otherwise, the intentions of the mind pull you in all directions unless you train them to pull in one direction, which is … 
  13. Dharma Medicine
     … This way, you learn the power of perception and you get practice in how to practice medicine for the mind, because it’s only through hands-on experience in learning how to direct the mind in new ways like this that you can finally get the mind to the place where it doesn’t need any more medicine. At that point, the Buddha says … 
  14. A Good-natured Attitude
     … This comes from learning to listen both to the body and to the mind. That pulley that Ajaan Lee talks about as checking the mind, checking the body, now doesn’t have to move back and forth because body and mind are right here together. The breath is right here, the mind is right here. Try to have the sense that your observer can … 
  15. Your Breath, Your Territory
     … You’re trying to anchor yourself here, at the body as you feel it from within, so that you get a sense of your mind from within. You learn how to observe the mind so that you’re not simply in the thoughts that come to the mind. You can step out of them a little bit and see the thoughts as processes. It … 
  16. Strength from Within
     … Can you keep your mind still for long periods of time when you’re alone? Can you keep your mind still when you’re in noisy places? When you’re with other people? Where do you find it difficult to keep your mind still? Well, try to work on your strength so that you can find stillness even in difficult places, difficult times. As … 
  17. Truth with Boundaries
    I once read the true story of a woman who’d gone through a really bad period in her mind. Then she got out through a neurotic breakthrough. In other words, the neurosis she was in simply broke. What enabled her to make it break was that whatever thought was hounding her mind, driving her crazy, she would ask herself, “What if the opposite … 
  18. Pushing the Three Characteristics
     … And one good way of testing the principle of inconstancy is to try to make your mind as constant as possible. A good way of testing the principle of stress is to see how much ease you can get as you focus the mind. And the way of testing the principle of not-self is to see how much control you can exert over … 
  19. Around in Circles
     … just the mind staying alert to the breath right here. There are not too many variables, it would seem. But it’s plenty enough to keep you busy, plenty enough to give you all the raw material you need to learn about the mind in the present moment. Because that’s when the mind does all its work: in the present moment. We often … 
  20. Positive Right Speech
     … You have to keep your mind in line, exercise some restraint over your thoughts; keep the topic of your meditation in mind—that’s mindfulness; and be alert to what you’re doing. And when the mind does settle down, show some respect for it. It may not seem like much. But again, look at the people around you. They may be imperfect, but … 
  21. Goodwill as Wealth
     … Sometimes you start with people who are close to you, but then you begin to realize, why stop there? You want to develop a spacious mind. You’ve got this sense of well-being filling the body and filling the mind, and the ability to extend thoughts of goodwill to everybody, without exception, makes the mind even more expansive. Then it’s like living … 
  22. Load next page...