Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 105
  2. Cut Through the Narratives
     … But what happens to the mind when you focus on these things, when you hang around with them, identify yourself around them? What’s the result? What kind of skillful or unskillful qualities develop? Do you look at that? For the most, part we don’t. We’re interested in something else, which would be called wrong mindfulness. We’re remembering the wrong things … 
  3. Sensual Passion
    In the Buddha’s description of concentration practice, he says that you’re aloof from sensuality, aloof from unskillful qualities in the mind. The word sensuality—kāma in Pali—is often misunderstood. Sometimes it’s translated as aloof from sensual pleasures. But the Buddha doesn’t have you search out a really difficult, painful place to practice. You try to find a place that … 
  4. Empathetic Joy
    Empathetic Joy August 20, 2013 We chant the phrases for the brahmaviharas or sublime attitudes every night before we meditate because they’re attitudes that really are conducive to getting the mind to settle down with a sense of well-being. You have no ill-will for anyone, no desire to see anybody suffer. You don’t resent anyone’s happiness; and as for … 
  5. In the Driver’s Seat
     … This is different from the popular notion of mindfulness, which simply watches things arising and passing away. Mindfulness as a governing principle means, one, you keep things in mind—what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s skillful, what’s not. And then two, you’re determined to remember: If something good has not yet arisen in the mind, you’re going to make … 
  6. The Buddha’s Medicine
    The Dhamma is medicine—medicine for the ailments of the mind. And just as with medicine for the body, some Dhamma medicines are meant to be preventive and others are meant to treat illnesses you’ve already got. And although we have the Buddha as the primary doctor, and other people are more experienced on the path as doctors who can give us advice … 
  7. Sensitive to the Breath
     … I was reading a letter recently from someone who’d picked up the idea someplace that, as the mind settles down, your breath grows shorter. So he put the cart before the horse and tried breathing shorter in order to get his mind to settle down. He found that his short breathing was not refined at all. It wasn’t making his mind calm … 
  8. The Strength to See
     … That way, you learn a lot about the mind. The things you learn about the mind in this way are necessary for gaining awakening: to see how the mind fashions things, and how it fashions pain in particular, in a lot of unnecessary ways. It’s only when you see how unnecessary these fabrications are that you can gain release from them. So that … 
  9. What’s Worth Doing?
     … The answers get more refined as we go through the practice, but it’s always important to keep that question in mind. The mind is primarily active. The passage we chanted just now talks about the eye and the ear and the nose and the tongue and the body being on fire: Well, they’re not on fire on their own. They’re on … 
  10. Gaining the Dhamma Eye
     … In other words, you keep your mind focused on that goal: that you’re going to try to get beyond all of your attachments to your emotions, all your attachments to everything that colors the mind, that obscures the mind. You’re going to focus on the purity of your own mind as your main goal, because that’s ultimately what dispassion means. You … 
  11. Thinking & Not Thinking
     … At the same time, look after the mind. Be sensitive to the mind. Try to gladden it so that it’s happy to be here. Part of gladdening requires talking to yourself about what a good thing it is that you’re able to meditate. And then you can gladden it further by making the breath really comfortable, so that it’s very pleasurable … 
  12. The Buddha Meant What He Said
     … You’re trying to bring the mind to concentration. It is an activity. It’s something you’re doing. You get the mind in concentration and try to maintain that. That, too, is an activity. You want to get good at it so that you can watch it. It’s like someone who’s really good at a physical skill: a sport, a musical … 
  13. A Slave to Craving
     … But it was when he talked to himself about the rewards of how you can get the mind still, and the usefulness of having a still mind, that he was willing to make the sacrifice. So it’s a good lesson to learn, because you’re going to need that as you meditate. Ideas come into the mind and they see you have an … 
  14. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … You want to be able to see that, and you can’t see that unless the mind gets really still. You can see the blatant levels, but there’s a lot more going on more subtly in the mind. You’ve got to get the mind still to see that, so learn how to give yourself pep talks while you work at concentration and … 
  15. Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge
     … Find a source of food that, unlike most pleasures of the world, doesn’t involve any bad kamma and also doesn’t involve clouding the mind. When the mind gets concentrated, you can see things clearly, and in particular, see what’s going on inside the mind. That puts you in a position where you can see where and how the mind is causing … 
  16. The Dhamma Wheel in the Heart
     … But if there’s a part of the mind that’s blocking a thought, and you don’t know what the thought is or why you’re blocking it, then you approach it in a different way, because the reason the mind doesn’t know is because it’s hiding something from itself and it’s also feeling threatened by the thought. So as … 
  17. Animals in the Mind
    As we sit here focusing on the breath, we’re developing what’s called mindfulness immersed in the body. You keep the body in mind and you try to fill the body with your awareness, allowing your awareness to spread out and be filled with body. Don’t squeeze off your awareness of the body, which is something we normally do an awful lot … 
  18. Taking Stock
    Okay, after all these many days of activity, try to find a quiet spot in your mind. Put everything else aside and just be with the breath. That’s it: awareness and breath. As for the thoughts that may be buzzing around in the mind, just let them buzz away. You don’t have to chase them down; you don’t have to do … 
  19. Character
    As we practice keeping the breath in mind, we bring three qualities to the practice. The first is mindfulness, which is the ability to keep something in mind. In this case, you’re remembering to stay with the breath. And you’re also remembering the lessons you’ve learned from your past meditations—things that worked, things that didn’t work—so that when … 
  20. Near to the Buddha
     … We meditate on the mind; we meditate on the breath. The breath is the closest thing in the world to your mind. Even in your own body, there’s nothing that’s closer to you than the breath. When you learn to develop qualities of mindfulness, alertness, ardency, concentration, discernment around the breath, then every time you breathe, there they are, right nearby. In … 
  21. A Good Mood to Meditate
     … Here you’ve got this opportunity sit here quietly watching your mind. It’s an opportunity that rarely comes. Most people in the world are either too rich or too poor, too busy with their work, too enthralled with their pleasures, to have the time, to take the time, to really get to know their own mind. You’ve got the opportunity right now … 
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