Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 140
  2. Metta
     … For the meditation to go well, you’ve got to get the mind to settle down. If you’re thinking about how you might harm somebody, or you’re living with the results of having harmed somebody, it’s very difficult to get the mind to be still. You start thinking about unskillful things you’ve done. There may be unskillful things where you … 
  3. The Spider on the Web
     … One of the reasons we get the mind really, really still—as still as we can get it—and then try to keep it there, is so that we can see the process by which the mind will slip away from its stillness, by which a distracting thought will arise. A lot of times there will be thoughts you say are perfectly innocent. As … 
  4. The Art of Right Speech
     … We’re not just memorizing words or ideas; we’re learning how to deal skillfully with issues in the mind. And the first principle in that skill, he would say, is how we relate to the breath, because there are many layers in the mind. Some are more conscious than others, and one of the ways we get in touch with some of the … 
  5. The Larger Picture
    In Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass, there’s a character who says he likes to think about three impossible things every morning before breakfast, to clear out his mind. In a similar way, it’s good to think about infinity a couple of times a day, about all living beings throughout the universe. It helps to clear our minds as well … 
  6. Fear of Missing Out
     … What can you know?” The response, of course, is, “You know what’s going on in your mind.” After all, the problems are not there in the books; the problems are in the mind. Now, it’s good to know about the books. It’s not the case that the forest monks didn’t read books at all. Ajaan Lee, in particular, was an … 
  7. Evaluating the Practice
     … Get more mindful; get more alert so that you can learn from your mistakes. In that way, you can make fewer mistakes. So when you see your mind bumbling down a road to depression or whatever, you can pull yourself back and say, “No, I don’t have to go there anymore. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.” When you … 
  8. Be Heedful & Think
     … It’s to get the mind to thrive. Some people complain all this attention to minutiae seems to put a straightjacket around their minds. But actually it’s liberating. It frees you from the mind’s abstractions. It frees you from the mind’s ignorance. You focus on things that are right before your eyes, you look at them carefully, and you’re careful … 
  9. What Am I Becoming?
     … Is the mind staying with the breath? If it’s not, is it a problem with the breath or with the mind? You’ve got time to check these things out. Experiment with different kinds of breathing; experiment with different places of focusing your mind. If the mind’s hung up on some issue from the day, learn how to think about that issue … 
  10. Stepping Out of the Waves
     … We’re walking on a middle path, trying to get the mind to settle down and be clear. There is a pleasure that comes when the mind settles down, and that’s actually part of the concentration. You don’t want to let that go quite yet, but the excitement that comes when the meditation is going well, and the opposite mood that comes … 
  11. Concentration that Bears Great Fruit
     … But, of course, if your mind is not trained, it’s going to pick up more issues. This is not a contemplation meant to lead to suicide. It just simply helps get a lot of the issues of the day into perspective. Or you can repeat a meditation word in your mind. The most common one in the Forest Tradition is buddho. You think … 
  12. Fear of Others
     … The fear that comes from knowing that your mind has unskillful habits and the conditions could come about where those unskillful habits might take over: That’s something legitimately to be feared. You want to train your mind so that it’s not influenced into doing unskillful things by any kind of conditions. Until the mind has reached that point, you’ve got something … 
  13. Circumspection
     … As the Buddha pointed out, doing concentration requires some insight into how the mind works, how it wanders, how it relates to the breath. For some people, getting the mind to settle down is easy. They can get away with less contemplation in that area. Still, there will come a point where they’ll have to start pushing the mind in that direction if … 
  14. The Desire for Truth
     … If you’re not really clear about what you’re doing, how can you know the results of your actions? So you watch the mind. You’re alert to see what the mind is doing. You’re alert to the breath. And then when you learn anything about the relationship between the mind and the breath—how to get the mind to settle down … 
  15. Recollecting the Devas
     … How do you make your mind a deva mind right now? How do you make your actions deva actions? Focus right now on conviction, generosity, virtue, learning, and discernment, regardless of whether you have visions or not. And that way recollection of the devas really can raise the level of your mind.
  16. Admirable in the Beginning, Middle, & End
     … After all, you’re asked to develop what qualities? Mindfulness, alertness, ardency, all under right mindfulness. Those are all good qualities to have in your mind. You develop them by staying with the breath, keeping the breath in mind, continually watching the breath coming in and going out, and then trying to do it well. Doing it well means learning how to breathe with … 
  17. Don’t Just Do It
     … This is a mono-task, because you’re going to be observing your mind and the breath at the same time. The more you can have your whole mind and whole heart right here, at the whole breath, the more you’re going to see. After all, everything the Buddha discovered in the course of his awakening is right here. Our problem is that … 
  18. Fully Absorbed
     … Part of the mind will say, “Well, this is dumb,” and you have to say, “No, this is not dumb. This is a skill.” And it’ll argue; it’ll say, “I’ve got to think of things, analyze things.” Not yet. The first step is to develop this. Because as this state of the mind is developed, insights will come. Now, there are … 
  19. Goodwill for Safety
     … something you set your heart and your mind on. And remember that the Pali term citta, which we translate usually as mind, can also mean heart. The Buddha never made a clear distinction between the two: Your feelings have their reasons, and your reasons are accompanied by feelings. Goodwill has to be based on heedfulness: the realization that if you have ill will for … 
  20. A Leap of the Heart
     … And the Buddha says, “Even I myself, as I was trying to get the mind into concentration, realizing that to get the mind into concentration I had to give up thoughts of sensuality: My mind just did not leap up at the prospect.” So the Buddha, too, had to struggle with the issue of giving things up, letting go of things, sacrificing things. It … 
  21. Preparing for Death
     … Whereas with the mind in concentration, even though there is a lot of pleasure, it doesn’t require that you turn a blind eye to what you did to get the pleasure. In fact, you can see it even more clearly. So concentration helps to get over that craving for human sensuality. As for fear of losing the body, when the mind really settles … 
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