Search results for: "Mindfulness"
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- Refreshing… All you have to do is prakhawng—shelter it, protect it—and the mind will have a sense of refreshment with the breath. This gives energy to the body, energy to the mind. So make sure that the causes are right, that you’re gentle and patient. Give some space to the body. Stick with the breath, but don’t put too much pressure …
- Changing Your Default Settings… It can be either a picture in the mind, or just a word or whatever, of how you conceive the breath, and how you hold the concept of breath in mind. You hold on to that: both to the sensation of the breathing itself and to the perception. And then you ask questions about it. This is what attention is about. When the Buddha …
- Safe Haven… As we’re meditating here, it’s one way of showing goodwill for ourselves, realizing that we have to train the mind if we’re going to find happiness. It needs some good basic qualities like mindfulness and alertness, and it needs a good safe place to do its work. It needs time out to do its work because it’s very delicate work …
- The Power to Transcend Suffering… These things strengthens the mind in the face of suffering. And then there’s the practice of meditation. This strengthens the mind as well, but it also makes the mind a lot more sensitive, so that we can see exactly where the suffering is and then ferret out all of its tentacles, all the little roots that it’ss put down in the heart …
- What’s Not on the Map… They can open up and connect to other qualities in the mind as well. So there’s always an element of uncertainty in the practice that requires your own active participation in taking what you’ve learned and adjusting it to training the particulars of your mind. Because, as I said, no one else has ever trained your particular mind before, with your particular …
- Fears… It permeates much more deeply into the mind. In fact, it allows the mind to open up, because for most of us the mind jumps around like a cat. Wherever it lands, it’s always going to stay tense, for it knows it has to be ready to jump again at any moment. But when you find something you can stay with for long …
- Goodwill for the Whole Committee… All actions come out of the mind. That’s why we train the mind to get more and more sensitive to its own actions. What’s radical about all this is what counts as an action. There are lots of things that we think of as things or identities but that the Buddha would prefer that we think of as actions, because it’s …
- Breathaholic… But as the breath gets more comfortable, and you get a sense of how the breath will have an effect on the body and on the mind, it becomes more and more the mind’s inclination to look for the breath while you’re driving, while you’re working—while you’re doing any activity. And you learn to breathe comfortably regardless of what …
- Infinite Good Humor… looking around and seeing that all the things that you might want to think about are not really worth thinking about, looking at the mind’s own tendency to go after those things, and realizing that you don’t want to go there. You don’t want to follow it along. That’s when the mind can begin to settle down and be still …
- Culture Shock… He was going to have to teach his mind to be more self-reliant, and by developing that self-reliance he found that there’s a lot more to the mind than he originally expected. So as you come to the Dhamma, try to keep that same purpose in mind: a true happiness that doesn’t have to depend on anything, a happiness that …
- The Karma of Self… And we neglect to control some things where we really do have some power, particularly in the area of the mind. If it weren’t possible to bring the mind under some control, you couldn’t do meditation. You couldn’t focus the mind. You couldn’t be mindful. You couldn’t develop any of the qualities that are needed. You’d just be …
- Don’t Stop with Acceptance… Otherwise, when something comes up in the mind, the question is: what to do with it? For instance, with pain: The pain itself doesn’t necessarily have to make inroads on the mind. In fact, that’s what we’re training ourselves to do: to allow the experience of pain to be there, but not allow it to “invade” the mind and “remain.” Those …
- Getting Back on Your Feet… Some sights and smells and sounds are actually helpful, soothing to the mind when it’s been frazzled by things. The sound of the crickets, the sound of the hummingbirds, the sounds of nature: Those are relaxing. They’re actually healing. The sight of the huge thunderclouds off to the east this evening: Those kinds of things give respite for the mind. But there …
- Large-hearted… What is it?” One advantage relates to the fact that if there’s a blind spot in the body, there’s going to be a blind spot in your mind. The reason we develop whole-body awareness is that we want to have an all-around vision of what’s going on in the mind, in the body, so that defilements can’t sneak …
- The Graduated Discourse… The other two qualities are singleness of mind and appropriate attention. Singleness of mind starts out, of course, by being focused totally on the talk. How do you move from that kind of singleness of mind, say, to the singleness of right concentration? Part of the answer has to do with appropriate attention. Appropriate attention usually means seeing things in terms of the four …
- Freedom Undefined… It’s not so much that you’re here to learn about Buddhism; you’re learning to use the tools that Buddhism offers to sort out your own mind. First the tools help you look at the habits, the things the mind is doing. Then, when you notice that what you’re doing is causing suffering to yourself or other people, you have the …
- Factors for Stream Entry… If your mind is a mess, it’s going to be a mess for other people, too. If your mind is straightened out, at the very least, you’ll be a lot less of a burden on others. You notice sometimes as people get older, they suddenly reach a point where you can’t get to them anymore. They’re in their world—maybe …
- Integrity — In Memory of Luang Loong… As you meditate, try to make your mind one, because we’re going to be giving this meditation to Luang Loong, and the more single your mind is, the more value it has. When you’re going to give something as a gift, you want to make sure it’s a good gift. And the oneness of the mind is like going to a …
- Consciousness, Awakened & Not… You’re very conscious of this fact in the beginning as you’re trying to get the mind into concentration and you find it difficult. But as you get more and more inclined in the direction of stillness, as the mind gets more and more content to be there, the effort goes underground. So you have to develop your sensitivity, to keep on looking …
- Happily on the Path… the way the mind shapes its experience. Part of that is learning how to find joy in simple things like generosity and virtue, and moving up to finding joy in the concentration, joy in the fact that you’re getting some control of your mind, you’re beginning to see into your mind. There may be a lot of things there that you don …
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