Search results for: "Mindfulness"
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- A Matter of Life & Death… your ability to depend on your own mind, to depend on the qualities you’re developing. We talk about taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, but ultimately this is what it means: taking their qualities and developing them in your mind so that you can depend on them, so that you can have them at hand wherever you go. When …
- On Your Own… Instead, the Buddha reminds you that there are people in the world who can read minds, there are devas who can read minds, and they might be reading yours. What would they think? “See, look at this person who said that he or she was going to practice the Dhamma. Look what they’re doing, look at what they’re thinking, look at what …
- Wisdom for Dummies… How can people stop suffering? By developing the path, which is primarily composed of good qualities of mind. So you realize the mind has to be trained. That’s another basic principle of wisdom: that true happiness comes from training the mind, because the mind is what makes the choices. That’s why we meditate. And that’s why meditation requires that we focus …
- Little Things… At the same time, when you’re attentive to little things, you’re beginning to plant your own seeds in the mind as well, different kinds of seeds: seeds of stronger mindfulness, stronger alertness, stronger willpower, determination. All the perfections needed for Awakening start with the little things, and they keep growing in little steps, little steps, through your being very, very attentive, very …
- Reflections on Kamma… That’s mindfulness. So all these teachings that we associate with the Buddha about the qualities of mind we want to develop, the principle of action, the importance of action, and also the qualities of mind we need specifically to develop as we meditate and develop mindfuless: They all come from this instruction. You see that the Buddha’s packing a lot into his …
- Faith in the Practice… that the issue is not the body; it’s the mind. You can say that ahead of time, but what makes a difference is when your actually see the movement of the mind: What is the movement of the mind that wants to go to lust, say, or to pride around the body? That first little thought that sets you off say in a …
- Here to Learn… So, in dealing with other people, it’s possible to have purest mind and you can still make mistakes, but if you have the right attitude, you learn from them. Of course, a pure mind will learn from them. Our* *minds are not fully pure yet, but if you have the attitude, “I’m here to learn,” that will see you through a lot …
- Circumspection… After all, the mind is a complex thing. The needs of the mind in training are complex. And this is not a onefold path. Even with the practice of exercising your discernment, as the Buddha says in his comments about the factors for awakening, the analysis of qualities which is the discernment faculty: Sometimes if you use that too much, it gets the mind …
- First Principles… All phenomena have the mind as their forerunner. We tend to regard the elements in the body or the material side of the body as something that’s already there, and then the mind moves in afterwards, deals with it afterwards. But if you learn to be more consciously proactive in how you approach your body, you begin to realize that the mind has …
- Relate Everything to the Breath… You’re trying to take this as a frame of reference, a satipatthana, an establishing of mindfulness. Mindfulness doesn’t get established if it keeps jumping around. So while you’re with the breath, you will be aware of feelings but you want to relate the feelings to the breath. To be aware of mind states, you want to relate the mind states to …
- Can Do… It’s basically saying that you can get the mind into concentration and you can induce these things, you can follow these steps. What it means in practice is getting the mind still and then posing these questions. Say there’s a pain in the body, and it’s a sharp pain. It’s not the ordinary pains of just sitting and meditating. It …
- 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 …
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