Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 154
  2. The Perception of Inconstancy
     … Some things in the mind are actually unskillful: There’s the dhātu of sensuality—in other words, this potential in the mind is lying there, waiting for something to provoke it—although, as Ajaan Lee noted, often it doesn’t wait. It goes out looking for things to provoke it. But then there are good potentials in the mind as well: There’s the … 
  3. Ven. Ananda’s Awakening
     … Simply by holding an image in mind, you’ll see that the breath responds. The mind will begin to settle down with a sense of ease with that perception—whatever the perception is that allows you to stay with the breath and that allows the breath to spread comfortably through the body. So we’re here with the desire for awakening, but we learn … 
  4. Respecting Death
     … A person who wasn’t mindful might get upset that nobody was responding to what he’d said. But he began to realize, “This is a wrong message.” Or vice versa, when he actually said something when he thought he had only thought it, and people started reacting. He realized, “The brain is not sending me good information.” He had the mindfulness and alertness … 
  5. The Allure of Self
     … In this case, if you hold on to your old narratives, you’re preventing the mind from settling down, finding some peace, finding some quiet in the mind. You’re preventing the mind from gaining some insight, some discernment. And when the mind doesn’t have any concentration or discernment, there’s no way it’s going to have an experience of the deathless … 
  6. Nibbana Is Better than You Think
     … Look for your pleasure there, because this kind of pleasure doesn’t corrode the qualities of the mind. Then, from there, the Buddha would teach the four noble truths. Given your new perspective, you see that it’d be a good thing if the mind could find a happiness that doesn’t involve harming anyone at all, a happiness that has no drawbacks. That … 
  7. Playing Your Lute
     … The Buddha read his mind, disappeared from Vulture’s Peak, and appeared right in front of him. I don’t know about you, but if the Buddha appeared in front of me while I was thinking something that was not very skillful, I’d be very embarrassed. And immediately the Buddha asked him, “Were you thinking of disrobing?” The monk said, “Yes.” And then … 
  8. Therapeutic Seclusion
     … It’s something in the mind that’s looking for that kind of thing. It wants lust. Why? See also how it passes away—because it’s not there all the time. You learn a lot by seeing the mind state when, say, there’s no lust or no anger, when things are calm. The lust or anger has gone away, as if it … 
  9. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … Equanimity comes after you’ve made a difference in your mind, after you’ve found a sense of well-being, the potential for well-being in each of those activities. The equanimity of insight comes after the joy of insight. You gain insight to things that have been burdening the mind, and you realize that you don’t have to carry those burdens. There … 
  10. Recollection of the Buddha
     … Just look at your mind. What does your mind deal in? It deals with meanings. Someone can say a word and it will have a huge impact on what goes on in your mind. Now, physically, the word itself is what? Sound waves hitting the ear, that’s it. We can take the same word, so that the sound waves are the same, but … 
  11. Get Attached to Jhana
    There are some mindfulness meditation traditions that tell you, when they first talk about jhana: “Watch out. It’s dangerous. You’re going to get attached.” This is their rationale for telling you not to develop jhana, not to get into strong concentration. But they’re missing an important point. The main point, of course, is that jhana is part of the path. The … 
  12. Look after the Source
     … That’s why we try to get the mind with the breath—get it to be centered, get it to be still—because the mind with that sense of well-being inside is much more likely to be wise, generous, virtuous. All the good qualities that we associate with people who are good for the world have to come from here. They say that … 
  13. Skillful Fear
     … In doing it, you get the mind to settle down, to have a sense of stillness. The mind is clearer because it’s not cluttered with a lot of thoughts. It’s centered and your awareness is broad. It’s the kind of awareness that’s good for the body, good for the mind—and you can see things going on in your mind … 
  14. The Gift of Discernment
    When we think of the Buddha’s compassion, the first teaching that comes to mind is often the brahmaviharas, in which he teaches us to develop goodwill for all beings, compassion for all who are suffering, empathetic joy for all who are happy, and equanimity so that these other three qualities don’t cause us to suffer from all the suffering in the world … 
  15. Joy in Effort
     … Those approaches are simply mindfulness exercises, but people tend to do them mindlessly—i.e., without asking any questions. Actual insight comes not by pummeling the mind with a technique but from posing the right questions in the mind. “What are these assumptions I’m carrying around here? How could I do this more efficiently? What am I doing that I’m not noticing … 
  16. Shoot Your Pains with Wisdom
     … For example, you can try holding in mind the perception that your body is like a big sponge, and the breath is coming in and out every pore of the skin. Think of the breath as an energy field that fills the body, and see what that does to the way you actually breathe. This way you begin to see how your perceptions shape … 
  17. Respect for the Triple Training
     … So, respect the fact that you’re living with people who are trying to get their minds under control, and you want to help. Then there’s respect for discernment. This is directly related. When you see that a certain type of behavior muddies the mind, you have to realize: How are you going to gain any discernment when you behave that way and … 
  18. Explore & Experiment
     … nourishment for the mind. So, explore this sense of the body as you feel it from within. At the same time, you’re beginning to explore the acts of the mind as they relate to how you feel the body from within. So you get both *nāma *and rūpa, both name and form. It’s through exploring these things that the Dhamma becomes yours … 
  19. What Are You Bringing?
     … And we live with minds that are affected by greed, anger, and delusion, so they color our perceptions of what’s going to work and what’s not going to work. So it’s good that there has been someone who went through all the effort to find a way of training the mind so that it’s not colored by those things. That … 
  20. Four Roles to Play
    You’re here to learn how your mind functions. And it’s important that you understand that it’s functioning all the time. When the Buddha lays out the principles in dependent co-arising, right next to ignorance is a factor he calls fabrication. It’s the activity in the mind, the intentional activity. One of those activities is directed thought and evaluation. In … 
  21. Desire
     … He tells you when there’s a perception in mind that allows for stillness, you try to settle the mind and make it stable, make it confident in that perception. The more solidly you can develop concentration, the easier it is to let go of other things. If the concentration is still wobbly, you’re half holding on to the concentration, and half holding … 
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