Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 155
  2. A Friend When You’re on Your Own
    One of the paradoxes in the Buddha’s teachings about training the mind is that on the one hand he talks a lot about solitude, going off alone into the wilderness. But on the other hand, he also talks about the importance of admirable friends, as in that passage we chanted just now about associating with wise people and staying away from fools. After … 
  3. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … This is why we practice concentration, to give the mind that place to stay, a more secure foundation. In other words, when pain comes up, either a physical pain or mental pain, you don’t just go jumping right into it. Try to find the part the body and the part of the mind that’s not totally overwhelmed. At the very least, remind … 
  4. Dichotomies
     … What’s skillful, what’s unskillful? What’s dark in the mind, what’s bright in the mind? Because those pairs really do make a difference. There was a famous translator one time who translated that passage and then wrote a footnote saying he didn’t understand how this was the proper description for discernment. I guess he was assuming that discernment had to … 
  5. Equanimity in Action, Equanimity at Rest
    Equanimity—the ability to keep the mind on an even keel in the face of pleasant and unpleasant things, to accept what has to be accepted—is an attitude we’re supposed to develop immeasurably: in other words, for all beings without exceptions. But it has a different meaning based pm whether we’re talking about equanimity in action or equanimity at rest. At … 
  6. If These Walls Could Talk
     … If things aren’t good enough in the mind, what can you do to make them better? Because you do have that power. Now, all of this assumes that other principle: practicing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma. The Buddha talks about the fact that we’re training the mind in virtue, concentration, discernment, or what he calls heightened virtue, heightened mind, heightened … 
  7. Grounded in the Elements
    When I first translated Ajaan Lee’s Keeping the Breath in Mind, I added a little introduction in which I talked about the properties or the elements—the six properties of earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness. I explained to Ajaan Fuang why I did that—that these concepts would be very foreign to Westerners. He gave me a quizzical look, “Why would … 
  8. Equanimity & Action
     … How are you perceiving things right now? What’s the story you put around things? What are the images you have in your mind? What happens if you change those images? The image of where you think you are in your body, your image of what the breath is doing: What happens if you change them? Object: breath. Sometimes the mind doesn’t want … 
  9. Examine Your Happiness
     … Lots of other terms he defines very precisely, but some of the really basic terms—mind/citta, happiness/sukha, and stress/dukkha—never get defined. The teaching is basically about training the mind to end stress and find true happiness, but of these terms, only “training” is defined. In the case of happiness and stress, he gives examples but he doesn’t provide a … 
  10. Karma & Not-self
     … When you focus in one way, what results? You focus in another way, what results? Learn to be sensitive to the movements of your mind, and the sensations they create. That way, you become more and more skilled as a meditator. One of the things you begin to notice as you meditate is that thoughts come up in the mind totally unintended. It’s … 
  11. Determined on Goodwill
     … The Buddha said that goodwill is a form of mindfulness on which you should be determined. It’s one of the last lines in the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta—etaṁ satiṁ adhiṭṭheyya. Goodwill needs to be a form of mindfulness because it doesn’t come to us all the time. You have to keep remembering that you need to have goodwill for everybody, even the … 
  12. Truth Without Air Quotes
     … This is the way the mind works. These are the processes that lead to suffering. If you want an end to suffering, this is what you’ve got to do. It’s interesting that with dependent co-arising, in later centuries, the question arose: Is dependent co-arising happening in the context of the world at large or inside the mind? There was a … 
  13. Becoming
     … Equanimity and mindfulness: That’s it, that’s the unfabricated.” But that’s not the case at all. Equanimity and mindfulness, when they’re pure, constitute the fourth jhana, not the unfabricated. There’s an element of fabrication in mindfulness; there’s even an element of fabrication in equanimity. But unless you learn consciously how to fabricate mindfulness and equanimity for long periods of … 
  14. Fear & Insecurity
     … So we train the mind. As we sit here and meditate, it’s probably the best way, the most direct way to train the mind. But all the aspects of the path, all the aspects of the practice, are training the mind to fear the right thing: to fear making unskillful choices—choices that are harmful for yourself, harmful for others, based on unskillful … 
  15. Limitations
     … Again, think of the committee of the mind. You don’t have to identify with every voice that comes up in the mind. You don’t have to identify with every feeling that goes through the body. Ajaan Lee’s picture of what’s going on inside you is even more radical than the image of the committee of the mind. He says that … 
  16. Possessed by Emotions
     … But you can basically say, “No, this my place, this is my body, this is my mind. I don’t need these things.” And so the skill to keep from being possessed is to be very mindful, very alert, to fully inhabit your body, fully inhabit your mind, right here in the present moment. Remember the Buddha’s teaching on fabrication: bodily fabrication, the … 
  17. From Inconstancy to Dispassion
     … You use all your mindfulness, as he says, to put it out. It’s interesting he uses the word mindfulness here. Obviously it doesn’t mean just accepting things as they are, or watching them come and go without reacting. You use your mindfulness—i.e., your ability to remember that something unskillful is coming in the mind, and you don’t want it … 
  18. Put the Other Person’s Heart in Yours
     … The biggest danger that faces you in the world is that you might do something unskillful under the influence of ill will, because that then becomes your own kamma and it becomes a habit in the mind. It bends the mind, as the Buddha said. When your mind is bent in that direction again and again and again, your views are going to be … 
  19. What’s Real
     … The Dhammapada begins with two verses that start, “The mind is the forerunner of all things that are experienced.” That’s a very anti-materialist statement right there. The mind is not just on the receiving end. It’s not just what they call an epiphenomenon of physical things. The mind is the major force in shaping your experience. This is why we have … 
  20. Fear & Anger
     … Lots of different emotions, lots of different ideas, can come washing through the mind, and if you don’t have someplace outside of the mind where you can take your stance, you get washed away. Greed comes in. Anger comes in. Fear comes in. And they can be overwhelming if you don’t have a place to stand outside of them. So we focus … 
  21. Equanimity & More
     … So as protection for the mind, we have to develop equanimity. What’s interesting is that the statement for developing equanimity, reflecting on the principle of karma, has more than one use in the Canon. There’s another place where the Buddha says, when you reflect on that statement, it gives rise to the path. It’s in a sutta where he starts out … 
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