Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Clinging
     … When something moves in the mind and there’s a tightening up in the body, the mind is holding on to something. When we meditate and breathe through patterns of tension in the body, we’re doing symptom management, because what often makes it seem so oppressive is the fact that it tightens up the body, and we’re carrying it around. So it … 
  3. The Energy You Broadcast
    Our minds are both like radio transmitters and radio receivers. We send out energy and we pick up energy from outside. A lot of what we pick up from outside is just the reflected energy that we sent out. Send out a lot of greed, and that’s what gets reflected back at you. Send out a lot of anger, a lot of delusion … 
  4. Determined to be Happy
     … You seem to notice them even more when you start to meditate, because when you don’t have a particular desire in mind, or you allow the mind to wander among its desires, it’s like a boat floating in a river with different currents coming in from different directions. You’re not really sure which current is pushing the boat which way because … 
  5. To Suffer Is an Active Verb
     … We look to see the level of suffering in the mind, and then try to see how it’s connected with what we’re doing. The Buddha says to watch it to see it go up and down so that you can detect the causes. When are you going to watch it best? When you’re getting the mind into concentration. That’s when … 
  6. Noble & True
     … When the mind has a good sense of the present moment and how to stay with the present moment without letting other things get in the way: Seeing that as something to be developed is a noble act, too. So the truths really are noble. Ajaan Suwat often said to regard the suffering of the mind as a noble truth, something that’s really … 
  7. Wisdom as a Tool
     … This is one of the reasons why we develop mindfulness and concentration. We’re trying to develop the mind that the Buddha said is like earth or like fire. It doesn’t shrink back from disgusting things and doesn’t get excited about pleasant things. It’s a mind willing to watch patiently. You want the sense of patience that allows you to see … 
  8. The Cost of Happiness
     … This is why we develop mindfulness and concentration: to sensitize the mind to the costs of its search for happiness, and in particular the way you’re looking for happiness. The Buddha was not saying not to search for happiness. He said to look at the way you search, with the purpose of trying to do it in a heedful, careful, attentive way, a … 
  9. The Will to Awaken
     … His mind didn’t leap up at the idea. But his desire for a deathless happiness was strong enough and he coupled it with the discernment that could help him find ways of reasoning with his mind, find tactics for giving the mind pleasures that didn’t have to depend on sensuality—primarily the pleasure of jhana, the pleasure of concentration. When you have … 
  10. Unsentimental Goodwill
     … You want to make your sense of comfortable full breath that solid—as opposed to the times when your body is not immersed with mindfulness and your mindfulness isn’t immersed in the body. When that’s the case, the Buddha compares your mind to a lump of clay. If someone throws a stone into it, the stone is going to make big dent … 
  11. The Buddha’s Basic Therapy
     … That’s what really weighs the mind down. The mind doesn’t have to be weighed down, no matter how bad things get outside. So all these teachings—even though they may sound strange in the Pāli, or in the way they’re phrased in the Canon—really are therapy. They get the mind in the right position, a healthy position, so that it … 
  12. Positive Capability
     … Why? Why do we do this? It’s going to take a lot of figuring out because the mind is very subtle. As Ajaan Chah once said, one of the first things you learn when you watch the mind is how much it lies to itself. So you don’t just sit there with the lies and say, “Well, the lies are like this … 
  13. Ironclad Technique vs. No Technique
     … Some of them have to do with the state of your mind. Sometimes the mind needs to be made more alert, and at other times it needs to be calmed and soothed. Different ways of breathing will function in different ways, and you learn this by playing with the breath and gladdening the mind. If you simply put the mind into shackles, saying, “You … 
  14. In Charge of Your World
     … So this is why we train the mind. Regardless of the situation outside, it’s through training the mind that we’re shaping the world—the world in which we live and the world in which the people around us live as well. So even though the mountains of aging, illness, and death may be moving in, we can still train the mind. Because … 
  15. Issues of Control
    We have the chant on the brahmaviharas—particularly the chant on goodwill—to make the mind expansive. It’s good to think goodwill for all beings several times a day, like that character in Through the Looking Glass who said he liked to think about two or three impossible things before breakfast every morning to open up his mind. We open up our minds … 
  16. Relating to Results
     … Instead of just trying to push through them—to get to our preconceived picture of the goal—learn to work out the details, explore what’s going on in your mind. Because where does the meditation lead? It leads right here, deeper and deeper into the mind. And whatever issues the mind throws up at you in the course of the practice, those are … 
  17. Disenchantment & Dispassion
     … Sometimes you direct your attention to the eye, sometimes the ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind. Wherever your attention is directed, that starts beginning to proliferate. So this is the problem, that because of our desire we create suffering. And that principle goes a lot deeper than you might imagine. We tend to think, well, the basic raw materials of experience are neutral, and … 
  18. Good & Bad Meditation
     … Make your mind like water; make your mind like wind; make it like fire; make it like earth. These things have no preferences. They’re willing to wash away anything, good or bad; blow away anything, good or bad; burn anything or have anything thrown on them, good or bad, with no sense of revulsion or delight. They don’t make choices as to … 
  19. An Inside Job
     … Stress, pain, all these things keep pushing the mind, squeezing the mind. And how long do you want to put up with that squeeze? Wouldn’t you rather learn how to shape things in such a way that you don’t have to suffer? The choice is yours. So you have to try to figure out ways of motivating yourself, gaining some discipline over … 
  20. Stepping Out of Truth Games
     … What direction is your mind facing? The mind doesn’t have a direction. When you’re dealing with the body, the mind takes on the directions related to the body. But as for its awareness right here in the present moment centered on the breath, you don’t need to have a sense of what’s in front and what’s in back. They … 
  21. The Discernment of a True Person
     … an independent mind. So if you notice that you have problems with lust, okay, contemplate the body. See exactly what is worthy of lust and why the mind wants to lust to begin with. The body is not the problem. But looking at its unattractive side at least helps to clear one of the issues out of the way. The mind is going to … 
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