Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 161
  2. Circumspection
     … When he described mindfulness practice, he said alertness is like a pulley that you pull in one direction and then pull in another direction. You look at the breath. Then you look at the mind. Make sure that both of them are snug together. This is how you turn your practice into a skill. You keep looking at what you’re doing. You look … 
  3. Judging Just Right
     … In other words, we have to approach this as a skill, because it is possible for the mind to get into really heavy states of concentration where everything blanks out. You have no sense of the body. Nothing is going on at all, and no discernment can arise in that kind of concentration. And of course it’s very easy to get the mind … 
  4. The Web of Pain
     … the factors that fashion the mind, that can create almost any kind of mind state out of almost any kind of raw materials. If you see that you’ve developed habits of creating suffering out of almost any raw material, it’s good to learn some new habits. So you start with the breath. How you focus your attention on the breath and how … 
  5. The Pursuit of Excellence
     … Think of Ajaan Maha Boowa comparing the state of the luminous mind that at first he thought was awakening against the actual experience of awakening that he later came to. He said—excuse me—that the luminous mind, as compared to awakening, was a pile of shit. When you get that point in your practice, your sensitivity toward happiness, your sensitivity to what’s … 
  6. To Practice Dying
     … Your mind spins really fast when you realize the body can’t move, you can’t do anything with this body, you’re going to have to get out. It looks for all kinds of alternatives. A lot of alternatives will pop up, and you need the mindfulness not to go with them. So this is why we practice developing mindfulness, developing alertness, so … 
  7. Growing Up Inside
     … an opportunity to get the mind really to settle down. And the fact that you’re getting the mind to be still makes it more sensitive to your actions and their results. All these factors work together to make this a growing up experience. So even though we don’t have rites of passage, we at least have time here at the monastery for … 
  8. Recollecting the Buddha
     … what the mind tells itself, images that come into the mind, feelings that can overwhelm the mind. So you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to familiarize yourself with these processes ahead of time, so that you can exert some skillful control over them. And that’s exactly what breath meditation is for: getting you familiar with these things, so that you … 
  9. Alone & Together
     … If you’re constantly dealing with other people’s issues, you don’t know about the committee in your own mind. Voices come up, and you don’t know where they’re coming from. Thoughts come into your mind. Who are they? Who do they represent? Where did you pick up those ideas? You want to be able to track it down. You can … 
  10. Birth Is Suffering
     … It’s only when you look inside and see these behind-the-scene processes in your own mind that you can understand how they operate in other people and also how you can see the skillful way out. This is why we meditate: to watch the processes in the mind and see how things form. We do that by trying to form a state … 
  11. Sorting Yourselves Out
     … You want to simply allow it to be comfortable, to flow in different parts of the body, have a sense of the energy flowing all around without any obstacles, so that the parts of the mind that want to settle down will have some allies, and the part of the mind that wants immediate gratification, immediate pleasure, will be able to find it. That … 
  12. Push Yourself
     … But when you finally can master all the obstreperous voices in your mind, all the lazy voices in your mind, and gain some well-being that comes through the mastery of the mind, that’s when you’ve deserved your rest. That then becomes food for more strength in the practice—because there’ll be more work you have to do. So it’s … 
  13. Four Mountains Moving In
     … We have to keep that in mind: Danger is normal. When we accept it as normal and make our minds normal, then we can keep on practicing. It’s at times like this when you realize how interconnectedness is not the good thing it’s always portrayed as being. It has its dangerous side. And the problem in an interconnected system is that in … 
  14. In Terms of the Four Noble Truths
     … You try to develop the factors of the path, in particular, Right View, Right Mindfulness, and Right Effort, to bring the mind to a state of Right Concentration so that you can comprehend stress. One way this works is when the mind is really concentrated and then you leave concentration, it’s useful to ask yourself, “Where is the stress coming in? As soon … 
  15. Play with the Breath
     … That’s a perception you could also keep in mind. And as you perceive things this way, it actually creates the conditions for the energy to flow in those directions in the body. As you get more sensitive, you can decide, what does your body need right now? So play with the breath. We’re doing something serious here in training the mind, but … 
  16. Contemplation of the Body
     … I also saw what it’s like to be old and not to have trained the mind. The mind at a time like that is totally out of control because as the body gets weaker, your energy falls. The thoughts that come barging into the mind can take total control if you haven’t developed the ability to counter them. Then there are all … 
  17. The Karma of Self & Not-Self
     … You apply this perception to anything that’s placing a burden on the mind in any way at all, until the only thing that’s left burdening the mind is the path of practice itself. You turn on that, too. You say, “This, too, is not-self.” After all, your state of concentration is made up of aggregates, the same things that you use … 
  18. Great Expectations
     … The best way to do that is to get the mind really quiet, with a pleasure that’s not involved with sensuality. As the Buddha once said, if you don’t have this higher level of pleasure—the pleasure that comes from concentration, getting the mind secluded from sensuality and unskillful thoughts—then no matter how much you may know about the drawbacks of … 
  19. “May I Be Happy”
     … It all comes down to developing good qualities of the mind. You notice that certain ways of thinking are skillful. They take burdens off the mind. They help nourish the mind. So encourage those ways of thinking, because if you don’t, you’ll develop other habits in the mind. It may seem artificial to focus on these habits, but then the construction of … 
  20. Trust in Heedfulness
     … the way you’re creating that state of oneness in the mind. The oneness itself is a disturbance; it’s an intention based on a particular perception. So what do you do? If you let go of the oneness, if you go back to having your mind scattered all over the place, that’s not skillful. The skillful thing is to go forward to … 
  21. Questioning & Acceptance
     … These are the things you look for in your mind, he would say. If you can’t read other people’s minds at least learn how to read your own mind. Is there any greed in your mind? Is there any anger? Is there any aversion? Lust? Envy?—a long, long list of possible things that, if you find any of these things, you … 
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