Search results for: "Mindfulness"
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- Path & Goal… Then adjust your mind. This is where the steps in breath meditation come in, in the third tetrad. If you notice that the mind has too much energy, what do you do to steady it, to concentrate it? If it has too little energy—you’re feeling depressed, you’re feeling discouraged—what can you do to uplift it, gladden it? This requires directed …
- Three Levels of Refuge… That means you have to train the mind, because the mind is what gives the orders for what you do and say and think. So the dangers come from within, but the potential for going beyond the dangers also comes from within. There’s a passage where the Buddha says the mind is bright, but it’s defiled by incoming or visiting defilements. The …
- The Desire for Things to Be Different… You find that you can’t stay here in this body, and something will appear to the mind and appeal to the mind, and all of a sudden you find yourself there—often without having investigated the surroundings too carefully or taken a good look at what you have to become in order to find that thing. Then there’s craving for non-becoming …
- The Arrow in the Heart… This is why we get the mind into a state of concentration. It’s like relaxing around an arrow so as to minimize the pain in the mind and make it easier for us to pull it out. Even though concentration is not the ultimate ease and it’s not the ultimate happiness, still it gives us a period of rest and the ability …
- Investing Your Happiness… That changes the way the mind approaches its experiences, its pleasures and pains. It becomes a lot less desperate. Of course there’s always the danger of complacency when you figure you can tap into the breath at any time, but if you can overcome that complacency, you begin to realize that this is an extremely useful state of mind — a very skillful way …
- Duties… Especially when you look at your own mind and it seems to be full of all kinds of turmoil. You read about the minds of arahants—their task done, no passion, no aversion, no delusion, not suffering, no limitations—and that seems very far from the mind you’re experiencing right now. This is called renunciate grief, the grief you feel when you realize …
- Not-self in Context… It’s only when you’ve done that, that you’re ready to take on the teachings of inconstancy, stress, and not-self on a subtle level where they really do make a difference in the mind, really do give rise to dispassion. But first you have to be passionate about training the mind. The dispassion in the beginning has to deal with things …
- Metta Means Goodwill… So, as the Buddha says toward the end of the sutta, you should stay determined to practice this form of mindfulness: the mindfulness of keeping in mind your wish that all beings be happy, to make sure that it always informs the motivation for everything you do. Finally there’s another passage where the Buddha taught the monks a chant for spreading goodwill to …
- Staying Power… The meditation will cut a few broad swaths through the mind, but a lot of the really important work will remain undone. You have to have the kind of patience to see: When a thought comes into the mind, how does it come in? When it takes root in the mind, how does it take root? What are the stages? You have to learn …
- Being Somebody, Going Somewhere… What’s the purpose of the well-being? It allows the mind to settle down so that it can see itself. What’s the purpose of seeing itself? You can detect any unskillful movements of the mind and hold them in check. As for skillful things, you can give rise to them and maintain them. So, there’s work to be done, good work …
- Training Your Selves… And that’s a lot better than just saying, “Well, I’ll just content myself where I am.” You read about people saying, “When, the mind’s stilled, when it’s here just observing things patiently with equanimity, it can be equated with the awakened mind.” And they have to dress it up pretty much in order to make it that way. But think …
- Enthusiasm… So remind yourself that you’re working here, you’re mastering the mind. This is a skill. This is an art: shaping your mind. And it’s not the case that masters never make mistakes. They know what to do when there’s a mistake. That’s what the mastery consists of. I noticed this in my father. He was a carpenter. He would …
- The Joy of the Battle… Now, they may not necessarily be the things you want to learn, or you’ve set your mind on learning. In other words, you’re sitting here meditating, focusing on the breath. You have visions of nice states of concentration: bliss, ease, expansive full-body awareness. Yet you find yourself doing battle with the hindrances. Sensual desire comes up, ill will can come up …
- The Demands of Goodwill… not only in our interactions with other people, but also in the interactions in our mind. So what kind of tendencies are you developing as you’re sitting here with your eyes closed, or as you’re off just being by yourself, not doing formal meditation? Where does your mind go then? What kind of ruts are you creating in the mind? They may …
- Afraid of Pleasure… Or it’ll think up other duties for you: “Got to look at this, got to look at that.” Even here at the monastery there’s a lot of looking after the physical plant that has to go on, so it’s very easy for the mind to get tied up in that. In other words, if you don’t give the mind something …
- Count Yourself Lucky… You’ve got the body sitting here breathing; you’ve got the mind thinking and aware. That’s plenty right there. Think about the breath; be aware of the breath. Do what you can to make that thinking and that awareness as continuous as possible. When they’re continuous, the thinking turns into mindfulness: In other words, you keep reminding yourself to stay with …
- Make Yourself Small… Anything else that comes along in the mind, you say, “Not now. Not right now.” If you do find the mind has slipped away, don’t engage in a lot of recrimination. This is one of those places where there’s no shame and no blame. In other words, you’re not here to prove something to yourself about what kind of person you …
- Construction Techniques… You breathe in a way that gladdens the mind, breathe in a way that steadies or concentrates the mind, breathe in a way that releases the mind, breathe in a way that makes you sensitive to mental fabrication—what your perceptions and feelings are. In other words, get the mind really quiet with the breath, and then you begin to see that you have …
- Dethinking Thinking… The body has a sense of forward and back, but why does the mind have to carry that in? We tend to think of the mind as being like the eyes that face forward. But what happens if you think of the mind just as being a radiance going out in all directions, and all directions are equal? Then, of course, there are concepts …
- Defeatism? - Anything But… So here, proper form is keeping the mind with the breath; keeping yourself centered here with a sense of wellbeing so that the mind and body feel good together. And then watch. Ask questions. Stick with it. And that way, your desire, instead of getting in the way of the practice—as desire sometimes can do—it gets tempered and becomes a base for …
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