Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 170
  2. Conviction & Truth
     … I’ve talked in the past about how when Ajaan Lee described the qualities of the mind that you bring to mindfulness practice, for him the wisdom quality is ardency, which is pretty much the same thing as right effort combined with heedfulness. In other words, you put your whole heart into trying to bring into being the qualities that the Buddha recommended, and … 
  3. True for What Purpose?
     … You want to focus on your own mind. You want to focus on your own body as you feel it from within, to get the mind to settle down. This means you have to be selective in what you focus on, and also in what you say to yourself about it. You could be commenting on how your mind is not settling down, and … 
  4. To Depend on Yourself
     … When the Buddha talks about being mindful, he says mindfulness means remembering what was done and said long ago. That can mean what other people did and said, and also what you’ve done and said. What other people have done and said: You want to remember the Dhamma. You want to remember the example they gave when they acted in line with the … 
  5. A Message for the Universe
     … That just stirs up the mind. You have to ask yourself, “Maybe I’m perceiving things wrong?” Well, what would a more accurate way of perceiving things be? What would be a more useful way of perceiving things? What would be more conducive to getting the mind to settle down? Remember, we’re doing all of this in the context of the four noble … 
  6. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … That requires you to develop the path—with the mind in good strong concentration, mindful and alert, imbued with right effort—so you can develop the skill needed to comprehend stress. Because each of the tasks is actually a skill. This is why the path is a gradual path, because it takes a while to develop the skills. After all, nibbana is very, very … 
  7. Not-selfing Your Selves
     … You note them so that you can recognize, “Okay, this is an event in the mind.” Then the question is, “What is the impact of this event?” And particularly these voices in the mind, what are they saying? Why are they saying it? What’s their reasoning? Where do they really lead? This is what the investigation is all about, so that you can … 
  8. The Whole Elephant
     … The more mindful you are when you’ve learned a lesson that helps you to see more clearly, the more concentrated the mind, the more still you are, then the more you can see what’s going on inside. And even before you hit the deathless, you’re able to see parts of your mind that were hidden in blind spots up to that … 
  9. How We Cling
     … But the real cause is the mind. It’s what the mind is doing. That’s where the real cure has to be focused. The mind has its addictions. It’s addicted to these activities. All too often, our ideas of the world and ourselves in the world and how things should be done aren’t providing us with very much pleasure, but we … 
  10. Karma for Freedom
     … As he points out, the state of your mind in the present moment plays a large role in shaping how you experience the results of past actions. Even past bad actions don’t have to make you suffer if your present state of mind is good. That’s because what you’re experiencing right now is the combination of three things: the results of … 
  11. Against the Grain
     … Then, when the mind is in concentration, you can start seeing it as a state of becoming. But first you learn to use it to see all the other becomings you get involved with, all these worlds that the mind gets into and then wakes up and comes out of. All too often we leave one world simply to go into another one. What … 
  12. Take Care
     … In other words, pay attention both to the things that come into the mind and to the things that go out, and exercise restraint. One of Ajaan Suwat’s most stinging ways of criticizing somebody was, “This is a person who, as soon as something comes into his mind, it comes right out of his mouth.” In other words, there’s no filter, there … 
  13. Sensitivity All the Time
     … The texts say that even arahants practice the four foundations of mindfulness, not because they have anything more to do in terms of uprooting their defilements, but because the practice of mindfulness provides a pleasant abiding in the here and now. It’s a good place to be. At the same time, if they have to teach other people, they use the sensitivities they … 
  14. The Center of Your Life
     … Because “doing” isn’t just a matter of physical action, it also includes the actions of the mind. This brings you very quickly to the issue of training the mind, which is why we’re sitting here meditating: It’s because of aham sukhito homi, may I be happy. We want a happiness that lasts. We want to order our lives around this issue … 
  15. Lessons in Happiness
     … Keep reminding yourself, especially when the mind has this tendency to run away and be done with everything, that that’s not the Buddha’s way. The Buddha followed the path of exploring, cultivating, developing, letting go of what is unskillful, anything he could sense was a weight or burden on the mind, and then going to deeper and deeper levels, from body, feelings … 
  16. Between Right & Wrong
     … As the mind settles down, give it a chance to rest. When it’s rested, then you can ask it: What still is causing a sense of burdensomeness or of stress? Anything that weighs the mind down, or as one of the forest ajaans said, anything that puts a squeeze on the mind: Is there anything still there? Look for it. The more assiduous … 
  17. Ajaan Suwat 100 Years
     … Try to pare things down to what’s really relevant to getting the mind to stay still right here, right now. And as for any disturbance in the mind, simply regard it as an instance of the first noble truth, or the second. In other words, something to be comprehended and then to be abandoned. Even little disturbances in the mind, you learn how … 
  18. The Path Is in the Details
     … The present moment in the mind is always made up of particular things: particular thoughts, particular experiences, and especially particular intentions. Those are the crucial things. So it’s important, as you meditate, as you get to know your mind, to look for the particulars. The path comes down to something very basic: being honest about your intentions. Often this is difficult, but it … 
  19. Patience & Urgency
     … The judgment here is especially important when you find issues in the mind that you would like to deal with really quickly. Something is bothering you and eating away at part of your mind, and you’d like to get done with it. Fast. But some things can’t be handled fast. They take time. This is where your discernment comes in. To develop … 
  20. Take Heart
     … You get used to cultivating thoughts of, “How can I be generous? How can I hold to the precepts more consistently? How can I have goodwill for larger and larger numbers of people more consistently?” If you have a mind that’s thinking in those directions, it’s a lot easier to watch that mind, observe that mind. That’s how insight is based … 
  21. No Slivers in the Heart
     … There’s strength of body and there’s strength of mind. As we live our lives normally, each supports the other, but there comes a point when strength of body is going to fail. That’s when we really need a strength of mind that can depend on itself. So, whatever way you can talk yourself into sticking with the practice and accelerating your … 
  22. Load next page...