Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. A Quiet Spot
     … Is it coming in? Is it going out? Is it comfortable? Is it not comfortable? If the mind wants to analyze things, there’s plenty to analyze right here. If it wants to settle down, just make the breath comfortable and allow the mind to settle down. But do your best to monitor what the mind is doing so that it stays alert and … 
  3. The Gatekeeper’s Duties
     … If you really work at maintaining your concentration, trying to get it to settle in more deeply, you’re going to run into other aspects of the mind, because the mind is like a committee. When you decided to sit down and meditate just now, it wasn’t the case that the whole mind went along. Enough of the mind went along to get … 
  4. Views, Virtue, & Mindfulness
    Views, Virtue, & Mindfulness December 6, 2011 The Buddha compared mindfulness to a gatekeeper in a fortress at the edge of a frontier. In a fortress like that, you’ve got to have a gatekeeper who really knows what he’s doing, knows whom to let in and whom not to let in, whom to trust, whom not to trust. In the same way, the … 
  5. The Joy of Curiosity
     … We actually continue to find joy in agency, but we find more and more mature forms of joy by figuring out our own mind. This is one of the reasons why meditation can be so frustrating, though, because the mind is very complex. We follow the instructions one day and they seem to work. The mind settles down. Then you do what you think … 
  6. Mindfulness as Refuge
     … The word “mindfulness” means to keep something in mind. And what do you keep in mind? The Buddha sets out the duties that we have in the four noble truths: to comprehend suffering, to abandon its cause, to realize the cessation of suffering, and to develop the path. So: four duties to keep in mind, four categories to keep in mind as you’re … 
  7. The Breath All the Way
    The Breath All the Way October 2, 2010 Mindfulness of breathing, keeping the breath in mind, is the meditation theme the Buddha taught more than any other, and he praised it highly. He said that it can take you all the way to clear knowledge and release: clear knowledge of awakening, release from all suffering and stress. It’s also the meditation theme he … 
  8. Freedom through Restraint
     … We’re disciplining the mind when we practice right mindfulness and on into right concentration. This is a part of concentration some people don’t like. There’s that interpretation of mindfulness as being broad, open, and accepting, whereas concentration is narrow and restrictive. And in one sense it is, because you’re keeping the mind within bounds. But the same thing applies to … 
  9. Exploring Possibilities
     … You see possibilities in the mind, possibilities for letting go of old habits that create suffering. So when anything new comes up in the mind, keep reflecting back on that question: What does this new mind state show about the mind’s possibilities? What does it show about how the mind can relate to things in a way that involves less suffering? Keep your … 
  10. Training the Committee
     … If the mind were a single entity, how could it train itself? If it were already bad, how could a bad mind suddenly develop good motives, develop skills? The fact that we have many minds is actually what makes it possible for us to train our minds. The more skillful members can take the less skillful ones in hand, ideally. And to make that … 
  11. Breath Meditation – The Four Tetrads
    Ajaan Lee often made the point that when you’re sitting here focused on the breath, you’ve got all four frames of reference for the establishing of mindfulness. The breath is the body. The feelings of ease or disease associated with the breath are feelings. The quality of your mind, of course, relates to mind. And the good and bad qualities that are … 
  12. Sources of Lasting Happiness
     … And the third is developing the mind—by which he meant developing good qualities in the mind, qualities like goodwill, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, alertness: qualities that help you act in skillful ways because they enable you to see what’s actually going on. They can help you see what you’re doing and see the results of what you’re doing. If you see … 
  13. Stepping Out of Yourself
     … i.e., the training of the mind. As for other aspects of life, focus on the ways in which you can make them part of training the mind in all the good qualities that make it a mind you can actually live with—a mind that’s not creating trouble for itself. So the practice is all about stepping out. You get with the … 
  14. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … Just be mindful about where they’re going. But, as the Buddha noticed, you could think skillful thoughts for a whole day and a whole night, and it wouldn’t cause any harm, wouldn’t have any drawbacks, except that it would tire the mind. And you know what happens when the mind gets tired. The body gets tired. When the mind and body … 
  15. Staying in Position
     … Keeping the mind in position means that whatever else comes up in the mind, you don’t go after it. When a thought comes passing in, just let it go passing on. You don’t have to chase it down. You don’t have to complete it. All too often, a half-finished thought arises in the mind, and for some reason we feel … 
  16. How to Read Yourself
    One of the most necessary skills you have to develop as a meditator is learning how to read your own mind. Where is it right now? What shape is it in? What does it need? In Pali, this is called attaññu, having a sense of yourself. Often we’re pretty bad at it. When things are going well, we get complacent. We think nothing … 
  17. The Buddha Defines Wisdom
     … As for the ability to control the ways of the mind and to get the mind into jhana, those both come from two very simple principles. One is the realization that the mind needs to be trained. You can’t just sit there and watch it coming and going, thinking this, thinking that, and then thinking that wisdom lies in \ allowing the mind to … 
  18. Facing Danger & Hardship
     … But still, it’s largely a matter of training your mind. And Sariputta talks about four qualities that are worth training in. You try to develop your mindfulness and keep it relentless. In other words, always keep in mind the Buddha’s teachings on how to deal with hardships. Second, try to make your concentration well-established. Third, develop tranquility, and fourth, put forth … 
  19. Responsible for Your Actions
     … It’s like sorting through the committee of your mind and figuring out who should actually have the right to vote and who should not. To do this, you have to be mindful to keep that perspective in mind, that you want to look at your thoughts not simply in terms of what you like or don’t like but where they come from … 
  20. Mindfulness the Gatekeeper
    The Buddha’s instructions for getting the mind into concentration are in his descriptions of right mindfulness. For example, the body: You keep focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. The “body in itself” here means the body simply as its sitting here right now. You don’t think … 
  21. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … We have to take very good care of the mind because it’s going to be our refuge. When the Buddha says, “The self is its own refuge,” he’s referring primarily to the mind. We have to create good qualities of the mind so that the mind doesn’t get frazzled and frayed, doesn’t become its own worst enemy. You want the … 
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