Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 189
  2. How to Read the Dhamma
     … And although the discernment that’s going to make a big change in your mind is the discernment that comes from practice, it has to be informed by how you read and how you think. So go on the assumption that the Dhamma makes sense. If it doesn’t seem to make sense, ask yourself how you could look at it in other ways … 
  3. You Are Not Powerless
     … You have to think about the impact of your words. “When I say this, what’s this going to do to my mind? What’s this going to do to the minds of the people around me? What kind of actions will it inspire?” We’re in close quarters, even as we’re maintaining social distance. The way we speak to one another has … 
  4. Training Your Desires
     … There’s a large part of the mind that really doesn’t like that. It’s when we realize that we have to change our understanding of what works and doesn’t work, and that we have to train our desires: That’s when wisdom begins. We realize that we can’t get everything we want the way we want it. We have to … 
  5. Asalha Puja
     … Sahampati Brahmā **saw what was going on in the Buddha’s mind and was concerned. After all, the Buddha had spent all that time developing the perfections to become a teaching Buddha, and here he was changing his mind. So the Brahmā came down, got on one knee, and implored the Buddha. He said, “Please teach. There are those with little dust in their … 
  6. Justice vs. Skillfulness
     … This is why we work on the mind, because only in the mind can closure come. Meanwhile, outside, the main question is not an issue of justice or injustice. The issue is, is this particular action I’m contemplating doing skillful or unskillful? The Buddha never tries to justify, say, oppression by saying that the oppressed people deserved it. The word “deserve” also doesn … 
  7. Prerequisites for the Practice
     … What that means is that you’re convinced in the power of your actions, in the power of your mind to change itself. That’s a quality you look for in your admirable friends. And you also try to emulate it. The second quality is virtue. You want to look for someone who sticks to the precepts and encourages other people to stick to … 
  8. Songkran
     … There’s a lot that needs to be done to straighten out the mind so that we can live well and, when the time comes to die, we die well. The question is, have you done that work yet? For almost all of us, the answer is No. So, we want to stop and take stock of what was good in the past year … 
  9. In Context
     … We’re here practicing concentration, trying to get the mind to settle down, stay with one object, the breath. That requires thinking, it requires an intention, it requires a sense that you’re going to benefit from this—and also, a sense that you’re competent to do this. After all, concentration is something you do. The whole path is something you do. But … 
  10. Be Prepared
     … Then do your best through the course of the day to keep that spot in mind so that you’ll have something good to fall back on when you’re suddenly confronted with a difficult situation. In terms of the path, this comes under right effort: trying to prevent unskillful states from arising. You don’t wait for them to arise and then scramble … 
  11. Right Questions in the Right Order
     … Apparently, they were the hot questions of philosophy at that time, but he said they weren’t worth answering because they came from the wrong state of mind and encouraged wrong states of mind. There are other questions he put aside as well. Is universe a oneness or a multiplicity? Do I exist? Do I not exist? What am I? How am I? These … 
  12. Allowing the Breath to Spread
     … This is an important training for the mind right there. Our tendency is to fixate immediately on either pleasure or pain: pleasure, because we like it; pain, because we feel threatened by it. We have to do something about it. There are times when you have to tell yourself: Just don’t go there yet. You’re not ready for it. No matter how … 
  13. Reflecting on Karma
     … The best place you can work is in your own mind. Make sure that your actions are based on a knowledge of what’s conducive to true happiness. That way, as you reflect on karma, you realize that it has many, many implications. These are just a few. But use this reflection to get yourself on the path, confident that you can and should … 
  14. Anti-slacker Dhamma
     … In other words, he didn’t rest content with the state of his mind until it actually attained the Deathless. With anything else that was short of that, he would look for something more. He never told himself, “Well, maybe this is as good as it gets. I might as well give up at this point.” That was not his line of thinking at … 
  15. Accepting Yourself
     … Always try to keep this point in mind because it helps clear up a lot of the other difficulties that the mind creates for itself —so that we can start using the word “should” in the right way and we can start using our powers of judgment in the right way, a judicious way; —and so that these powers of ours actually work to … 
  16. Thinking Seriously about Happiness
     … The Buddha taught the young man to imagine that there was something more, to open that possibility in his mind, which is why he wanted to leave home, left his wealth, left his family, and ended up finding that, yes, there is something better, there is something more. There is a happiness that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill, doesn’t die. That … 
  17. Bless Yourself
     … He says that when you’re being generous you should try to develop a mind of sympathy for the recipient. But goodwill is something else. It’s something, like virtue, that you want to make universal. It’s a wish for your own happiness and a wish for happiness of all other beings. The way the Buddha expresses this, in what might be called … 
  18. Strength of Persistence
     … The part of the mind that says, “Why put in an effort? Just put in a minimum, what you can get by with”: That falls away, too. That’s probably the biggest obstacle in the path—the attitude of “well, just enough to get by.” We may not come to the meditation consciously with that attitude, but if that’s the way we live … 
  19. The Buddha’s Metaphysics
     … He’d found what worked for him in bringing his mind to peace, he offered the path as a suggestion, but basically would recommend that everybody find his or her own path, because reality is ultimately unknowable. But that’s not the case at all. There was one big metaphysical issue that the Buddha addressed in a lot of detail and to which he … 
  20. It’s Up to You
     … And even though the Buddha couldn’t predict what you would do with his teachings, you can make up your mind you’re going to make the best use of them possible.
  21. The World Is Swept Away
     … Don’t lose sight of what’s right here, because everything you need to know to attain true Awakening, to discover that happiness beyond change, is right here in your body and mind. The process of sitting right here with the mind on the breath, thinking about and evaluating the breath, perceiving and feeling the results: All the factors you’re going to need … 
  22. Load next page...