Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … If you see a situation calls for a certain kind of action that would help alleviate suffering in the mind, you go in that direction. That’s how you achieve completeness in the mind. Otherwise, the mind is always going to be lacking. It’s always going to be hungry. When the mind is hungry, you can’t trust it. It’s going to … 
  3. Make a Difference
     … That’s when you get the mind into the second jhana. You’ve done your work in adjusting the mind, you’ve done your work in adjusting the breath, and they fit. All you need to keep the mind with the breath is just the perception of breath, or the perception of oneness with the breath. This is like going even beyond being a … 
  4. Stay
     … giving the mind a firm post fixed to the ground so that you can see the movements of the mind. In other words, when the mind moves, it usually can’t see its own movements. But if you give it something nearby to focus on, then you begin to get a sense of when the mind is present and when it’s going off … 
  5. Think of the Consequences
     … The mind lies to itself. Ajaan Chah once had an interesting statement. He said that watching the mind means trying to catch the mind lying to itself. It’s not just a matter of watching things come and go and being okay with their coming and going. You have to be able to see where the mind is lying, because that’s what the … 
  6. Feeding on the Breath
    Feeding on the Breath July 25, 2012 The mind’s basic habit is that it’s constantly feeding. Just as the body feeds on physical food, the mind feeds on sensory contact, its awareness of things at the senses—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas—and its intentions with regard to these things. It’s always trying to fix its food. So … 
  7. Lessons from Generosity & Virtue
    When you make up your mind to stay with the breath, one of the first things you learn is that your mind probably isn’t as made up as you thought it was. There are many minds in there, many ideas of what you could be doing with this next hour. So when you have that original intention to stay there, you’ve got … 
  8. Don’t Worry, Be Focused
    Don’t Worry, Be Focused December 27, 2011 In several passages in the Canon, the Buddha says that the main thing to keep in mind if you suddenly find yourself approaching death is not to worry. Now, he’s not saying don’t worry about the state of your mind; or don’t worry, everything is going to be okay; or don’t worry … 
  9. Training Heart & Mind
     … You’re trying to develop the mind, develop the heart—because the Pali word for mind, *citta, *also means heart. You’re working on qualities of heart and mind, and you start with a very simple exercise, staying with the breath. Watch the breath as it comes in; watch it as it goes out. You can focus on any part of the body where … 
  10. Learning by Doing
     … In the meantime, try to get to know this process of getting the mind into concentration, keeping it in concentration—because that’s how you come to understand the mind. Some people think that you get the mind quiet first and then you do vispassana, which requires that you switch to another topic entirely. But that’s not how the Buddha taught, and that … 
  11. Doing Aggregates
     … Work with the breath to make it comfortable so that the mind likes to come back, and be on the lookout for when the mind is ready to go off. Notice how it does it. When you can begin to anticipate that the mind is about to look for something else, that’s when you begin to see the workings of the mind. In … 
  12. Beneficial Thinking
    The mind isn’t something that you can push around roughly. If you want it to stay in place, you have to make it want to stay in place. Which is why, in the beginning of concentration, you don’t just order the mind not to think. You know it’s going to think. It has to have its reasons for doing things. So … 
  13. An End to Suffering
     … This gives the mind at least something of a foundation. You’ve got at least a scrap of a place to stand. It’s better than having no place to stand at all and just being swept away by the currents of the mind. So work on that. And then hold onto whatever sense of presence of mind, whatever sense of mindfulness you can … 
  14. Different Minds, Different Bodies
    Each time you meditate, remember you’re bringing a different mind to the session. It may not be the same mind you brought to your last session. And you’re bringing in a different body, too. In other words, the state of the mind and the state of the body can change over time, sometimes quite radically in the course of a few hours … 
  15. Values
    There are lots of different ways of getting the mind to settle down, and the breath is the object the Buddha discussed most frequently and in most detail for settling down with. But there are other ways of getting the mind to settle down as well. You can focus on the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha either by simply repeating one of those words … 
  16. Trust in the Power of the Mind
     … That’s because the mind is not just on the receiving end of things. Mano-pubbangama dhamma mano-settha mano-maya: The mind is the forerunner of all experience. The mind is in charge. Things are made by the mind. There’s a good reason why they put that verse at the beginning of the Dhammapada. It’s the power of the mind that … 
  17. Farming Your Body & Mind
    We focus on the breath so that we can observe the mind. But begin by giving your full attention to the breath. Try to make the breath something you find interesting. Be sensitive to how it feels as you breathe in, as you breathe out. Where in the body do you feel the sensations around breathing? And not just the air coming in and … 
  18. Good & Independent
     … We do our best to try to figure out what in the mind is unskillful and what in the mind is skillful. We encourage the things that are skillful, like heedfulness, mindfulness, goodwill, concentration. Things that are unskillful, we try to put them aside. Any hindrances that come into the mind, anything that gets in the way of your mind settling down right now … 
  19. Reflect
     … If your mind is the type that can do concentration as a separate activity—in other words, just pound the mind into stillness and then bring it back out and use it to analyze things—make sure you learn how to read your mind. This is the important issue in both cases. Read your mind: When does the mind need to rest? When has … 
  20. Figuring Out Concentration
     … So, as you’re getting the mind to settle down, you’re taking this habit of the mind that you’re already familiar with and applying it to the task of getting the mind to settle down. What do you direct your thoughts to? What do you evaluate? To begin with, you try to direct your thoughts to the topic of the concentration itself … 
  21. Intelligent about Change
     … Here he was, the master of analogies, and even he couldn’t find an analogy for how quickly the mind can change. The twinkling of an eye is still slower than the mind when it’s ready to change. And that’s the kind of change you have to fight. Once the mind is in good shape, you have to resist its tendency to … 
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