Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Gladdening
    We’re here to train the mind. But we have to remember that when the Buddha talks about training the mind, he uses the word* “citta,”* which covers both what we think of the mind and what we think of as the heart. So we’re training to have a good heart as well as a good mind. The heart comes in our daily … 
  3. Negative Emotions
    We try to train the mind because it’s the source of all our real problems. We tend to think that our problems come from outside, but it’s the way the mind deals with those outside issues—that’s the real problem. It’s always looking for trouble. Lust comes, and it goes looking for something to feel lustful about. Anger comes, and … 
  4. Purifying Gold
    The Buddha gave several discourses where he compared training the mind, getting the mind into concentration, to refining gold. In the first step, you have to wash the gold. The gold has gravel, little bits of grit, and then tinier bits of grit. So first you have to get the really gross stuff out. That, the Buddha said, means getting rid of any misbehavior … 
  5. Exercising Discernment
     … One is his description of the qualities of mind you have to bring to mindfulness practice. As we were saying earlier today, the establishing of mindfulness is a skill, it’s an activity. There are three qualities you need to bring to it. One is mindfulness, two is ardency, and three is alertness. Mindfulness is simply the ability to keep something in mind. If … 
  6. Forging a Path
     … If you force the mind to stay with an uncomfortable breath, it’s going to rebel. So give it a sense of ease in the breathing. Allow the breathing to become refreshing. This gives the mind something good to do, and you begin to see the other activities of the mind, because of course as you make up your mind to stay with one … 
  7. Shaping the Present
     … Mindfulness is for keeping this in mind: the fact that you do shape things. Don’t forget that. Alertness is for watching what you’re doing and the results that you’re getting. So you put these three qualities together: mindfulness, alertness, ardency. It’s interesting that when the Buddha lists them in his instructions for mindfulness, he puts “ardent” first. In other words … 
  8. Respect for Suffering
     … Once they’re strong, then we can really look into the issue of why the mind is creating unnecessary suffering for itself. So our first issue is to develop mindfulness and concentration. Mindfulness is the ability to keep something in mind. Keep the breath in mind, or if you have a meditation word like buddho, you can keep that in mind. Or if you … 
  9. Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence
    The Thai word for intelligence is a combination of two Pali words, the words for mindfulness and discernment: satipañña. And the ajaans like to talk a lot about applying your satipañña, your intelligence, to the meditation. The question is, what kind of intelligence are they talking about? Here it’s good to look at the Canon. When the Buddha talks about how mindfulness leads … 
  10. Work on Your Mind
    In Thai, they have a phrase, “tam jai,” which literally means “to work on your mind.” They use it usually when you’ve suffered a loss or a setback, and you calm the mind down so that you’re not too upset, so that you can actually think straight, figure out what to do next, and not let the loss or the setback get … 
  11. Protection Through the Practice
     … You’ve got to make your mind bigger than the attitudes that are unskillful inside. You’ve got to make your concentration bigger, your goodwill bigger: All the good qualities of the mind you have to make large. Remember the Buddha’s examples: making your mind like earth, making your mind like the river Ganges, making it like space. Space is infinite. If your … 
  12. Discernment on the Path
     … You stay with the breath until the whole mind gathers around the breath so that you can see clearly everything that’s going on in the mind. It’s all right here: body, feelings, mind states, and mental qualities. They all gather around the breath. So whichever frame of reference you want to use, it’s right here. That reminds you to look at … 
  13. Give Before You Get
     … You have to learn how to step back from your mind and from the reactive side of the mind and tell yourself, “I’m just going to do this, give this some time, give it an opportunity.” Have an open mind about what you have to give up. Have an open mind about the things you have to do that you don’t like … 
  14. Pain
     … If you maintain that, then all the Velcro hooks that tie the mind to the pain or tie the mind to the body get cut. It can be a mind well-gone because it’s lived well, meditated well, developed good qualities in the mind, so that when the time comes to go, you’re ready.
  15. Uncertainty
     … Sometimes we hear about other people who can get their minds to settle down really quickly, and you look at your mind and it’s not settling down quickly, so you wonder, “Am I doing something wrong? Can I do this?” Here it’s important to remember that other people’s minds are other people’s minds. One, you don’t really know if … 
  16. Warrior Knowledge
    Warrior Knowledge October 13, 2000 There’s a constant dialogue going on in the mind: “This is this.” “No, it’s that.” “This should be this.” “That should be that; you like this and you don’t like that.” All kinds of voices — and in many cases the voices are totally untrained. They’re just things we’ve picked up from here or there … 
  17. Concentration as a Skill
     … The techniques of focusing on the body, working with the breath—they in and of themselves could be boring aside from the fact that they are so important in helping to alleviate stress and suffering for the mind. When you see the danger of a mind that’s not trained compared with the benefits of having a mind that is trained, you’re more … 
  18. Ānāpānasati Day
     … All kinds of things can be influencing your mind right now. So where is your mind? What does it need? The remaining steps deal with getting the mind to counteract whatever is out of balance. You can gladden the mind as you breathe in, breathe out. You can steady and concentrate the mind as you breathe in, breathe out. You can release the mind … 
  19. Breaking the Arrows
     … But following the Buddha’s example, we know that if we develop good qualities of mind, we’re going to suffer a lot less. So here we are developing those qualities. We begin with mindfulness, which is the ability to keep something in mind—in this case, reminding ourselves that even though the body may age, there may be something in the mind that … 
  20. The Buddha’s Tools
     … So when we look at his ways of looking at the mind, his ways of looking at the world, it’s not that we’re trying to impose foreign ideas on our minds; we’re trying to familiarize ourselves with the tools he laid out for solving the big problems in our mind from a perspective that was outside of time. One of those … 
  21. Fabricating Around Pain
     … You’re trying to establish a good, solid foundation for observing events in the body, events in the mind, and particularly events in the mind. All too often we have a tendency to think that we’re simply on the receiving end of things coming in from outside. But the Buddha’s picture of the mind is a lot more active. Your mind plays … 
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