Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Shelter Through Restraint
     … One is about restraint in the things you bring into your mind: the things you look at, listen to, receive through all the senses. But you’re not purely receiving, the mind also goes out. That’s the other area where we have to exercise restraint, particularly what comes out of the mind in what we do and say and think. We like to … 
  3. Tending the Flame
     … And again, as you’re maintaining it, you’re going to be seeing things going on in the mind that you missed before. Sometimes you see things you don’t like about the mind. But when the mind is more settled like this, it makes a lot more sense just to admit, “Yeah, I do have these unskillful thoughts in my mind.” We have … 
  4. Training in Happiness
     … As the Buddha said, the most important issue in life is whether your mind is trained or not. Only when your mind is trained can you find real happiness. And these are some of the qualities you need to train your mind so that you can trust it. You make up your mind you’re going to stick with something, and you really stick … 
  5. How to Listen to the Dhamma
     … That brings the mind into concentration. So, listening to a Dhamma talk doesn’t preclude getting the mind into concentration. In fact, if you listen to the talk well, and the talk is relevant to what’s going on in your mind, it can naturally lead to concentration. Then, from concentration, as the mind is really centered, you can develop more discernment that leads … 
  6. The Treasure of Virtue
     … So these qualities—mindfulness, alertness, and ardency—are precisely what you need to get the mind to settle down. You’re mindful of the breath, and then you’re alert to watch both the breath and the mind to make sure they stay together. Then, if they’re not staying together, you put forth an effort to figure out: Is the problem with the … 
  7. Developing Absorption
    Sometimes we’re told that when we meditate, we’re trying to put the mind in a position where it doesn’t pass any judgment or is simply receptive. But I’ve never heard the Buddha say that. I’ve never read the Buddha say that. After all, the meditation is something you do; it’s something you develop. That’s the duty with … 
  8. A Path of Skills
     … Look at the way the Buddha taught mindfulness. It’s not just a matter of focusing on the breath. You’re focusing on the process of fabrication—how the mind puts its experience together—through the way it breathes, through the way it talks to itself, the perceptions and feelings it holds in mind. Even when the breath leaves you, that knowledge of the … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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.
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