Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Mindful of Karma
     … And then “mindful” means basically remembering to do all this: remembering to stay with the breath, remembering that you have to be ardent, that you have to be alert. All the instructions that are relevant right now: You have to be able to keep them in mind and to apply them when they’re useful. So you keep in mind your frame of reference … 
  3. Totally Secure
     … And watch out for when the mind starts leaving the breath, starts fabricating other thoughts, other worlds, fabricating the past, fabricating the future. This is one of the things the mind is really good at, fabrication. The Pali word is *sankhara. *The problem with this fabrication is that it creates a lot of suffering for the mind. This is not to say that sankhara … 
  4. Guardian Meditations
    There’s a passage where the Buddha discusses the factors of awakening and states that some of them are especially useful when your mind is overactive, and some are useful when your mind is sluggish. But there’s one, he says, that’s always useful, and that’s mindfulness. Still, that doesn’t mean the mindfulness is ever enough on its own. It has … 
  5. Always Observe Your Mind
     … The focus is more and more on the state of the mind: “Giving is good.” “The mind is made serene. It’s gratified by giving.” “Giving is an ornament on the mind.” He keeps pointing back more and more to the mind. After all, if you’re going to be observing the mind, it’s best to start out with observing yourself doing good … 
  6. Concentration & Insight
     … The problem is the mind doesn’t always settle down in a very nice and cooperative way. So you need the stick—in other words, remembering that there are problems in the mind, dangers in the mind, and that you’re going to need to keep your tools at hand to fend them off. There’s a list of five ways of dealing with … 
  7. Evaluation: The Voice of Heedfulness
     … At the same time, as you hold to the precepts, you’re developing mindfulness and alertness, qualities you’re going to need to get the mind to settle down: mindful to keep the precept in mind in all your activities, and alert to make sure you’re actually following it. Alertness here is what’s going to turn into your voice of evaluation as … 
  8. Three Stages in the Practice
     … Sometimes you hear that mindfulness and concentration are two totally antithetical qualities: that mindfulness is a broad, open, acceptance of things, whereas concentration is a narrow focus, exclusive of all else. If that were the case, you couldn’t practice mindfulness and concentration together. But that’s not how the Buddha described mindfulness and concentration. The two qualities go together. Mindfulness gets fully purified … 
  9. The Strength of Conviction
     … You have the mindfulness and the alertness not only to keep your meditation in mind, but also to keep in mind what you did and then notice the results that come from what you did. That way, if the results aren’t what you want, you can try changing what you’ve done. In other words, sometimes when you bring the mind very forcefully … 
  10. All About Change
     … This, the Buddha said, is one of the duties of mindfulness when it becomes a governing principle. If something good hasn’t arisen yet in the mind, you try to give rise to it. Once it’s there, you don’t let it go. You hold on to it. You maintain it. So mindfulness watches both for the kind of change you encourage and … 
  11. Beyond Inter-eating
     … Does it strengthen the mind? How about being really persistent in developing mindfulness and alertness instead? In other words, how about keeping the breath in mind and watching to make sure the mind stays with the breath, watching the breath to see what kind of breath is easiest for the mind to stay with. After all, as the Buddha said, this path is something … 
  12. Comparing Mind
    Comparing Mind September 29, 2015 A couple of years back, I came across a photography book in which the photographer presented pictures of many scenes, with two different pictures of each scene. The larger was the one that he preferred. The second one was paired with it to give a sense of what was better about the larger one. Seeing the two photographs right … 
  13. Take Time to Evaluate Your Life
     … You’re going to need to be mindful, alert, and have the energy to deal with these things. This is one of the reasons why meditation is a good preparation for just about everything, because you develop qualities of mindfulness and alertness. Mindfulness: You’re being mindful to remember to stay with the breath. That’s what mindfulness means: holding something in mind. You … 
  14. True to the Breath
     … If you want to find the truth about the mind, you’ve got to stay right here to watch it in action. Even though it may move, you don’t have to move along with it. There’s a part of the mind that just observes the whole process of fabrication. The Buddha compares fabrication to streams in the mind that go flowing out … 
  15. Moving Between Thought Worlds
     … The suffering comes from the way the mind thinks about things. It creates impossible situations and then burdens itself with them. It doesn’t have to do that. Mindfulness, concentration, and discernment form the way out. And those aren’t just vague abstractions. Mindfulness is the ability to remember what you’re doing as you move from one state of mind to another. Alertness … 
  16. Heeding the Deva Messengers
     … The quicker you are at zapping these things, the more you’re going to see about the various stages that the mind goes through as it creates these states of becoming. This way, the mind won’t be so much of a mystery. Lack of mindfulness is what puts up walls. The practice of mindfulness and concentration tears the walls down, and then your … 
  17. Seeing Through Your Defilements
     … We’re here to get the mind, to understand the mind, and to see through these defilements—in other words, to see the tricks they play in the way they talk to us. One of the big issues in the mind is how the mind talks to itself, and then other voices slip in. You think you’re talking to yourself, when actually it … 
  18. But Not Sick in Mind
     … The desire to make the mind skillful, the desire to bring the mind to concentration: That’s part of the path. It’s not a cause of suffering. There will be some suffering in the sense that if you want the path to show its results and they’re not happening, that’ll weigh on the mind. But that, the Buddha said, is actually … 
  19. Conviction in Charge
     … You have to keep in mind the fact that you have to be very picky about what you choose to follow in the mind. When you choose the right voices, the mind can settle down: Choose the voices that say that it’s good to have the mind still. It’s good to have the mind solid and unperturbed. Because there are other voices … 
  20. Pain & the Middle Way
     … You devote yourself to what he calls the heightened mind: the mind in concentration. From that perspective, you can start understanding what’s going on as the mind gets involved in pleasure, in sensual pleasure, and as it gets involved in pain. It’s not impossible for the mind to be concentrated even though there’s pain in the body. This is something that … 
  21. Change
     … Intelligence is not only wisdom but also the ability to keep things in mind. You’re both wise enough and mindful enough to remember what is important to keep in mind: the things that will protect you. This is why it’s so important to remember that mindfulness does mean just that: the ability to keep something in mind. It’s not simply accepting … 
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