Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Self-reliance
     … Why is it that the mind is creating suffering for itself? You get the mind quiet, you get it still, so that you can watch the mind. Fortunately, the mind is something you can watch. This is where the fact of the committee of the mind comes in really helpful. One part of the mind can watch another part of the mind. In fact … 
  3. The Five Strengths
     … This requires mindfulness: the third quality that strengthens the mind. In other words, you keep the breath in mind. That’s paired with alertness, watching what you’re actually doing. If you find yourself forgetting the breath, just remind yourself to come back to the breath. Each time you come back, it strengthens your mindfulness. You want to be alert to what’s working … 
  4. Resisting the Germs of Defilement
     … And you cultivate the desire to develop them more in the mind, realizing that this really is a worthwhile process. Too many people think, “Oh well, whatever goes through the mind just goes through the mind. It comes in, goes out, and that’s it. Nobody else knows what’s going on in my mind, so it doesn’t matter.” But it does matter … 
  5. A Magic Set of Tools
     … As Ajaan Lee says, when you’re mindful and alert like this, mindfulness and alertness change into the factors of jhana, or steady absorption. We often hear that mindfulness practice and concentration practice are two different things, but the Buddha never taught them that way. He said that right mindfulness leads naturally to right concentration. In all of the descriptions of the path — such … 
  6. Always Looking Inside
     … always looking inside, looking at the movements of the mind—the comments, the fabrications of the mind—because they cause trouble, they cause suffering. But as part of the path, we have to use fabrications. After all, the noble eightfold path is a path that’s fabricated. It’s put together out of our intentions. Right views, right resolves, right mindfulness, and right concentration … 
  7. Equanimity & Power
     … After he taught Rahula to make his mind like earth, he taught him the steps for breath meditation, and those are very proactive. You breathe in ways that give rise to rapture or refreshment. You breathe in ways that give rise to pleasure. Breathe in ways that gladden the mind, steady the mind, release the mind. So there’s work to be done, and … 
  8. Heedful of Death
     … When the mind is still and clear and balanced like this, it can ask itself questions, pose questions, and get a more balanced answer. Now, there’s no 100% guarantee that every answer appearing in a quiet mind is going to be reliable. But it’s more likely to be reliable than if the mind is just running around. When the mind is really … 
  9. The Right Place to Look
     … Your mind as you sense it from within: This is also your territory. So find some topic here in the body and the mind in the present moment where you can settle in and have a sense of well-being. We work with the breath because it’s the closest thing in our experience to the mind without being the mind itself. It’s … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. Strength for the Heat
     … So you want to make sure your mind is in good shape. Do what is required to get the mind into concentration. The coolest mind is the mind that’s still. You’re mindful of your breath, mindful of your body. If focusing on the body seems to aggravate the heat, then think thoughts of goodwill. Let the heat have the body. You’re … 
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