Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. A Clear Sense of Priorities
     … When you begin to ask those questions, you find that the practice starts making deeper inroads in the mind and really benefits you in ways that it couldn’t have otherwise. On a very simple level, take the practice of being mindful as you go through your daily activities. Now, mindfulness here covers both mindfulness and alertness. In other words, have a strong sense … 
  3. The Dead Snake Around Your Neck
     … But of course, the mind that’s meditating is the same mind that goes out and deals with the world. And it’s precisely because these same processes shape our experience in the ordinary, everyday world as they do in meditation that the meditation is really a good tool for getting to understand how your mind creates suffering. That’s what the four noble … 
  4. Greed & Distress with Reference to the World
    The Buddha’s formula for right mindfulness contains his instructions on how to get the mind into right concentration, and it contains two verbs. In other words, there are two activities that we do. One is dwelling. The word viharati, to dwell, can also mean to keep doing something. Here we dwell with the breath, the body in and of itself, just as you … 
  5. The Search for Something of Substance
     … Here we are working on concentration, but you find that there are parts of the mind that don’t want to be bothered. You try to get the mind to settle down. You try to get the mind to be mindful and alert. There are parts of the mind that thrive on lack of mindfulness and lack of alertness. They’re going to push … 
  6. Looking in Three Directions
     … As you’re working with the breath right here and the mind begins to settle down, you’re developing insight on many levels. Simply the act of fending off distractions is an important source of insights right there. In the beginning, the distractions are gross. You sit here, and the mind begins to settle down a little bit. And you suddenly realize the mind … 
  7. Working Hypotheses
    There are a lot of ways in which the Buddha compares the activities of the mind to fire. Greed, aversion, are delusion are fires that burn away in the mind, and as we chanted just now, they set fire to our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and to the things we know through the senses. It’s almost as if our minds … 
  8. Responsible Happiness
     … When the mind has a sense of well-being right now, then even the idea of acting in an unskillful way becomes very unattractive. So you’re changing the balance of power in the mind. The mind is like a committee, as I’ve said many times. We have all kinds of members in there. The members you’re proud of. The members you … 
  9. Mindfulness Gets Intimate
     … Mindfulness as a factor for awakening is present in me.” “Me, me, me.” But you’re using “I” and “me” in a skillful way, because it’s on this level that you’re making an effort to get the mind into right concentration. In fact, you could read that instructions for keeping track, say, of the breath—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed … 
  10. Right View, Right Attention
     … Right mindfulness keeps that in mind: that we want to develop skillful qualities and to abandon unskillful ones. So each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, you ask yourself, “Where is my mind right now? Is it with the breath?” If it’s not, you bring it to the breath. That’s what right effort does. If it is with the … 
  11. Taking Apart Suffering
     … There are also issues in the mind. Here, too, this ability to take things apart is important. When you have a certain mood in the mind—say, there’s impatience or irritation—learn how to take it apart. A good way to approach it is to assume that the mind is like a committee. There’s not just one person in there talking or … 
  12. Fixing the Present
    When the Buddha taught breath meditation to his son, he started out by saying, “Make your mind like earth.” When people say disgusting things to you, or you pick up what they say, think of earth. People throw disgusting things on earth and it doesn’t react. People throw nice things on the earth and it doesn’t react. You want to develop that … 
  13. People Suffer from Their Thinking
     … Then the question is, how can you best prepare your mind? The best thing you can do is to train the mind to have more mindfulness, more discernment, more alertness, so that if death does come, the mind doesn’t have to suffer. He has you think the same way every morning at sunrise: This may be your last sunrise. Are you ready to … 
  14. Virtue
     … You create an openness and honesty inside the mind. As the Buddha once said, that’s a prerequisite for practicing the Dhamma on any level: that you be honest. So following the precepts creates the right environment for developing the mind further in meditation. It also develops some important skills, such as mindfulness, alertness, and persistence. You have to keep your precepts in mind … 
  15. Noble Right Concentration
     … being aware of the whole body breathing in and breathing out, breathing in a way that gives rise to a sense of rapture or refreshment, breathing in a way that gives rise to a sense of pleasure, breathing in a way that gladdens the mind or concentrates the mind, engaged in mindfulness practice and concentration practice at the same time. After all, the Buddha … 
  16. The Same but Different, but the Same
     … But the important element is that you first get the mind to settle down; and to get the mind to settle down, you have to find a topic that you find congenial. Some people find simply repeating a word like “buddho” over and over in the mind congenial. Other people find it more congenial to focus on the breath and to make the breath … 
  17. Things as They’ve Come to Be
     … And in the course of doing that, you learn things both about the breath and about the mind: what kind of sensations the mind likes, what kinds it doesn’t like; how the mind affects the breath, how the breath affects the mind. Right there is a lot of raw material for insight. But in the beginning your purpose is more to settle the … 
  18. Good Traditions
     … That’s a good quality of the mind. It’s something you can really depend on, because the mind that’s willing to share is a spacious mind. It’s not the narrow, fear-driven mind of someone who’s really stingy. A spacious mind is a much nicer place to stay than a narrow, confined mind. Following the precepts is also a form … 
  19. Joyous Discernment
     … Mindfulness is keeping something in mind. Alertness means noticing what you’re doing while you’re doing it. There are times when mindfulness gets in the way of alertness, which is a sign that it’s wrong mindfulness. You’re focused on one particular thing, and that means you miss something else that you’re doing, something else that’s going on around you … 
  20. Refuge
    In the Pali phrases for taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, the word sarana, which we translate as refuge, can also mean something you remember, something you hold in mind, something you keep in mind. This is part of the way in which it becomes your refuge. You try to keep the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha in mind … 
  21. Study to Practice
     … Mindfulness is keeping something in mind. For instance, when you’re keeping the breath in mind, that’s body in and of itself. You’re ardent, you’re alert, you’re mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. There’s a lot to discuss there. How do you stay with the body in and of itself? How do you stay … 
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