Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Reflections
     … These are the qualities you’ve got to get out of your mind. Sometimes in the texts they say that first you get the hindrances out of your mind and then you feel joyful and at ease, and the mind settles down. Other times, it’s in the process of getting the mind to settle down that you can fight them off. You give … 
  3. Timeless Practice
     … It’s basically right effort in the context of right mindfulness. So you’re not just watching things arising and passing away as they come and things go. That’s not the kind of mindfulness the Buddha is talking about. As he says, when mindfulness is a governing principle in your mind, you’re mindful that if there are skillful qualities that you haven … 
  4. Defilements with Their Bambi Eyes
     … The mind has its defilements: things that keep it from being bright, clear, clean, at ease. Some people find the term offensive. “What’s wrong with our minds? Our minds aren’t dirty,” they say. Well, compared to the mind of an awakened one, they’re pretty dim, they’re clouded, and sometimes it’s discouraging to see how many clouds we have filling … 
  5. Looking Inward
     … They govern our interactions with other people, but their primary purpose is training our thoughts, words, and our deeds—again, focusing in on our mind: the intentions that underlie our actions. At the same time, we develop qualities of mindfulness and alertness as we maintain our precepts. And, of course, meditation is a matter of directly looking in at your own mind. Other things … 
  6. Hurtful Memories
     … The other way is learn how to look at the whole process of how a memory comes into the mind. How does the mind go for it? What are the stages? You learn this by trying to stay with the breath as best you can and then noticing what happens as the mind leaves the breath. How many suggestions, how many whispers does the … 
  7. Little Decisions
     … You put it aside, but part of your mind is still working on it while you give the rest of the mind a rest. This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration so much: to get the mind well rested to do its work. You’re trying to develop the ability to see that when there’s anything impinging on the mind … 
  8. On Top of Your Actions
    It’s always good at the beginning of the meditation to survey your mind to see what kind of shape it’s in, and figure out what needs to be done to bring it into balance. Are you leaning toward thoughts of the future or toward thoughts of the past? Things that put you in a good mood, things that put you in a … 
  9. Right Now
     … With enough effort, with enough mindfulness and alertness, we can make changes in the mind. We can open up new channels, direct the mind in ways that are actually helpful for it rather than harmful. This is what the principle of karma teaches us. A lot of people say they have problems with karma, but that’s because they think of the larger cosmological … 
  10. A Mind Like Earth
    Make your mind like earth. That was the Buddha’s first meditation instruction to his son. Earth doesn’t react. You throw disgusting things on the earth and it doesn’t get disgusted. The image of the earth is used both in teachings on patience and in teachings on goodwill. The two have to go together. You try to make your mind large so … 
  11. After the Fire
     … mindfulness, keeping these issues of the skillfulness in mind—What’s the most skillful approach? What is needed right now? Keep those questions in mind. And from there the factors for awakening fork out into two sides. There’s the more active side, starting with the analysis of qualities in mind, when you look at to see what is most skillful, what is unskillful … 
  12. Being Still
     … And in the same way if you want to see things in the mind, see things in the breath, you have to make yourself very quiet. The quieter the mind is the more it sees. So, when the breath comes in, the breath goes out, the mind doesn’t have to come in and out with the breath. You choose a spot in the … 
  13. Kindfulness
    Kindfulness May 1, 2010 As you train the mind, focusing on the breath, allowing the breath to be comfortable, trying to become friends with the breath, it’s a very direct way of showing goodwill to yourself and to the people around you. Goodwill for yourself in the sense that you learn how to develop a source of happiness that comes from within. Your … 
  14. The Uses of Pleasure & Pain
     … If the pressure is too light, the mind goes drifting off. If it’s too heavy, the body starts feeling constricted, the mind starts feeling constricted, and it’s going to look for a way to get out. So try to see precisely what amount of mindfulness and alertness is needed just to keep the body and mind together right at the breath. The … 
  15. Sticking with an Intention
    Sticking with an Intention November 14, 2005 It can be very chastening to see how changeable your mind is. You make up your mind to do something and then find yourself just a few minutes later heading off in another direction. Sometimes it’s because you saw that your original intention was not as wise as you thought it was, but often it has … 
  16. Unchanged by Loss
     … The precepts are there as shortcut guides, quick notes in the mind—no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no intoxicants, ever—because they’re most needed when the mind is overcome with emotion, and when the mind is overcome by emotion, it’s very easy to forget. If the precepts were complicated, with lots of exceptions, the mind would certainly find … 
  17. Heightened Skillfulness
     … Instead of giving away good things in hopes of getting good things back, you think less about the things, and more about the quality of mind you’re developing as you develop generosity. It’s a spacious mind. It feels good. The mind becomes serene. You want to get it to the point where generosity is simply an ornament for the mind. In other … 
  18. Mindful All Day Long
    The basic position when you get started in meditation is to sit with your eyes closed, because you want to give all your attention to what’s going on in the mind and don’t want to have any distractions. It’s like learning how to play the piano. You go off into a quiet room where you’re by yourself. Nobody else is … 
  19. The Chess Game
     … They were powers that we could all develop in our own minds if we were resolute and determined enough. So there is this possibility—and we owe it to ourselves to explore it—that there is a happiness that doesn’t change and that we can attain through developing our powers of mind. It requires discipline, it requires mindfulness, but the path itself is … 
  20. Insight in Concentration
     … This is where you run into a lot of interesting issues in the mind. People often think that you first do concentration, then, when you really get good at concentration, discernment comes. Well, a lot of discernment comes in the course of trying to keep the mind here in the present moment, because after a while different ideas will come up in the mind … 
  21. Potentials for Awakening
    Ajaan Lee once commented that we human beings have a lot of potentials—in our body, in our mind—that we don’t take advantage of. A large part of the practice is learning how to develop those potentials: to find where they are and then to apply what’s called “appropriate attention” to them—in other words, seeing them in terms of what … 
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