Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. Preparing to Meditate
    Try to get the mind ready to meditate. Sometimes you find that it settles down easily: just focus on the breath and there it is. Other times, there’s a resistance. Something’s wrong. Sometimes what’s wrong may be the breath itself, but other times it’s attitudes you carry around in the mind. We like to think that meditation is a process … 
  13. Your Tranquility & Your Insight
     … How to regard fabrications? How to investigate them? How to see them with insight? Regarding them as fabrications basically means seeing them as events in the mind. Doubts come into the mind, restless thoughts come into the mind, lustful thoughts come into the mind, and we tend to just jump into them. They become little becomings. A thought-world appears, there’s something you … 
  14. Don’t Objectify
    We focus on watching the breath so that ultimately the mind can watch itself, because the breath is probably the closest thing that you could focus on outside of the mind. In the beginning, it’s a lot easier to stay with the breath than it is just to stay with awareness, because awareness is so large and vague and has such ill-defined … 
  15. Basics
     … That’s getting the mind in position. Now the problem with both the mind and the body in position is how to keep them there. It’s not that difficult to get them into position, but to keep them there: That takes effort. And particularly the mind, because the mind is so used to running around. The body can sit here perfectly still, yet … 
  16. Reliable Action
     … That’s why the mind is so hard to trust, and it’s why we have to work on it. This is why we develop mindfulness. Give the mind something to keep in mind, like the breath, and give it something to watch, like the breath, so that you can use your mindfulness and your alertness together right here, right where the mind and … 
  17. Duties in the Present
     … This ability to keep that thought in mind: That’s mindfulness. Sometimes we hear mindfulness described as present awareness, but actually the word for present awareness is sampajañña: alertness. All-around knowing in the present moment: That’s sampajañña. Sati or mindfulness is keeping something in mind: in this case, keeping the breath in mind. As you keep the breath in mind, the Buddha … 
  18. The Mind Isn’t Hot
     … The theme he settled on was, “The body may be wet, but the mind isn’t wet. The body may be wet, but the mind isn’t wet.” He repeated that to himself and, after a while, he became convinced that it was true. The mind is what? It’s awareness. It’s just aware. That’s what the mind is. It’s not … 
  19. Inner Strength, Inner Wealth
     … Then there’s the strength of mindfulness: the ability to keep all of this in mind, to remember the example of the Buddha and to remember how you can develop a desire to do what’s skillful and to abandon what’s unskillful. In other words, you keep in mind the lessons you’ve learned from others and you also keep in mind the … 
  20. Centered on Concentration
     … It gives the mind an anchor. The images in the Canon are many: It gives the mind nourishment, it gives it solidity, it gives it support; it’s a shelter for the mind; they call it vihāra-dhamma, a home for the mind; it’s medicine for the mind—all these good things. So you have to learn how to respect it. In the … 
  21. Inner Poise
     … And to do it rightly, to keep one thing in mind steadily, is really an important skill because it gives balance to the mind so that the mind doesn’t go floating off after things, doesn’t get blown around by things. It’s what gives the mind strength. It’s also what helps us live together with one another. If you’re paying … 
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