Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Do Jhana
     … That’s mindfulness. But that’s not the Buddha’s mindfulness. His mindfulness is keeping something in mind—like keeping the breath in mind—and learning how to use these other qualities in a mature way: That’s how the meditation actually becomes successful. It is something you can succeed at. You focus your desire on the causes. You try to fine tune your … 
  3. Inner Wealth
     … Because as you develop the mind in this direction, you find that you enjoy your mind more and more. It’s a more livable mind. As we wander around, we don’t live in any one particular place all the time, but we’re in our minds all the time—so you want to make sure your mind is a spacious mind and a … 
  4. Staying True
    Focus the mind on the breath. Notice where you feel the breath in the body. Any spot where the sensation is very clear that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out: Focus on that spot. It doesn’t have to be at the nose. It might be in the chest. You can feel the rising of the chest as … 
  5. The Current News
     … To see the long term requires not only clarity but also mindfulness: the ability to remember what you did. This is one of the reasons why we practice not only being with the present moment but also developing mindfulness and alertness and ardency: keeping in mind the lessons we’ve learned from the past as to what’s useful and what’s not, being … 
  6. Alighting on the Dhamma
     … But if you do point those words at what’s going on in your mind—you allow them to point, you allow them to come into the mind, to illumine what’s going on in the mind—then you’ll benefit. You’ll be able to step back from things happening in the mind and see them in a new light. But as we … 
  7. Achieving Balance
    An important principle in meditating, in getting the mind to settle down properly, is to develop a sense of balance so that your desire isn’t so strong that it runs away with you or so weak that you don’t really care. Your effort isn’t so strong that it wears you out, but not so weak that you don’t accomplish anything … 
  8. Ask the Right Questions
     … They lie in your mind. This is why we train the mind. And so the source of a happy new year is here in the mind: the qualities we develop in the mind. There’s a passage where the Buddha talks about an auspicious day, or an auspicious night. It’s interesting that back in his time, when they used the lunar calendar, when … 
  9. Tranquility & Insight
     … However, thinking a lot gets the mind tired, which is why the Buddha said the best thing to do was to get the mind into concentration. That’s when you gather the cows in. After all, if the mind is tired from thinking, sometimes it’ll start thinking unskillful thoughts, and it’ll be difficult to keep them under control. So you let the … 
  10. Taking a Stance
     … In Pali, the word for the object of the mind, arammana, literally means a “support” for the mind. When you meditate, you want to find a good, solid support, because when your support is solid you can deal with whatever’s coming at you from whatever direction, whether thoughts inside the mind or things people do or say from outside. Your response — if it … 
  11. Gradually Sudden
     … Yet, when the mind begins to slow down, and you begin to see the steps by which the mind goes through its processes of creating thoughts and then dropping them, it all begins to make sense. Not in the sense that you agree with what the mind has been doing, but you can understand how the mind has been operating under ignorance. If you … 
  12. The Escape of Discipline
     … But, as the Buddha said, the mind can be trained, and the trained mind is a source of true happiness. All too often we balk at the idea of training the mind. We don’t like the sound of the words “discipline” and “training,” having to force the mind, control the mind. It’s as if we’re being put back in school. Not … 
  13. Things as They Function
     … Where are they coming from? Where are they going? How do we do it? We learn not by focusing directly on the mind to begin with. We give the mind something else to focus on and then we watch the mind as it’s focused. This is why we have the training in the precepts, training in concentration, training in discernment. The Buddha’s … 
  14. Every Little Bit
     … Once you get into position, and the mind settles down and feels good, you realize you don’t really want to get up again. This reflects a teaching the Buddha gave one time, which is that when the mind is in an unskillful state, just giving rise to a finger-snap of a skillful mind state has value. If the idea of trying to … 
  15. Staying on Track
     … Or something comes up and you make up your mind, “Well, this must mean this, that must mean that.” You talk to yourself about what’s going on and if you’re not careful, you can create lots of really strange states of mind and come to some strange conclusions. The Buddha recognized that meditation can dig up unskillful thoughts in the mind, unskillful … 
  16. Wisdom & Compassion
    Meditation is medicine for the mind, medicine for the heart. It’s an opportunity to put down all your thoughts and concerns, and let the mind be treated in a healing way. One good way of getting out of mind’s concerns is to focus on how the body feels right now. Before you focus on the breath, you might want to go through … 
  17. Hunker Down
     … right back at the mind, right back at the breath. The talk is just shadows, words, names for the Dhamma. The actual Dhamma is there in the mind. There might be kusala dhamma or akusala dhamma, in other words, skillful or unskillful qualities in the mind, but the Dhamma’s right there in the mind, good or bad: That’s what you’ve got … 
  18. Practical Wisdom
     … Why? Because the more you can gain some control over the breath, the more you learn about the mind and about the body at the same time, but particularly about the mind. Ajaan Lee says that the breath is a mirror for the mind. When you get the breath smooth, you can see your mind clearly there. Whatever’s happening in the present moment … 
  19. An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … As the Buddha taught mindfulness, it’s not just bare awareness. It’s full presence of mind, keeping things in mind. He compared mindfulness to a gatekeeper who watches after the gate of a fortress, allowing in the people he knows, and keeping out the people he doesn’t know. In the same way, the Buddha said, when you have mindfulness as your gatekeeper … 
  20. The Pursuit of Pleasure
     … The mind is not dulled. It’s a pleasure that comes from a sharp mind, learning how to use your powers of observation to sharpen the mind, at the same time that you’re getting a sense of ease in the body. It’s something to be developed. It’s part of the path. So don’t be afraid of it. At the same … 
  21. Not Siding with the Hindrances
    It’s inevitable that when you make up your mind to do something, something else is going to get in the way. Then you have to decide which is more important: the original intention or the new one. When you’re meditating, it should seem obvious that your intention to actually do the meditation should take first priority. But somehow, after four or five … 
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