Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Equanimity
     … This is the kind of equanimity you can use to watch subtle things clearly in the mind. You begin to notice some of the defilements in the mind—and they are defilements. We usually don’t like to use the word “defilement” with regard to our thoughts and emotions, but that’s often what they are. They cloud the mind; they darken the mind … 
  3. Practice All Day
     … He’d come back from his walk, and his mind would be stirred up. So he made up his mind: Look for the signs of aging. They’re there. He found that when he came back home from that kind of walk, his mind settled down a lot more quickly because it had the Dhamma in mind all the time. The mind was talking … 
  4. The Brightness of Life
     … When the Buddha said that the mind is naturally luminous, he didn’t mean that it’s naturally pure, or that it’s already awakened, simply that it can observe itself. That luminosity of the mind, he said, is the prerequisite for the fact that we can develop good qualities in the mind. We follow the path that the Buddha himself followed: We act … 
  5. Do, Maintain, Use
     … There’s that five-step program that the Buddha gives for dealing with anything unskillful coming up in the mind. First is seeing its origination: Where does it come from within the mind? That’s an important insight right there—that it’s coming from within the mind. It’s not just floating past. You want to see that—and you see that best … 
  6. Fabricating with Awareness
     … It’s the mind that cares, and it’s the mind that wants these things. The body is just a tool in the mind. So the problem is not the body, it’s the lust in the mind: Why would it lust for these things? What does he gain? Is lust in and of itself a comfortable emotion? No, it’s not. It just … 
  7. Guardian Meditations
    The Buddha talks of times when you meditate, you try to focus on the breath or any of the other topics in the body, but there’s a fever—a fever in the body, a fever in the mind. It doesn’t allow you to settle down. In cases like that, he says, try to find another theme that’s inspiring. Focus on that … 
  8. Protection
     … But at the same time, the mind needs to rest. So you have to work on the skillful qualities that take you to a place where you can rest for a while in concentration. That starts with mindfulness. Mindfulness doesn’t mean non-judging awareness, as we sometimes hear. It means keeping in mind what you need to do. Right now, you need to … 
  9. Nobility Through Inner Strength
    Get your body in position—in a posture you can try to maintain for the whole hour without putting too much strain on any part of the body—because the mind has work to do. Getting the mind into position is not all that hard, but keeping it there is going to be the work for the hour. Getting it in position simply means … 
  10. Four Virtues
     … In the process of observing the precepts, making sure you don’t kill anything, not even little bugs, not telling even white lies, you have to be very careful, very mindful and alert. In this way, you’re developing the qualities you need in formal meditation throughout the day. You’ve got to be mindful to keep your precepts in mind, and to be … 
  11. Practicing Your Scales
     … You find that you have to learn how to streamline your understanding of what it means to keep the mind focused. You start out by basically doing too much: You tense up the body, you engage all kinds of other parts of the mind to try to keep the mind here, and yet you can’t maintain that amount of tension. The mind is … 
  12. Broad, Tall, & Deep
     … If what they have to say is actually true, if you’ve actually done something wrong, then by lifting your mind to a higher plane, you’re in a better position to admit your mistake and to learn from it. So this ability to depersonalize things is what heightens the mind, raises the level of the mind, so you’re up on the tower … 
  13. A Stranger to Your Thoughts
     … Because after all, to get the mind to settle down and be still, you have to discern what’s going on in the mind. And to discern really clearly, you have to get the mind to be still. But this is not a Catch-22. These two sides develop gradually. It’s not an all-or-nothing kind of affair. As the mind gets … 
  14. Goodwill All Around
     … And then train the mind so it’s more and more careful all the time, more mindful all the time. This is why we use the breath or use the word buddho , or 32 parts of the body, whatever object we find is easy to keep in mind as a way of getting the mind to settle down. Once the mind settles down, it … 
  15. How to Leave Concentration
    As you’re sitting here trying to get the mind into concentration, the natural thing to talk about is how to get in: what to let go of as you leave the world outside, how to focus, how to work with your breath, and how to work with your mind, your awareness right now, so that it’ll be willing to settle down. It … 
  16. Making Yourself Worthy of Trust
     … When unskillful thoughts come up in the mind, you have to learn how to recognize them for what they are. That’s one of the functions of mindfulness. Mindfulness doesn’t mean just accepting whatever comes up. It means keeping something in mind. In this case, you keep in mind what you know is the right path, what you know is the wrong path … 
  17. Unhindered at Death
    When we usually think about the hindrances, we think about the Buddha’s comment that before you get the mind established in its frame of reference, before you establish mindfulness properly, before you get into concentration, you’ve got to clear the hindrances out of the way. So we tend to think that the hindrances are mainly a problem with getting the mind into … 
  18. Antidotes for Narcissism
     … And even then, what use would that be? Mindfulness doesn’t mean awareness. It means keeping something in mind. As in that old phrase—to be ever mindful of the needs of others—you keep other people’s needs in mind. It means you remember them. You hold them in mind. And the same with mindfulness practice. When you’re focusing on the breath … 
  19. Balancing Tranquility & Insight
     … The mind gets more still, and as things calm down, you gain more and more insight into this process of fabrication. The same principle applies to the third tetrad, when you’re directly aware of the mind. Again, the tetrad starts out by telling you to be sensitive to that aspect of your awareness. Here “mind” can also mean “intent,” the intent you have … 
  20. Fabrication
    Fabrication March, 2001 The mind has a basic habit, which is to create things. In fact, when the Buddha describes causality, how experiences come about, he says that the power of creation or sankhara — the mental tendency to put things together — actually comes prior to our sensory experience. It’s because the mind is active, actively putting things together, that it knows things. The … 
  21. Getting Your Head Around the Goal
     … It’s through these exercises of mindfulness and concentration that the mind’s powers of perception can grow. When the mind is more still, it can see subtler things. It develops a more refined sense of what kind of pleasure can be experienced in the present moment. It also becomes sensitive to more refined levels of stress, dis-ease, or disturbance in the mind … 
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