Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Complexities of Karma
     … This is why we develop mindfulness, so that we can remember what’s good, what’s right and what’s wrong, and hold that in mind and not let our emotions or our moods push that knowledge away. Remember, mindfulness means keeping something in mind. And you want to keep in mind the fact that your intentions are important, your actions will shape your … 
  3. A Concentration Checklist
     … In other words, the mind settles down and suddenly you realize, “Hey! The mind has settled down.” The mind hasn’t been talking to itself for a while, you realize, “Wow! The mind hasn’t been talking.” And that’s the end of it. This is where you have to take a very matter-of-fact attitude toward whatever comes up. You can’t … 
  4. Descartes’ Error
     … How do you go from being aware to forming thoughts? What are the steps in that process? You can’t see them unless you make the mind really still, unless you raise that question in your mind and turn your attention to making the mind still. So this is the proper role of thinking: directing your attention to important issues that are needed to … 
  5. The Perception of Space
     … reflections or perceptions to keep in mind as you get the mind in shape to be with the breath. These reflections and perceptions can be useful in all kinds of situations. One of the perceptions he taught to Rahula was make your mind like space. Nothing can be written on space. This is an image that keeps reappearing throughout the Canon. When the Buddha … 
  6. The Practice is Wherever There’s Mindfulness
     … In fact, that’s what mindfulness is: directed awareness. Mindfulness is keeping something in mind. Like right now as you’re meditating, you’re keeping the breath in mind. You’re keeping your meditation word in mind—if you’re using a meditation word—remembering not to wander off; remembering also, if you wander off, to come back. You can also remember what ways … 
  7. The Taste Is Release
     … When the mind is nurtured by discernment, it gains release from what are call the effluents, qualities that flow out of the mind, bubble up in the mind, and create a flood that can often sweep us away: sensuality, becoming, ignorance. Those are the four noble dhammas: virtue, concentration, discernment, release. In other words, the instructions remind us that the whole point of this … 
  8. Inquisitive
     … How does the mind relate to the body, how does the body relate to the mind? And how can you understand that relationship in a way that you can make the most use of it? You see that the mind and the body meet at the breath. So as you get to know the relationship between the mind and the breath, that spreads out … 
  9. Beginner's Mind, Expert's Mind
  10. Suffering Comes from What You’re Doing
     … Because if the mind is restless and you’re impatient with your restless mind, that just stokes the fire. So find some spot in the mind, find some spot in the body, in the breath, that’s relatively still, and as for the rest of the mind, just let it chatter for a while. One of the basic principles of the practice is that … 
  11. The Interactive Present
     … Then you can start applying the same principle to positive mind states, the ones that you’re trying to develop. If you’re conscious of the part of the mind that doesn’t want to stay with the breath, try to find the part of the mind that does, that really appreciates having a chance to settle down and let go of its burdens … 
  12. A Safe Haven Through Alertness
    One of the Pali terms for concentration is vihāra-dhamma, “a home for the mind.” It’s a place where you settle in and dwell with a sense of peace, security, well-being. And as we all know, it takes a heap of living to make a house a home. Sometimes it’s easy to settle down with the breath and sometimes it’s … 
  13. Do Jhana
     … Get the mind in right concentration.” And in doing jhana, you develop both samatha and vipassanā—these qualities of mind. They’re not meditation techniques. They’re aspects of the practice of jhana—qualities you need to bring to the practice of jhana and qualities that get developed as you do more jhana. It’s important to keep this point in mind, particularly as … 
  14. A Culture of Restraint
     … What are you developing in your mind? When you follow certain trains of thought, you develop the habits that go along with them. You create ruts in the mind. When you give free rein to anger, you create an anger-rut. When you develop mindfulness, you create a mindfulness-rut. The next time you get anywhere near those patterns of thinking, the mind falls … 
  15. A Mind Bigger than Pain
     … You want to develop a state of mind that’s not suffering, not clamoring after pleasure or running away from pain. This is one of the reasons we’re trying to develop a centered state of mind. And, from that centered state of mind, really look into how it is that the mind creates suffering, not only out of pain but also out of … 
  16. A Full Range of Archery Skills
     … Also remember that, in stilling the mind, it’s not simply a matter of beating them mind down. If you beat it down, when the beating down ends, then it springs right back to its old ways. You want to develop some insight into your mind as it settles down: the insight that sees both what the mind would like, what skillful objects the … 
  17. Befriending the Breath
     … Say, “I’m here to make my mind a better mind, so that I’m not disturbed by what other people do. If there’s anything unskillful I’ve done in the past, I’m going to learn how not to do it again.” How do you do that? By developing good qualities in the mind, like the alertness, the mindfulness, and the sensitivity … 
  18. Part I : Basic Instructions
     … The qualities here are mindfulness, alertness, those things that undergird the development of discernment. Keep the breath in mind and be alert to it as it comes in, as it goes out. Be alert to how well your mind relates to it, how you can change the way you breathe. How can you change the way you think about your breathing, so that it … 
  19. Your Higher Power
     … The way we breathe is going to have an impact both on the body and on the mind. And you’re reclaiming the breath. Otherwise your greed, aversion, and delusion, your fear and your lust—these attitudes in the mind, these emotions of the mind—come and take over. They take over the breath. They have their way of making you breathe so that … 
  20. Open Are the Doors to the Deathless
     … Exactly what are you doing that’s causing a burden to the mind right now? Do you have to keep burdening the mind in that way? The Buddha’s answer is No. What is your answer? Part of the mind will say, “I don’t know. I can’t see.” Okay, get the mind quiet. Then if anything comes up in the mind that … 
  21. The Arrows of Emotion
     … Make your mind like the earth, meditate to make your mind in tune with the earth—in the sense that people will throw disgusting things on the earth, but the earth doesn’t react. Train your mind to be like wind. Wind blows disgusting things around, but the wind doesn’t get upset. Train it to be like fire. Fire burns garbage, but the … 
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