Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. A Sense of Direction
     … At the same time, it allows the mind to see itself clearly. Because when you get the mind well-settled in concentration, mindfulness and alertness come to the fore. You can see the motions of the mind and their results: when they cause harm, when they don’t cause harm. In this area, though, the harm is very subtle, it’s hard even to … 
  8. Respect for Emptiness
     … Those little moments of stillness in the mind: We tend to ignore them, we don’t pay them much attention. We’re so much more interested in running after things, getting the mind all stirred up, yet ignoring those little moments of stillness between what basically come down to moments of disturbance in the mind. We see the disturbance as interesting and the stillness … 
  9. What You’re Responsible For
     … Just focus on the mind and the breath right here, right now. Is the mind staying with the breath? If not, is the problem with the breath or with the mind? First, focus on the mind. Get a sense of what kind of mind you’re bringing to the meditation. Thinking about the future or the past? Put those thoughts aside. Too much energy … 
  10. Start with Goodwill
     … Why is it that the mind, even though it wants happiness, can create suffering for itself? It’s all in the background. Try to get as sensitive as you can, first to the breath and the body. That will then transfer over to becoming sensitive to the mind, which is a lot more delicate. So we’re here to get the mind still—but … 
  11. Constructing & Deconstructing
     … You’re looking for disturbances the mind is creating itself. And the classic example is that when you’re getting the mind to settle down, you’ve got to talk to it. You evaluate the breath, think about the breath, evaluate the breath some more. You think about your mind, evaluate your mind, see how you might be able to fit them together. When … 
  12. The Path to Stream Entry
     … And the cause comes from within the mind. Basically what it’s saying is that whatever is caused by the mind is going to cease. That insight appears spontaneously when you’ve seen something that’s not caused by the mind, and it doesn’t cease. Whereas, everything else that was caused by the mind does cease in that experience. Which is why you … 
  13. The Primacy of the Mind (2)
    The Primacy of the Mind (2) June 22, 2021 All phenomena are preceded by the mind or the heart: the first verse in the Dhammapada. Last night I talked about how people tend to forget this verse when they come to meditation—forgetting the active role of the mind. Tonight I’d like to talk a little bit more about the topic because the … 
  14. Unskillful Thinking
     … They’re sure to spark greed, anger, and delusion in the mind. But if you learn to be really mindful, you can see the whole process of sensory perception: how sights come in, what the mind does with the sights, how sounds are sensed, and what the mind does with the sounds. You begin to see what an artificial process the whole thing is … 
  15. How to Straighten Out the World
     … So keep the breath in mind: That’s mindfulness. Then watch the breath as it’s coming in, as it’s going out: That’s alertness. You also need alertness to make sure that your mind is staying with the breath. If you realize that you’ve slipped off, just bring it right back. The breath is always here. It’s not going to … 
  16. Mindful of the Buddha’s Shoulds
     … right view, right resolve, and all the way through right mindfulness and right concentration. This is something that should be developed. So, these are things you keep in mind—there are some shoulds here. You should comprehend suffering, you should abandon its cause, you should realize the cessation by developing the path. Those are things you’ve got to keep in mind because the … 
  17. Right Speech, Inside & Out
    To get the mind to settle down, you have to talk to it. Remind it of why it’s a good thing to be here, a good thing to be with the breath, how you don’t have to be responsible for anything else right now. Take some joy in that fact. Give it pep talks when it’s discouraged, rein it in when … 
  18. True to the Teachings
     … That’s what we’re doing now as we try to bring the mind to concentration. When the mind is concentrated, try to balance that concentration to make sure it’s not just a dull stillness. Make the mind mindful and alert, so that you can actually look into your own mind to see where there’s still any falseness in there—in the … 
  19. Making an Effort
     … There are people who have all kinds of nice things outside but if the mind isn’t trained, they can still be very miserable: creating all sorts of trouble for themselves and for the people around them. So it’s good to reflect on the difference between a trained mind and an untrained mind. With a trained mind, you think about things that are … 
  20. Feeding Off the Future
    The reason we’re meditating, training the mind, is because the suffering that stabs at the mind is the suffering we create for ourselves by the attitude we bring to things. Now this doesn’t mean that the world outside is all perfectly okay and that the only problem is that our minds are poorly trained. The world outside can be pretty miserable. People … 
  21. The Energy You Broadcast
    The Energy You Broadcast November 2, 2020 One of the distinctive teachings of the Forest tradition is its emphasis on how proactive the mind is in its engagement with the senses and with the world. We’re not just on the receiving end of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations coming in. We don’t simply respond to the stimulus of other people’s … 
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