Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 37
  2. The Problem of Suffering
     … When the mind is really still, it can use those same three characteristics as tools for prying loose more refined attachments. That’s why the teachings are there. So keep this in mind. The Buddha’s teachings are best understood from this perspective, from this perspective of a still mind: Alert. Mindful. Inquisitive. In other words, when a disturbance comes up, you want to … 
  3. Endurance
     … You’re going to be looking at your own mind as the mind is looking at the breath. In the beginning, you want to pay most attention to the breath, and pay attention to the mind mainly when it’s not with the breath. When it’s wandering off, bring it back. Try to breathe in a way that will make the mind want … 
  4. Distractive Thoughts
     … But know that you probably will wander off again, because that’s the way the mind is used to operating. When they talk about samsara, it’s not a place, it’s an activity of the mind that wanders around. This is what the mind’s been doing for who knows how long. So take it for granted that the mind will wander off … 
  5. Establishing Priorities
     … You’ve got to keep in mind the fact that the mind has to be trained if you want to gain true happiness, and you don’t want to train the mind only when you sit here with your eyes closed. You want the training to be 24/7 because the mind’s potential to create problems is 24/7 as well. So it … 
  6. Do You Want to Stop Suffering?
     … You learn to watch your mind more carefully. This ability to watch your own mind in action: That’s the discernment that allows you to dig deeper and deeper and deeper inside, always with that thought in mind: There’s something that you’re doing that’s causing stress, that’s weighing down the mind, and you don’t have to do it. You … 
  7. A Positive-Sum Game
     … Each time you’ve overcome the impulse to go someplace else, there’s a small victory in the mind. The mind will come up with all kinds of reasons as to why you should move someplace else. As you learn to see through those reasons, that’s another victory. You’ve gained some insight into how the mind pushes itself around, how it lets … 
  8. Protection from Fools
     … So the skill you need is to be still, and keeping the mind still requires mindfulness and alertness to protect it: mindfulness to keep your meditation object in mind, and alertness to see how well you’re staying with it. Then comes discernment, the ability to see how you can maintain that still state in the midst of your other activities. For most of … 
  9. Right Livelihood
    For the mind to settle down, you need to give it space. This principle works on many layers. You need to give it a good space in the body. You need to give it a good space in your life. Because meditation isn’t simply a practice that you can fit into the cracks of your life regardless of what shape those cracks are … 
  10. Working at Home
    Working at Home August 13, 2008 A traditional Pali term for concentration is vihara-dhamma, a home for the mind. It’s a place where the mind can stay. But it’s also more than that. As with any home, there’s more to the home than just the bedroom. And there’s more to the home than just living in it. First you … 
  11. Training Your Inner Teacher
    We’re trying to find a special kind of truth inside ourselves, the truth of the end of suffering, a deathless dimension that can be accessed by the mind. The Buddha describes the steps in awakening to that truth. You start by finding a teacher who’s reliable, and you listen to the Dhamma; you pay careful attention; you try to remember the Dhamma … 
  12. Nuclear Thinking
     … Mindfulness and alertness are like teachers of the mind, and you’ve got to train them to be sharp and wise. When alert mindfulness fills the body, fills your awareness, then your random thoughts get very quiet. But your thoughts are sneaky. As soon as mindfulness slips a little bit, a new thought forms in the corner. Then it spreads out to fill up … 
  13. Hindrances to the Heightened Mind
     … Just because something comes up in the mind, they make us feel that we’re committed, that we have to think the thought through. There’s also the problem where one part of the mind says, “Well, as long as I’m trying to get the mind into concentration, I can’t let there be any thoughts at all in the mind,” and so … 
  14. Perceptions of the Breath
    Perceptions of the Breath March 23, 2010 To bring the mind to the breath, you need to have a perception—a label or a picture in mind—as a way of reminding yourself where you want to stay, and exactly what topic you’re focusing on. That’s because all the states of concentration up to the dimension of nothingness are called perception attainments … 
  15. How the Tree Leans
     … The same applies to the mind. You can be sitting here very still with the mind focused on the present moment. But the present moment keeps changing. The present moment you were focused on just a few seconds ago is gone. The mind is leaning in different directions. As the Buddha said, based on the thoughts that you encourage in your mind, it’s … 
  16. In the Mood
    In the Mood October 20, 2011 When you meditate, you’ve got to put the mind in the right mood. Sometimes, focusing on the breath is the way to put it in the right mood. You take a couple of long, deep, in-and-out breaths, and it feels good. You can just feel the stress and the strain melting away. The patterns of … 
  17. Equanimity After Victory
     … When the mind has come to discernment—the discernment that comes as you peel away layers of fabrication on the mind—then you can arrive at equanimity. But you don’t stop with equanimity in the practice of concentration. You use that equanimity to look more carefully into the mind, to see the subtler defilements that come up, that are apparent when the mind … 
  18. Inner Discontent
    Training the mind is like training a child. You have to have a sense of when to be gentle with it and when to be strict. This is a sense that you can develop only over time—which means that there are going to be mistakes in the practice, times when you push yourself way too hard, you get frazzled, and you begin to … 
  19. Mindfulness Island
     … He says you do that by establishing mindfulness. Now, if you think of mindfulness as meaning just awareness, it doesn’t help you very much. But then you remember that when the Buddha used the term “mindfulness,” he talked about it as a faculty of the memory—the act of keeping things in mind. This is where mindfulness becomes helpful—because there are values … 
  20. Free for the Time Being
     … Because when you find yourself in a situation where you’re really tempted to break the precept, it’s best that the precepts be really clear-cut in your mind. They’re not long and complicated, with lots of exceptions and conditions. No killing. No stealing. No lying. Period. It’s easy to keep in mind. So you need mindfulness, you need alertness so … 
  21. A Foundation for Restraint
     … Once the mind has settled down, you want to protect it. The big destroyer of your concentration, the big destroyer of your mindfulness, is this tendency to want to go feeding off sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations the way you had been in the past, bringing more things back to clutter up this home of the mind. So watch out for that. Try … 
  22. Load next page...