Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Basic Breath, Basic Insight
     … You want to be mindful and alert. “Mindful” here means keeping in mind the fact that you’re going to try to stay here, making sure the mind remembers to stay with the breath. And you want to be alert to see what you’re actually doing. If the mind wanders off, notice that fact and bring it back. While you’re with the … 
  3. Mindstorms
    Mindstorms December 1, 2004 There’s a part of the mind that’s just aware. No matter what else comes into the mind — greed, anger, delusion, despair, depression, regret, or fear — it’s just part of the mind. There’s also another part that’s just aware of these things, but it tends to get blocked out when strong emotions come in. Still, it … 
  4. Cause & Effect Right Now
     … When does the level of stress in the mind go up? When does it go down? And to see that, you’ve got to develop mindfulness, concentration, all the qualities of the path. Your mind’s already active in shaping your experience, and so the Buddha gives you an active path to learn how to shape it in a more skillful way. In the … 
  5. Bad Stuff Happens
     … When she came for a visit, he looked at her when she was meditating one night—he had this ability to look at people’s minds—and he said, “You’re doing nothing but subtle breathing.” He said, “This isn’t good for you.” There’s part of the mind that really likes it. Once you can get the mind into really subtle breathing … 
  6. A Mind Like Earth
    When the Buddha taught meditation to Rahula, his son, he started out by saying, “Make your mind like earth.”* *People throw disgusting things on the earth, but the earth doesn’t shrink away in disgust. Make your mind like water, wind, fire. Water washes away dirty things, wind blows dirty things around, fire burns garbage, but none of them are disgusted by the filth … 
  7. The World of the Body
     … Try to become sensitive to what feels best for the body, what feels best for the mind right now. As for other thoughts that may come to the mind, you can let them go. Try to stay in the world of the body right here. The mind is used to living in lots of different worlds. You’ve got the world of family, the … 
  8. Up for the Challenge
     … You hold that in mind, and you have to keep these things in mind, even though things are rumbling around in the body. This is why we have to strengthen mindfulness, to keep these things in mind even when—especially when—the choices are difficult and the body is acting up. It’s like being in a ship going down. You have to remember … 
  9. The Rivers of Karma
     … As the Buddha points out, there’s no abandoning our attachment for sensual pleasures until we can develop the sense of ease that comes from getting the mind still, centered, solidly based in the present. This is how you teach the mind not to be overcome by pleasure or pain. Pain becomes a tool an opportunity to learn about how the mind creates unnecessary … 
  10. Yes & No
     … when the mind wants to take on too much all at once. Stake out a little territory and protect it. Sometimes you hear that mindfulness is wide open. It accepts everything and doesn’t say No to anything. But that’s not how the Buddha taught mindfulness. He described mindfulness as a governing principle as more proactive: that when you see that there’s … 
  11. Bare Attention
     … There are skillful mind states and unskillful mind states. States that make you suffer are the unskillful ones. States that lead you away from suffering are the skillful ones. You’ve got to look at experience in those terms. And how do you recognize them? How do you tell skillful mind states from unskillful ones? You look at them in terms of what they … 
  12. Balancing Effort & Patience
     … Try to foster those resolves in your mind. It’s on top of that that the precepts are built. It’s also on top of that that right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration the willed factors in the meditation can grow. In other words, instead of trying to figure things out beforehand, you just look: Are there unskillful mental qualities in your mind … 
  13. Step Outside the World
     … So we have to develop strong powers of mindfulness and concentration to withstand this tendency of going into these worlds. Mindfulness is actually nurtured by of three things: mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Mindfulness is the ability to keep something in mind. You establish a frame of reference, such as the body in and of itself. In other words, it’s not the body as … 
  14. No Arrows, Nothing
     … If your present karma is skillful, then no matter how bad the situation in the body, the mind doesn’t have to suffer. The minds of arahants are totally free from suffering. They’re like the rest of us in that their bodies have pain and pleasure and neither-pleasure-nor-pain, but none of these things make inroads into the mind. So the … 
  15. The Committee of the Mind
    The Committee of the Mind April 22, 2022 We have that phrase in English, “to make up your mind.” It’s an interesting way of saying “to decide.” So make up your mind that you’re going to stay right here with one thing, with the breath. Make that your intention and try to maintain that intention all the way through the hour. You … 
  16. Right Here, Right Now
     … When you’ve gained insights into the present moment, exactly what state of mind were you in when you gained those insights? Was it a stable state of mind? Was it a steady state of mind? Was it clear? Was it mindful? Was it alert? There are many passages where the Buddha says that if someone actually puts the teaching into practice, develops the … 
  17. Collecting Your Tools
     … What goes on in your mind is karma as well. We tend to think of karma having to do with our relations with other people: the things we do to them, either good or bad; the things they do to us in return, either good or bad. We forget that the thoughts going through our mind are karma right here, right now. These are … 
  18. Antidotes
     … Run some scenarios through your mind. In other words, you have to get to know what are your trigger points, and how you’ve responded unskillfully to those trigger points in the past. Try running a few alternatives through the mind, and see how the mind responds. Sometimes it’ll go with the alternative, and other times it’ll come up with a complaint … 
  19. Strength of Body, Strength of Mind
     … And where do the things we do come from? They come from the mind. So our actions have value and our mind has a value as a result, because the mind has an influence on the pleasure and pain we meet with in life. As for the issues of the body, those have to be secondary. We don’t want the body to take … 
  20. Mastering Causality
     … There’s an active side to the mind that goes out and shapes them, adds a little here, takes away a little bit there. You’re getting sensitive to that aspect of the mind, to what you’re doing right now. That’s a large part of the insight you need to gain in the meditation. Most of us are like a man who … 
  21. The Values of Stillness
     … The chair here is your stillness of mind. And any other thoughts, any other concerns, any other responsibilities, let them stand around. If they don’t like standing, they can go. You don’t have to feel responsible for them. The mind needs its space. It needs to learn how to take on this different identity of the still mind. All too often, you … 
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