Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Looking for Essence in the Wilderness
     … So that’s the quality of mind we’re trying to find. It can be with good things and bad things, and not make its happiness depend on the good things or bad things. We get the mind still so that we can see the actions of the mind as it’s creating passion or aversion around something. If we get the mind really … 
  3. The Flamethrowing Mind
    The Flamethrowing Mind September 4, 2023 As the passage that we chanted just now said, everything is on fire. Where do the flames come from? From inside the mind. The mind is a flamethrower. It scorches everything we look at, listen to, smell, taste, touch, think about. Then we complain that things are hot. We have to look around and see: Why are we … 
  4. WYSIWYG
     … And if you pay attention, you begin to realize that it reflects your mind state with a lot of sensitivity. At the same time, as you can learn how to control the breath, you see it has an effect on the mind state. The two are very closely associated, very closely connected. This is where you can get a handle on your mind, on … 
  5. Luminous
    There’s a passage where the Buddha says that the reason why we can train the mind is because it’s luminous. Now, luminous here doesn’t mean that it’s pure. If it were already pure, there’d be no need to train it. We can train it because it can observe itself. It can see what it’s doing, reflect on what … 
  6. Reflect
     … You have to keep those precepts in mind, and be alert to what you’re actually doing to make sure that your actions follow the precepts. This gives you training in mindfulness and alertness, which are the skills you’re going to need for concentration. When you practice concentration, you have to keep one object in mind, like the breath. And then you have … 
  7. Maintenance Work
     … Right there is an important lesson in discernment, seeing how efficiently you can keep the mind in place. This is why, when they describe the levels of jhana, the deeper it goes, the fewer activities are involved, because you’re getting more efficient in keeping the mind in place, to the point where all you have to do is just be mindful and watching … 
  8. Bases for Success
     … When the mind goes out to an object, how does it go out? Or when there’s a lapse of mindfulness, what presages the lapse of mindfulness, tells you to look here, to watch out, something is going to happen? What choices does the mind make? You want to use your concentration to observe what’s going on. That’s the kind of concentration … 
  9. The Truth of Desires
    One of the reasons we try to get the mind in concentration is because it allows us to see the intentions that don’t want to be in concentration. If we don’t set up this intention that we’re going to stay here with a breath, one intention, one thought, one perception flows into another, and another, and another. The boundaries get very … 
  10. Abandoning & Developing
     … Other monks stay in monasteries and their minds are a mess. They have to go out and suffer some hardships in the forest before their minds will be willing to settle down. So you have to look at the pleasures you enjoy and ask yourself, “What do they do to me? What do they do to my mind?” That’s called having appropriate attention … 
  11. The Importance of Being Focused
    As you focus on the breath, it often helps to keep reminding yourself of how important the breath is, and why it’s important to be able to train the mind to stay with one thing. The breath is important, because after all it is the force of life. It’s what keeps the mind and the body together. And the quality of the … 
  12. Training Your Inner Teacher
     … If you just think, “Okay, I’m going to be mindful for the entire hour that I’m doing walking meditation,” you get lost pretty quickly. But if you’re standing at one end of the path and say, “Okay, from here to the other end, I’m going to be as mindful as possible”; when you get to the other end, turn around … 
  13. Insight Is a Judgment Call
     … We fool ourselves, and part of the mind likes to be fooled. But there should be another part of the mind that says, “I’ve had enough. I want something better.” That’s the part of the mind you want to listen to. That’s the part of the mind that’ll get you to release. Because that’s what release is: the mind … 
  14. Investing in Noble Wealth
     … the qualities you’ve built into the mind. This is why we spend so much time working with the mind. Because the effort expended here, the time and effort invested here, are time and effort well-spent. If you’re not developing good qualities of the mind, you’re developing bad qualities. We don’t like to think about that. We think of the … 
  15. The Middle Way
     … So you try to anchor your mind right here, right now to see this more clearly. This is why the Buddha has you develop mindfulness of the body, feelings, mind states, or mental qualities in and of themselves, as they’re present so that you can watch them. Mindfulness is also a matter of getting the mind still, bringing it to right concentration. In … 
  16. Resourceful
     … And in line with what the Buddha said about developing your refuge by working on the establishing of mindfulness, Ajaan Lee focused on the establishing of mindfulness as the way in which you develop this internal refuge. You have to remember that his approach was interesting in that he focused not so much on body, feelings, mindstates, or mental qualities. He did talk about … 
  17. The Mind's Immune System
    The Mind's Immune System August, 2002 We’re here to look after the health of our minds because the mind has a tendency to fall prey to diseases. There’s a passage in the Udana where the Buddha right after his Awakening surveys the world, and he sees everybody on fire with the fevers of passion, aversion, and delusion. So when we talk … 
  18. Stand Your Ground
     … Either way, it’s not good for getting the mind to settle down in the present and see itself, because when we hit the wound, the mind recoils. If you run into scar tissue, you don’t really know what’s there, because it’s all hardened. So for the mind to be open to itself—particularly for your mindfulness to be able to … 
  19. An Even Keel
     … the mind that doesn’t react. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations come, ideas come, mental states come, and they clap up against the mind. And the normal mind will just clap right back: liking and disliking them, reacting, commenting on them one way or another. But what we’re after is the mind that doesn’t clap back, the mind that simply knows … 
  20. As They’ve Come to Be
     … What causes those things to come up in the mind? And don’t look for the origination out there in the world; it’s in the mind. When the Buddha uses that word, “origination,” nine times out of ten he’s talking about causes coming from the mind. So, say that there’s a bout of lust coming up in the mind. What inside … 
  21. Anapanasati Day
     … The feelings that go along with the breath—either feelings of ease, or dis-ease—and the state of your mind: Is it able to stay with the breath or not? We often think that our minds are well concentrated and alert, and yet when you give the mind something very basic like this to watch and stay with, you begin to gain a … 
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