Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. Becomings
     … In this case, we’re trying to develop qualities of mindfulness, alertness, and ardency, to get the mind into concentration. You’re mindful of the breath coming in going out. You keep remembering to stay here. Try your best not to go someplace else. And then you’re alert. On the one hand, you’re alert to the breath itself: what it’s doing … 
  13. The Dualistic Path
     … And watch for the mind’s tendency to jump away. Usually it’s avoiding boredom or a little bit of tension. Sometimes even the slightest thing can send the mind off. Learn how to resist that habit. When you resist it, you can stay here. You begin to see, “Oh, there was that little bit of dis-ease that set the mind off, and … 
  14. Samatha, Vipassanā, Jhāna
     … As for samatha and vipassanā, he explained those as qualities in the mind. He didn’t have a specific samatha technique or vipassanā technique. He said you needed both qualities to get the mind to settle down, depending on what the problem is. Sometimes you can lull the mind into a sense of comfort just by staying with one thing. That’s the samatha … 
  15. All Four Tetrads at Once
     … It starts with being sensitive to the mind. If you haven’t been sensitive to the mind up to this point, you’re not going to get anywhere. As the Buddha said, the mind is right there all along: It has to be mindful and alert for you to stay with the breath from the very beginning. But sometimes the mind is the problem … 
  16. Awakening Is in the Details
     … In other words, there’s an image you’re holding in mind someplace, either a word or a picture, that you fasten on, that you focus on. That’s what enables the mind to stay in placel. Try to hold on to an image that allows the mind to stay with a sense of well-being, a sense of groundedness. It feels good being … 
  17. Peace of Mind
     … To begin with, it helps develop all kinds of useful qualities of mind, like mindfulness and alertness. You stick with the breath: That requires mindfulness. You watch the breath, you’re sensitive to the breath: That requires alertness. These are the two qualities you really need for any endeavor. In this way, meditation is like exercising your mind in the same way you exercise … 
  18. Develop Your Inner Observer
    “The mind is luminous”—that’s what the Buddha said one time—“and it’s defiled by incoming defilements,” which means the defilements don’t have to stay there. He says it’s because the mind is luminous that it can be developed. That means that when he’s talking about the luminous mind, he’s not talking about the awakened mind. He’s … 
  19. Dissolving Distress
    In the Buddha’s description of right mindfulness, he’s telling us how to get the mind into right concentration. The formula is this: You remain focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That covers two activities. Keeping focused on, say, the breath, in and of itself: That’s … 
  20. Suffering is an Addiction
     … You have to hold that possibility in mind, and talk to all the members of your mind’s committee, because some are very fearful. Some are very close-minded. Some are very impatient. You tell them to try something new, and they try it for two or three breaths and say, “This is not working,” and they go back to their old ways. So … 
  21. Persistence
     … right view, right mindfulness, and right effort. They go together. We tend to think of mindfulness as simply being with whatever comes up, but the Buddha never defined it that way or used it in that sense. Mindfulness is a faculty of keeping something in mind that you’re applying to what you’re doing. It’s the active use of your memory. There … 
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