Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Directing the Flow
    The mind well trained brings happiness; the mind untrained brings suffering and stress. The Buddha once said that it’s a sign of a wise person to realize how much the mind needs training. If it’s untrained, it’s like an untrained animal. If you have a dog that hasn’t been trained, it can’t live in the house. If a horse … 
  3. A Doctor’s Strategies
     … So these are some of the things you can think about when the mind is unwilling to settle down. Or if the mind has a particular problem, you can sit there and watch it. When the mind is sleepy, what is sleepiness? How much of it is physical, how much of it is mental? You can pose that question in your mind. When the … 
  4. The Uses of Right Concentration
    The Uses of Right Concentration December 2, 2014 It takes a fair amount of effort to get the mind into right concentration—so much so, that many of us don’t want to hear that there’s still more to be done. We’d rather stop right here and rest. But while it may be true that right concentration is the last factor of … 
  5. Commit & Reflect All Around
     … The mind is the forerunner of all things, they are made by the mind, and they are made excellent by the mind. In other words, what the mind does is the source of these things. So you want to look inside: What are you doing? You don’t want to think that you’re passively watching something. There’s a lot going on under … 
  6. Remembering Ajaan Lee
    Ajaan Lee wrote two books on the establishing of mindfulness, and each one is distinctive. The first one is distinctive because of the emphasis he places on the three qualities you bring to the practice: mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. That’s the recurring theme throughout the book. Mindfulness he defines as keeping something in mind. As he points out, just the practice of simply … 
  7. Developing Discernment
     … being mindful to stick with it consistently, so that you begin to see things in the mind that you didn’t see before. A lot of the mind’s subterfuges lie in the gaps. As Ajaan Lee once said, there comes a point when the mind just passes out and suddenly you find yourself in a different world. What happened in the moment of … 
  8. Four Bases of Success
     … At the same time, use effort on the mind. If the mind is wandering off, you bring it right back. It wanders off again, you bring it right back again. You’ve got to show the mind that you mean business. Otherwise, it’ll punch in the clock and then go off and sleep under a tree someplace. So look at your mind: What … 
  9. Immersed in the Body
    In the verses on respect that we chant often, the Buddha mentions respect for the triple training, which is training and heightened virtue, heightened mind or concentration, and heightened discernment. But he also mentions respect for concentration. It’s as if he wanted to make sure you know, that you’re doubly sure, that concentration is important. Maybe he foresaw that, in later centuries … 
  10. Gather ’Round the Breath
     … your awareness of the breath, your awareness of the mind together with the breath. You want your mindfulness to think about the breath, and to think about the mind, and your alertness to pay attention to both: How are things going with the breath? And to what extent is the mind staying with the breath? In the beginning, you have to go back and … 
  11. Magha Puja: Showing Respect with the Practice
     … This is where you find your true refuge, in developing their qualities in your mind—qualities of mindfulness, qualities of alertness, ardency, patience, endurance, concentration, discernment. As these qualities get stronger and stronger in the mind, you find that you really can take refuge in them. They provide you with a solid foundation. They lift your mind above its ordinary concerns, lift it above … 
  12. Feeding the Mind
    Where is your mind feeding right now? Where is it hoping to get its happiness? This is a very basic question of the meditation. The whole issue of feeding, taking sustenance, is a major issue in the Buddha’s teachings. There’s a series of questions called the Novice’s Questions. They start out with, “What’s one? What’s two? What’s three … 
  13. Skills for Dying Well
     … And you can decide, “I don’t want to go there.” You can do this because you’re getting the mind settled through mindfulness, alertness, and being ardent in doing this well. Now, these are precisely the skills you’re going to need at the moment of death. You can create a sense of well-being in the mind and you don’t feel … 
  14. The Path Converges Right Here
     … As you do this, you’re developing a lot of the qualities you’re going to need to get the mind to settle down. Being mindful, alert, and ardent comes into the factor of right mindfulness. You keep one topic in mind, such as the body in and of itself. Notice the “in and of itself.” That also refers to the idea of being … 
  15. Concentration: A Balancing Act
     … The Buddha’s description of how you go from mindfulness to concentration is in the seven factors for awakening. You start with mindfulness, then you read your mind: Does the mind need gladdening? Or does it need concentrating? Does it need cheering up? Or does it need settling down? If it’s too active, you go for the more calming factors: calm, concentration, and … 
  16. Lust
     … Or just look at what lust does to the mind, right here, right now, when it starts flaring up. Think of how much you lie to yourself, how many areas of the mind get shut down as you focus on liking this, wanting that, and totally ignoring all the consequences. The narratives you build up in the mind are total fantasies. To be attractive … 
  17. Pleasant Practice, Painful Practice
     … In both cases, you’re learning how to look at the role of perception in your mind, along with the role of feeling and fabrication, which are the central aggregates in any attempt to free the mind from the aggregates. That makes you more and more sensitive to what the mind is doing to deceive and create unnecessary suffering for itself. As for which … 
  18. Concentration Food
     … In this way, mindfulness develops. There’s some confusion about what mindfulness means. It’s not just your awareness. It’s not just your consciousness. It’s the act of holding something in mind. In this case, you’re holding the breath in mind. It’s a way of reminding yourself, “Any other thoughts that come in are not welcome right now.” They’re … 
  19. Ripples Go Far
    We develop the sublime attitudes every evening as a way of opening up and airing out the mind. When you’re focused on your troubles, your suffering, your issues, you suffer a lot because the range is small and the pain is big. So of course it seems overwhelming. When you expand your range, you begin to realize that the pain is a lot … 
  20. Goodwill Plus
    When we think thoughts of goodwill, it’s important that we make it a comfortable place for the mind to stay. Some people have difficulty with that; other people have no difficulty at all. It depends on your attitude toward happiness. If you’ve come with the idea that happiness is something selfish, that you shouldn’t be happy when other people are out … 
  21. The Inner Monitor
    Ajaan Lee used to like to say that as you meditate, you’re developing three qualities or treasures in the mind. He uses the Thai word sombat, which means treasure. First you’ve got the breath, which is the object treasure. In other words, it’s the right object to settle on, because it’s very close to the mind. And among all bodily … 
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