Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … What kind of skills are you going to need? You have to be mindful. You have to be alert. You have to be ardent. These are the qualities we develop as we meditate. They’re part of the mindfulness instructions. But then, the instructions that the Buddha gives in his description of right mindfulness are basically instructions on how to get the mind into … 
  3. Mind in & of Itself
     … But the mind is carrying lots of attitudes, lots of problems from the day, and you’ve got to work on it. In other words, what you’re doing is surveying the first three of the frames of reference under Right Mindfulness—body, feelings, and mind. And if the mind is the problem, you have to work on the mind “in and of itself … 
  4. Sensitive to the Mind
    We practice concentration to get the mind in one place—right here. There are different ways of doing that. The breath is home base: Of all the meditation methods that the Buddha taught, this is the one he taught in most detail because it helps to clarify a lot of the big issues in the mind, especially around the issue of fabrication, or saṅkhāra … 
  5. Protection Through Mindfulness
    The Buddha often talks about mindfulness as a form of protection, in that it protects you from doing unskillful things—because you have a fund of knowledge, and if you’re mindful, you have it at your fingertips. You can remember things that you’ve done in the past, things you’ve learned, things you’ve heard, the lessons you’ve learned, and then … 
  6. When You’ve Played Enough With the Breath
     … The first tetrad deals with the breath directly; the second, with feelings; the third, with the mind; and the fourth, with dhammas. These correspond to the four frames of reference for establishing mindfulness. The theme all the way through these steps is the interaction among breath, feelings, and mind. In some of the steps, the emphasis is on how the mind can have an … 
  7. Like Earth and Space
     … And the mind has to be very still to see those subtle things: the difference between breathing that’s easeful and not easeful; that gives rise to rapture or doesn’t; that calms the mind or doesn’t calm the mind; that steadies the mind or doesn’t steady the mind. You have to be very sensitive. The more you can make your mind … 
  8. The Hall of Mirrors
    Ajaan Lee, in talking about the deluded mind, the ignorant mind, the greedy mind, often compares it to an animal encountering a mirror. The animal doesn’t know that it’s a mirror, so understands what it sees in the mirror as another animal. If it’s a monkey, the monkey sees another monkey, but doesn’t gain anything out of it. A bird … 
  9. It’s All in What You’re Doing
    We’ve come to train our minds. So why are we looking at our breaths? It’s because we need to focus the mind. We need to bring it into the present moment. The breath is the guarantee that we’re right here. There’s no future breath you can watch, no past breath you can watch. So, at the very least, you’ve … 
  10. The Third Frame of Reference
    The Third Frame of Reference October 15, 2009 One of the important skills we need to learn to develop as meditators is how to read our own mind. This comes in the third frame of reference, keeping track of the mind in and of itself. Keeping track here means not only watching the mind, but also figuring out what the mind needs. This is … 
  11. Free Not to Suffer
    You’re free to spend the rest of the hour focusing on the breath, focusing on your mind, bringing the two together. Why would you want to do that? The Buddha explains an awful lot about why. Sometimes I’ve encountered people who just want to do the technique. They don’t want to hear the theory behind it, but the question is: What … 
  12. Study & Practice
     … Those are some of the things you keep in mind. Then you want to bring in two other qualities besides the mindfulness. One of them is alertness, watching what you’re doing, checking on the mind, checking on the body, i.e., checking on your object and also checking on the state of the mind to see whether it’s going to stay here … 
  13. Take Nothing for Granted
    The Pali word samādhi that we translate as “concentration” in English, is translated into Thai by the phrase, tang jai man, which means to set your mind firmly on something. In this case, set your mind on what you’re doing, what the mind is doing. Set your mind on one thing. Give it a purpose. That’s one of the reasons why we … 
  14. Heedful, Attentive, Mindful
     … Then the establishing of mindfulness is what puts that project into action. Mindfulness is not non-reactive awareness—as we’ve sometimes been taught—or non-judgmental awareness. It’s the ability to keep something in mind. Of course, if there are dangers, you’ve got to keep the dangers in mind. If you’ve learned any ways of avoiding those dangers, you keep … 
  15. Discernment Fosters Concentration
    There are a lot of mental qualities that go into training the mind, and the Buddha has several lists. In some of the lists, concentration fosters discernment; in other lists, discernment fosters concentration. The five faculties, five strengths: Those are lists that put the concentration first. You start with a certain conviction in the Buddha’s teachings and you get to work, get the … 
  16. Equanimity in Heart & Mind
     … This is why we come to train the mind—but not just the mind. In Pali they use the word citta, which means both “heart” and “mind.” As you look through the various Buddhist cultures, you can see that there’s no clear distinction between heart and mind—the mind being the mental function that figures things out, analyzes reality, and then the heart … 
  17. Worthy of Trust
     … The more quickly you can sense when the mind is about to change its frame of reference, the easier it’ll be to stay with your meditation object. This is why mindfulness has to be coupled with alertness. Mindfulness means keeping something in mind, remembering why you’re here, what you should be doing. Alertness is checking on what you’re doing to make … 
  18. When Aging Closes In
     … Mindfulness means keeping something in mind. You practice it together with alertness. The first thing you need to keep in mind, of course, is the fact that the training of the mind is the most important thing there is. When you look back on your life, you want to be able to see that you developed some of the perfections, the same perfections that … 
  19. Lifting the Mind
    It’s a common expression in Thai that when you bring your mind to your meditation object, you’re lifting it. The first step is to lift it above your ordinary concerns. Get out of the stories and reflections about the day. One way to do that is to remember that you’re not the only person who has to train his or her … 
  20. Judging Mindfulness & Concentration
    When the Buddha describes mindfulness practice, he describes two activities. The first is keeping focused on one topic, like the breath, in and of itself. You’re not worried about the breath in relationship to the world outside, just the breath that you’re experiencing directly, right here, right now. Where do you experience it? Where do you feel it when it comes in … 
  21. Mindful & Discerning 24/7
     … Think of Ajaan Mun arguing with his own mind, doing battle with his own defilements. One of the reasons we do concentration practice is to give the mind some rest between the battles. But also, the process of getting the mind concentrated teaches you some important things about its workings. As the mind begins to settle in, you use directed thought and evaluation—verbal … 
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