Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Love Me, Love My Defilements
    Love Me, Love My Defilements May 3, 2010 A concept that many modern people find very hard to accept is that their minds have defilements. They think that their minds are perfectly fine, with nothing dirty or defiling in them. People can be especially sensitive about this issue because they grew up with the idea of original sin, that they were somehow inherently bad … 
  3. Freedom from Fear
    Part of the formula for right mindfulness, and the means for getting the mind into right concentration, is “putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In times when that’s hard, when you have anxieties about what’s going on in the world, fear about what’s going to happen, you have to learn how to get that fear under control … 
  4. Thoughts About Thinking
     … But actually, their ignorance of what’s going on in the mind is just a sign that their minds have lots of walls inside. They’ve learned how to cover up a lot of things below the surface. But if you get the mind really quiet, you can start seeing when a decision is made way before it becomes obvious, before it comes to … 
  5. Wealth Worth Holding Onto
     … So in sticking with the precepts, you’re getting the mind ready to settle into concentration complete with mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Those are the kind of precepts that are pleasing to the noble ones, that incline the mind to want to settle down. As the Buddha said, the two things that are important for mindfulness and concentration are views made straight—i.e … 
  6. Only Natural
    Only Natural May 16, 2020 One of the main reasons for suffering is the way the mind talks to itself. Now, the solution is not to just stop talking. You have to understand the process of what’s going on as the mind talks to itself. Who’s talking? Where does it come from? Where does it lead? When you understand it, then you … 
  7. Caring Without Clinging
     … But he said he established mindfulness so that his mind was not overtaken by his sense of dissatisfaction. When the students did follow his teachings, and did gain awakening, it’s not that he didn’t like that. He did like it, but he didn’t allow the sense of satisfaction to overcome his mind. What this means is that the mind has to … 
  8. Cook Your Mind
     … In fact, all the other factors of the path starting with right resolve through right mindfulness are aimed at getting the mind in right concentration. As you do that, you begin to see how the aggregates function in the mind. The aggregates aren’t things. It’d be good if there were a better translation in English—the word khandha in Pali means “heap … 
  9. Inner Voice Lessons
    Inner Voice Lessons August, 2002 One of the first things you notice as you try to quiet the mind is the lack of quiet — all the chattering going on, all the discussions, the dialogs, the committee discussions going on up in your head, and sometimes all over your body. There seems to be never-ending chatter. Often our first thought as we start to … 
  10. The Power of Perception
    When you’re concentrated on the breath, you’re trying to hold one perception in mind: just the label, “breath.” Think for a minute about what the breath can be. It can be the feeling of the air coming in and out through the nose; it can be the feeling of the energy coursing through your body. It’s all part of what they … 
  11. Countercultural Conditioning
     … Breathe in ways that gladden the mind, concentrate the mind, that are conducive to releasing the mind—things that we usually don’t think about. He says that if you pay attention to your breath, it has lots of potential, and it’s going to have an impact on the mind. Then there are new ways of talking to yourself—first, to get the … 
  12. To Comprehend Suffering
     … If you can keep that in mind, you can overcome your knee-jerk reaction of wanting to push it away or to run away from it. This is why you develop mindfulness, to remember these things. Then you want to develop your alertness so that you can see exactly how the mind is acting and reacting around the pain, so that you can catch … 
  13. Healing Your Energy
     … The quality of the mind is determined by how you feel here in the present moment. If you’re feeling that this is not a good place to stay and you want to run away, what kind of mind is a running mind? What does it see? It doesn’t see things clearly, and it’s not really in a position of strength. When … 
  14. Useful Vocabulary
     … So one of the purposes of getting the mind into concentration is not just to have equanimity for everything. It’s to give rise to the mindfulness and alertness. As the Buddha said, that’s one of the uses of concentration: so you can see precisely when things are arising in the mind and notice the mind’s reaction. The more precise your vocabulary … 
  15. Dealing with the Hindrances
     … Meanwhile, you develop bad habits in the mind. As the Buddha said, the things you tend to think about a lot bend the mind. So every time it thinks, its thinking gets bent in that direction, like ruts in a road. The deeper the ruts, the harder it is to get out. Heedfulness works together with appropriate attention to keep the mind from getting … 
  16. Dangers Outside & In
     … You have to keep this in mind, so you’re mindful. Then you get the mind into concentration because the mind needs food, and if it doesn’t have the food of the pleasure of concentration, it’s going to go feeding off other things. This is when you learn that you can’t really trust yourself. Often, when the food that you can … 
  17. Discernment in Concentration
     … You’re learning about the workings of your mind, and the workings of the mind don’t work only when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed. This is how the mind works as it goes through the day. When you begin to realize the element of choice that you have in your meditation to use your aggregates in a way that creates … 
  18. No Dharma Without Karma
     … the mind—the same mind that’s going to be doing the meditation. If you’re mindful in following the precepts, you’re getting basic lessons in mindfulness, alertness, and ardency—which are the qualities that meditation requires. So the practice of virtue and generosity are an important part of the practice of meditation. They teach you the right values. In other words, they … 
  19. Lessons of Distraction
    One of the more frustrating parts of concentration practice is when you find that your mind won’t stay where you tell it to. You could leave that as a lesson in not-self and just let it keep happening, but that wouldn’t really accomplish much. The important thing is not to get frustrated, and to realize that you’re going to be … 
  20. Self-Correct
    The Buddha’s instructions for getting the mind into concentration are found in his description of right mindfulness. You start by keeping the body in and of itself in focus. The “body in and of itself” means just taking the body in its own terms—your direct experience of the body right here, right now, without reference to how it looks to other people … 
  21. Where Perceptions Can Take You
     … That’s one perception you can keep in mind. Or when Ajaan Lee talks about the breath going down the back, down the legs, you can hold that perception in mind. Then there are levels of breath energy: gross, refined, and subtle. You can hold those perceptions in mind as well, because those will help move you beyond just being stabilized to what the … 
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