Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Insight from Jhana
    Insight from Jhana September 17, 2012 We meditate so that we can put an end to the sufferings in our lives, and particularly to the unnecessary sufferings that the mind imposes on itself. And, as it turns out, those are the sufferings that weigh down the mind. Without those sufferings, there’s no problem. So how does the meditation do this? We make the … 
  3. Large-hearted Goodness
    When you settle down with the breath, and the mind is willing to stay here watching the breath consistently, making it smooth all the way in, all the way out, it’s food for the mind. And it’s good food. It’s food inside, not food out in the world. You get a sense of well-being, a sense of ease, of being … 
  4. Death Without Drama
     … Mind states are just mind states, without all the fearful narratives. And that’s your refuge. The Buddha talks about taking the Dhamma as a refuge and he explains it as establishing mindfulness in this way. It’s your refuge because it helps pull you out of the narratives that would make things overwhelming. There’s a lot of drama that can happen around … 
  5. Worldly Narratives
     … So you use the reflection on aging, illness, and death to see that the narratives you create with your mind are, in the Buddha’s technical terms, nothing but sankharas. They’re mental fabrications. And as long as the mind is going to fabricate, you’d be better off using mental fabrications to bring the mind back to where it should be. Reflect on … 
  6. The Creator of Worlds
    The mind is constantly creating worlds for itself to live in. Sometimes they’re based on things you’re experiencing right now. But there’s always an element that comes in from the past—your assumptions, your narratives, your sense of who you are—so that even pleasant experiences in the present moment can be turned into pain as they stir up issues from … 
  7. Keep the Mind from Wandering
    The mind’s tendency is to wander—that’s what the word samsara means. Samsara is not a place. It’s an activity, something the mind does. We think of it mainly as what the mind does as it goes from one life to the next, but it’s a basic principle in the Buddha’s teachings that the larger patterns can be seen … 
  8. Grace & Dignity
     … We have greed, aversion, and delusion, and there are parts of our minds that really like greed, aversion, and delusion. That’s a danger. As the Buddha once said, the mind is capable of almost anything. Think of all the animals in the animal kingdom—all the different shapes and sizes and classifications. He said the mind is more variegated than that. The mind … 
  9. One Thing Clear Through
     … Then the mindfulness, alertness, and ardency, all the qualities you develop as you meditate, help to make your actions more consistent, in line with what discernment teaches us. Because if you have the teachings of the Buddha in mind but then you forget them, it’s as if the Buddha never existed. Which is why we need mindfulness to keep remembering: Our actions matter … 
  10. Learning by Doing
     … It’s what keeps your body and mind together. And it’s one of the few processes of the body that you can actually adjust. So you can make it comfortable to make it easier to stay here. We’re practicing both mindfulness and concentration together. Mindfulness is keeping something in mind. You’re going to keep the breath in mind right now. And … 
  11. The Good We Already Have
     … And as the breath gets steady and still this way, the mind begins to take after the breath. It gets in touch with its levels of steadiness and stillness as well. Because there already are parts of the mind that are totally unaffected by anything. It’s just that they get covered up by all the other things going on in the mind. But … 
  12. Producing Discernment
     … The mind isn’t willing to settle down with the breath. There’s something going on in the mind that you have to correct, and you have to think your way out of that unskillful mind state. Simply telling yourself, “I’ll be with the breath and everything will dissolve away,” doesn’t work. Again, reading the mind, getting sensitivity, and having a sense … 
  13. Breath vs. Distraction
     … You’ve got this body, and you’ve got the mind that’s aware. What are they doing here together? How do they relate to each other? A famous Zen master, Dogen, recommended asking questions like this: Is the body sitting in the mind, or is the mind sitting in the body? Which is the container for the other one? Or does there have … 
  14. Inconstancy
     … At first, we’re trying to create a state of mind that’s constant. You stay with one thing, and the Buddha’s trying to have you shift your allegiance from looking for pleasures in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas to looking at the state of mind, the quality of a still mind for your happiness, for your pleasure. That’s … 
  15. Solving Real Problems
     … If he was going to look for something that didn’t age, didn’t grow ill, didn’t die, he would have to look in the mind. He would have to train the mind so that even with the death of the body, the mind wouldn’t suffer. That right there requires that we have choice in the present moment. And this is what … 
  16. The Languages of Right View
     … This is the quality Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about in his definition of the word ekaggata, singleness of mind. It’s a mind that just can be there with the ups and downs, and yet not get knocked over by them. The mind on an even keel. The more you can develop that mind on an even keel, the more you develop the observer … 
  17. Choices that Matter
     … They can be developed and have a good impact on your mind. So we start with mindfulness. Give mindfulness a good foundation. Combine it with alertness—the ability to see what you’re doing while you’re doing it. And ardency, the desire to do this well. That kind of desire, the Buddha said, is good. It’s not the case that all desires … 
  18. What Should & Shouldn’t Be Done
     … They seem to be welling up from some deep part of the mind. Well, they may be coming from a deep part of the mind, but not every deep part of the mind is reliable. There are also some deep delusions in the mind. So it’s good to have some advice on what dangers to watch out for and what possibilities to look … 
  19. Issues of Control
     … We’re here to get to know our own experience, know our own mind, to get the mind to settle down. How deeply it settles down has to do both with our ability to calm things down in the mind, and also to gain some insight into what’s going on. There’s another sutta where the Buddha talks about how getting the mind … 
  20. Sober Up
    Sober Up January 30, 2011 In English, when we talk about getting the mind to stay focused on something, we talk about its “settling down.” And in one way that’s right. The mind tends to be flying around all over the place. If it can focus on one object, it’s like a flock of birds that finally settle down on one spot … 
  21. Take Your Time
     … Your mind is ready, you see the value of training the mind, and so you can focus in on the breath. But sometimes you find that it takes a while to get into the mood, and that’s perfectly fine. If there are mental habits or ways of thinking that get in the way of the mind settling down, sometimes you have to spend … 
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