Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Calming Mental Fabrication
    When the Buddha teaches concentration practice—breath meditation practice—he gives you a physical fabrication to focus on, i.e., the breath coming in, going out, and then he gives you a verbal fabrication, the instructions, “Keep track of the breath; remain focused on the breath—ardent, alert, mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” So you keep reminding yourself … 
  3. Against the Stream
     … And once your mind has been bent like that, it takes a while for it to get unbent. So there will be thoughts that come into the mind and they just don’t seem to want to go away, but this is what we have the breath for. Say, “Well, that thought can have that corner of the mind, but I’m going to … 
  4. Slowing Down to Look
     … a mind settled in good strong concentration, where mindfulness and equanimity become pure. Or you have the alertness and the mindfulness you need. The mindfulness is to keep in mind that you always want to do the skillful thing, always want to go with the skillful intention. The alertness is to see, “Okay, what are the signs by which I can tell which is … 
  5. A Refuge in Quiescence
     … As you work on these qualities, applying the lessons you’ve learned, you’re ardent, alert, and mindful. Those qualities turn into the factors of jhāna, which is the next faculty, or next dominant factor. You get the mind still. When the mind is still like this, it can see itself a lot more clearly, with a sense of balance—and this lies at … 
  6. When it’s Hard to Settle Down
    When it’s Hard to Settle Down January 17, 2017 When the mind has trouble settling down with the breath, you want to check to see whether the problem is with the mind or with the breath—or with your perceptions of the mind or of the breath. The first problem, the mind: Sometimes you have lots of issues that are unresolved, and simply … 
  7. The Adventure in the Present
    We’re here to train the mind, because as the Buddha said, it’s when the mind is well trained that you find happiness. If your mind isn’t trained, it’s like a puppy that hasn’t been trained. No matter how beautiful your house may be, the puppy can make a mess anywhere. In other words, no matter how well things may … 
  8. Precarious Knowledge
     … But for the sake of your own mind, a permanent change has already been made. That’s what the knowledge is good for. We learn things because they do have an effect on the mind, a beneficial effect on the mind. We’re not gathering up knowledge of the Dhamma just to decorate our minds, like a library in a den, because when you … 
  9. Work with It
    As Ajaan Lee points out, when you’re meditating and you’re setting your mind on staying with one thing, it’s hard not to have other things come in and get in the way. In fact, it’s to be expected. Those things come in two forms. With some of them, all you have to do is look at them and they go … 
  10. Negotiating with Death
     … The other two, mind and mental qualities: Again, this may seem an arbitrary way of dividing up the pie. But it’s useful. The mind, you could think of as the entire committee of the mind that has made a decision. It’s on the side of greed or on the side of anger—or on the opposite side. Or you’re trying to … 
  11. An Island in the Flood
     … The texts talk about how mindfulness and concentration are dependent on virtue. As the Buddha said, the things that foster mindfulness are views made straight and careful virtue. But mindfulness and concentration help with your virtue as well, because they give you this center of strength, this island you can stand on, where you feel secure, where you feel well established. When you’re … 
  12. The Buddha’s Safe Space
     … The description of mindfulness that we chanted just now—staying focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world—describes what you’re doing as you’re trying to get the mind into concentration. You stay with the breath, remembering to keep the breath in mind: That’s mindfulness. You see … 
  13. Vitakka & Vicara
     … Is this going the way you want, or is it not? You have to apply these fabrications not only to the breath, but also to the mind. What is your mind doing right now? If it’s slipping off, is the problem with the breath or with the mind itself? Where is it slipping out to feed? If you find the mind feeding on … 
  14. Glad to Be Here
    The Buddha’s instructions on how to get the mind in concentration start, on the one hand, with the reminder that you have to get past sensuality—your fascination with thinking thoughts about sensual pleasures. You can’t let the mind wander off in those areas. The Buddha says you should have a definite sense of the dangers of those places. That’s why … 
  15. The Mind Set Tall
     … There’s a very important part of the mind that would really flourish if it weren’t subject to lust, weren’t constantly hankering after nice smells, sounds, tastes, and things to look at. This is why these defilements flourish: because of delusion, the things that the mind hides from itself. And the reason it hides them from itself is because it really is … 
  16. What Are You Doing?
     … So we have to turn around and look at this problem inside: “What is your mind doing?” No matter what the problem is, the problem that makes the mind suffer is something the mind is doing. This is why, in the practice of mindfulness, alertness means that you’re in the present moment not watching just whatever comes up but specifically what you’re … 
  17. A Meditator’s Environment
     … But it’s important for the sake of your mind, the goodness of your mind, the survival of your mind: the skill with which you can extract yourself from the entanglements of the world. This relates to another quality—seclusion. Try to find some time just to be by yourself, so that you’re not taking on the concerns of other people. You look … 
  18. Reclaiming the Breath
     … Any unskillful quality coming up in the mind that moves into the body does so by means of the breath. Then it exerts extra power over the mind, because even though anger or fear may come and go, the uncomfortable breathing lasts, and we’ve learned to associate that uncomfortable breathing with that state of mind. As long as it’s there, we think … 
  19. The Need for Evaluation
    When you focus on the breath, when you try to bring the mind to a state of concentration, you’re trying to do two things at once. One is to give the mind a place where it can rest, gather its strength, heal its wounds, and in general develop a sense of ease and well-being. The second purpose is to be able to … 
  20. Success on the Path
     … He says that when you’re focusing on one of the frames of reference, or establishing mindfulness based on the body, feelings, mind, mental qualities, there may come times when the practice starts getting difficult. As he says, there may be a fever in the body, or a fever in the mind. That, he says, is when it’s good to put that topic … 
  21. Single-minded
     … What does matter is that your mind is in good shape so that you can depend on it even as aging, illness, and death come—because at those times, there’s nothing else you can depend on. So you’ve got to be single-minded in your practice. The ability to be single-minded is really important. Otherwise, the mind wanders off in to … 
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