Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 61
  2. The Tools of the Path
     … In this case, you fold the right effort into right mindfulness. So here again, you’re working with the aggregates. As the Buddha said, when you’re being mindful of your breath, you have to be sensitive to how your feelings and your perceptions have an impact on the mind, how they fabricate your mind. And you want to talk to yourself in ways … 
  3. Practical Wisdom
     … This is how you prepare for the future, by developing good qualities of mind, and trying to make sure that they’re as good as possible, no matter what the circumstances. This is one of the reasons why we develop alertness, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, and how we learn to be persistent and ardent in developing these qualities of heart and mind. That’s because … 
  4. Concentration Nurtured by Virtue
     … But if you learn to be alert to how your actions can create harm for yourself or for other people, then you’re in a better position to see the same principle at work in your mind. The Buddha talks about developing the mind in a quality of emptiness. What that means is that you see that as the mind begins to settle down … 
  5. Serenity
     … In this way, you make the body more serene and the mind more serene at the same time. These are qualities that help give rise to concentration. Another way of making the mind more serene is to develop the brahmaviharas, the sublime attitudes: immeasurable goodwill, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable empathetic joy, immeasurable equanimity. These thoughts are soothing to the mind. In the beginning, you have … 
  6. Rivers of Craving
    What are you doing right now? If you’ve made up your mind to meditate, try to stay with the breath, all the way in, all the way out. Sometimes you find that other thoughts come up. In fact, it’s rare that other thoughts don’t come up. One of the skills you want to learn is how not to go with those … 
  7. Steps in Concentration
    When the Buddha taught concentration, the how-to part of the instructions was in his description of right mindfulness. You’re focused on the body—for example, the breath—in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. So where’s your breath right now? Anything that’s not related to this breath at the … 
  8. Conviction & Persistence
    We’re here to train the mind. But we focus on the breath. It’s by focusing the mind on the breath and keeping it there that we’re developing some really good qualities in the mind: qualities of persistence, ardency, mindfulness, alertness. It’s by staying consistently with the breath in all the ups and downs of our lives that we learn some … 
  9. Talking to Yourself
     … As long as the mind is going to talk, teach it how to talk well. You can’t stop the conversation without first turning it into a skillful conversation. This is when the Buddha gives instructions on getting the mind into concentration. Two of the factors of getting the mind to settle down are what he called vitakka and vicāra, directed thought and evaluation … 
  10. What Is One
     … All the different members in the committee of your mind have their ideas about what would be good dinner tonight, what the food should be, how it should be fixed. And a lot of the discussion in your mind is about how you’re going to feed. So when you learn how to meditate and get the mind into a state of well-being … 
  11. Karma-ism
     … What does it mean for things to be *going on? *How do things *go on? *And in particular, what are we contributing to the going on of things? This is why meditation focuses on the mind. Not just to get the mind into pleasant states: You attain the pleasant states so that you can understand, “Exactly what is the mind doing? How does it … 
  12. Intent
    One of the phrases we chanted just now, “keeping focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world”: This is a formula for how you get into concentration. And underlying it is a very important quality for succeeding in concentration, which is intent. You want to be totally intent on what you … 
  13. The Governing Principle
    The Governing Principle May 5, 2014 In the passage where the Buddha describes the different functions of the qualities you want to bring to the path, he describes mindfulness as the governing principle. In another passage, he explains what that means. Essentially, when you see that there’s a good quality that hasn’t arisen within you yet, you’re mindful to give rise … 
  14. Opening Your World
     … The mind will say, “I need something more than just pleasure. I have certain needs that have to be met.” This is where you want the mind to be really clear about what those needs are, and not accept its first explanations as to what they are. It has the ways of presenting the case that it knows are acceptable—or instead the mind … 
  15. Skills for Awakening
     … We learn how to breathe in a way that calms the body, calms the mind; we think in ways that calm the body, calm the mind. And these are skills we can develop to benefit the mind. But they’re not the whole story. In spite of what you may have heard, we cannot relax our way to awakening or decree that awakening means … 
  16. Dhamma Medicine for Free
     … The mind won’t stay with the body, and the body itself will start getting tense, tight, uncomfortable. You have to realize that a large part of the health of the body and the health of the mind, the well-being of the body, the well-being of the mind, depends on the breath. For the most part, we ignore this potential. We ignore … 
  17. Monotasking
     … The third step the Buddha gives in dealing with the mind is releasing the mind. In other words, if you find there’s something burdening the mind, a particular thought, try to locate where in the body there’s the physical sensation that corresponds to that thought. There will be a little hitch or a little spot of tension; see if you can breathe … 
  18. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … What’s the form, what are the feelings, what are the perceptions, what are the fabrications, what’s the consciousness that surround the addiction? One of the reasons we get the mind into concentration is because it’s a good way to feed. It’s a harmless way to feed the mind and at the same time, because the mind is centered right here … 
  19. Truth in Action
     … Make up your mind you’re going to stay right here with the breath and then you have to keep watch over yourself. Which means that alertness, the quality that we bring to the present moment, has to cover two things: One, you’re alert to the breath; and two, you’re alert to the mind. Mindfulness is what reminds you to stay here … 
  20. A Refuge from the Winds of the World
    The Thai translation for concentration is “to have the mind firmly established.” Right concentration, of course, means have it established firmly in the right way. When you think of concentration in that way, then it’s obvious that it’s a quality you want to have all the time. As Ajaan Suwat once noted, when you define concentration that way, it covers all aspects … 
  21. The Gradual Path of Skill
     … The mind, when you look at it, has all kinds of ideas, all kinds of potentials, good and bad. The mind itself is neither. Ajaan Chah has a nice statement where he says, “The mind isn’t ‘is’ anything.” You can’t really define the mind as this, that, or the other thing. It’s just the quality of knowing. Ajaan Lee makes the … 
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