Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 63
  2. Overwhelmed by Freedom
     … And my mind was overwhelmed at the prospect of that kind of freedom: overwhelmed in the sense that I didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t know if I could handle it—a whole afternoon with nothing to do—and I watched my mind as it was trying to find ways of filling up the time. This is a common problem … 
  3. Exploring the Basics
     … That helps with the staying power of the meditation because after all, the mind is a very complex organ. Training the mind is not a matter of forcing it into a few simple and draconian modes. To train the mind, you have to engage the whole mind. So remind yourself that when the body breathes in a healthy way, it’s healthier. The organs … 
  4. Virtue Contains the Practice
     … Try to be mindful; try to be alert. Mindfulness is what connects cause and effect. If you don’t have any mindfulness—i.e., if you can’t remember what you did—you’re not going to be able to figure out how this feeling of pain or this feeling of pleasure is related to actions you did a while back and have forgotten … 
  5. Look at Yourself
     … Sometimes we think that all we have to do is get the mind really, really still and see things arising and passing away, and the mind will automatically let go. Well, the Buddha had his mind very, very still, and there were still problems. You can have insight into things arising and passing away and then suddenly drop that because you think something’s … 
  6. People Who Think Too Much
     … Learn how to bring the mind to stillness in lots of different situations and learn how to maintain the stillness in lots of different situations. Then when you really begin to know the breath, you really begin to know the mind, because you can’t really see the movements of the mind unless you have one place of reference, so you want to get … 
  7. Strategic Wisdom
     … A second one is to fortify the mind in such a way that it doesn’t make those mistakes again. This is precisely what mindfulness, alertness, all the qualities that lead to concentration, and of course concentration itself: This is what they provide. You keep thorough watch on the mind to see when its desires are getting out of line, when its desires are … 
  8. Directing Yourself Rightly
     … The mind does have this quality. That old adage, you know, that work expands to fill the time allotted to it? Well, in the same way, disturbances expand to fill your mind’s capacity to look for them. That’s one of the things you’ve got to make up your mind about: You’re not going to go around looking for disturbances, letting … 
  9. An Inside Job
     … You can’t run controlled experiments inside your mind. In other words, you can’t tell part of the mind to do this at this time, and another part of the mind to do something else at the same time. They can’t go back to the same initial conditions. But the general principle that your actions will make a difference is one that … 
  10. Into the Cave with the Tiger
     … The only problem then was that as the mind wandered like that, thinking a lot like that, it was going to get tired. So he’d incline the mind to concentration. A mind that’s been engaged in skillful thinking—and has been developing a sense of self-worth that comes from skillful thinking—finds it a lot easier to settle down. Of course … 
  11. Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing
     … As you get the mind deeper in concentration, it’s the same issue: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Okay, get the mind really still. And begin to notice how the mind puts mind-states together. You can see it both as you create the mind-state of concentration and as you see the mind slipping … 
  12. Pure Action
     … It’s all a matter of training the mind, and realizing that that’s the true source of happiness: a trained mind. So we’re sitting here training the mind in what way? We’re training it in mindfulness, the ability to keep something in mind; and we’re training it in alertness, the ability to be sensitive to what you’re doing and … 
  13. The Missing Fabrication
     … When the Buddha talks about gladdening the mind, sometimes you have to talk to it. When he talks about concentrating the mind, you talk to it. In both cases, you talk to it until you’ve achieved what you want. The mind feels refreshed. The mind feels steady. Then you can stop the talking. But you don’t simply calm verbal fabrication for the … 
  14. Feeding on Open Wounds
    We’re born into this world in a position of weakness, because we have to depend on the world for our food—not only for physical food, but also food for the mind. The Buddha lists three kinds of mental food: contact at the senses, consciousness at the senses, and then what he calls intellectual intention, which basically comes down to your intentions in … 
  15. Square One
     … As the Buddha said, you need both tranquility and insight to get the mind into concentration. To get the mind into concentration, you’ve got to choose one topic. Clear away all other topics in the mind. They may keep coming in, but just don’t pay attention to them. And you try to be ardent, alert, and mindful. Mindful means keeping something in … 
  16. Mindfulness of Death
     … This is why it’s good to memorize passages in Pali, passages in Pali and English, so that you have some skillful thoughts sloshing around in the mind. After all, as death comes, the mind can latch on to all kinds of things, and if you’ve been impregnating your mind with good Dhamma, then that can have an influence on you at times … 
  17. Safety in Awareness
     … There’s something here in the mind that really is reliable, something you can touch in the mind that’s reliable. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we put so much effort in the practice, because there are so many things out there in the world and so many other things in our own minds that seem promising and then let … 
  18. Objectivity
    Some people make a big deal out of the fact the mind is never totally objective, never totally neutral. From that they claim that since there’s no objectivity, everybody is entitled to his or her subjective opinion. Everyone’s entitled to do what they want, to define happiness as they want, and to search for happiness in any way they want, because, as … 
  19. The Walls of Ignorance
     … So we need to learn how to take down these walls and divisions through our relentless honesty, relentless mindfulness, relentless alertness. The compartments of the mind that would allow us to do unskillful things — which would mean that we can’t trust ourselves — get torn down. The mind that’s truly one is the mind that can trust itself totally. There are no hidden … 
  20. Shelter
     … You have to be willing to take time, with a sense of confidence that this project we’re working on right here—getting the mind to settle down, getting a good place for the mind to stay—is going to take time because the mind is a very complex phenomenon. Part of it is willing to settle down and another part is not. This … 
  21. Happy to Be Here
     … Often we think that only after we get the mind in concentration will it be in a good mood, but that’s not the case. When the Buddha talked about it, he said that you start out with a sense of joy, a sense of gladness, and that provides a place where the mind can settle down. You want to be happy to be … 
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