Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 64
  2. Working with Nature
     … As Ajaan Lee points out, when you’re trying to get the mind into concentration, directed thought, evaluation, and singleness of preoccupation are the causes. You keep directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating it to make it a good place to stay. All of this may involve some activity. You want to get the mind still, but to get it still, you … 
  3. Random Word Generators
     … We’re learning how to be a good editor, for one thing, to decide which of our comments, say, on our mind, or on our breath, or on our ability to keep the mind with the breath are actually helpful; which ones are not. And this applies to all our activities. The mind has a habit of learning how to say unhelpful things, and … 
  4. Boxed Stories
     … body, feelings, mind, mental qualities. They’re all connected to the breath because after all, they’re all right here. When you’re with the breath, the fact that you’re attentive to the breath and alert to the breath creates a feeling of pleasure. When you’re with the breath, you’re mindful. The mind is getting a little bit more steady. That … 
  5. Capable
     … Our desire right now is to get the mind to settle down. So what can you do to get the mind to settle down? The Buddha gives his instructions in his description of right mindfulness. You keep focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. So you stay with the … 
  6. Getting Yourself
     … When he found the right path, when he was practicing deep concentration getting the mind into the various levels of jhana and gaining the different insights that came from that concentration, whatever pleasure arose in his mind, he didn’t let that overcome his mind, either. He was closely keeping watch on his mind, and only when he’d straightened out his mind did … 
  7. Dhamma Survivalism
     … As the Buddha said, there’s nothing as quick to change as the mind, and it can change into all sorts of things. That applies to your mind—and to everybody else’s minds, too. They’re just as changeable as you are. When you’re in relationship, the changes don’t get added. They get multiplied. So ultimate security is not in relationships … 
  8. Perspectives & Priorities
     … All too often, we hear mindfulness practices described as putting aside your inner critic and just accepting everything. But look at what the Buddha says concerning the qualities of mindfulness: Mindfulness itself is the ability to keep something in mind—and you don’t just keep it in mind as a decoration of the mind. It’s supposed to inform your actions. You’re … 
  9. The Path of Questions
    The Path of Questions July, 2001 Let the mind settle down comfortably on the breath. Don’t push it too hard and don’t let it float away. Try to find just the right amount of pressure for staying with the breath. Let there be just that one question in the mind right now: how heavily to focus on the breath. Other questions you … 
  10. Rites of Passage
     … What kind of mind state do they come from, what kind of mind state do they encourage? Are those the kind of mind states you want to identify with? This is essentially how the Buddha’s teaching on not-self works: seeing the things that have control over our lives, that have power over our minds, and in the course of the meditation stepping … 
  11. Goodwill Without Limits
     … After all, this, too, is a kind of mindfulness. It doesn’t come under the four establishings of mindfulness but it’s an important form of mindfulness to inform the entirety of your practice. You want the entire heart and the entire mind to gain freedom, so both sides of the *citta *have to be trained. Of course, there’s not just goodwill in … 
  12. Respect for the Breath
     … Always try to be mindful, always try to be alert. “Mindful” here means that you always keep the breath in mind. It might help to think of the idea the whole body is breathing. Because “breath” means not only the process of breathing, but also the energy flow in the body. It’s through the energy flow that you actually sense your body. Sometimes … 
  13. Three More Recollections
    There are times when you make up your mind to stay with the breath and it’s easy. The breath is right there. You think of making it long, it goes long. You think of making it short, it goes short. You can adjust it and think of the comfortable breath sensations spreading throughout the body. You find it pleasant. You find it interesting … 
  14. Battling Darkness
    Battling Darkness August 6, 2005 One of the standard analogies for meditation is that you’re going into battle with all the habits of the mind that create suffering. They’re called defilements because they darken the mind. As the Buddha once said, the mind is luminous, but these defilements come creeping in. If the mind didn’t have some luminosity, you wouldn’t … 
  15. Endurance
     … It’s the fact that your mind isn’t silent; that’s driving you crazy. The mind is talking to itself in all kinds of ways that just makes the situation worse.” After all, here you have the opportunity to meditate, to look at your mind, to understand your mind. If it seems like a mess right now, well, all the more reason to … 
  16. Transparent Becoming
    Transparent Becoming December 8, 2007 The mind is used to wandering around. That’s what the word samsara means. It’s not a place; it’s an activity. It’s something you do. For most of us, it’s a matter of going from one desire to another desire. Then either you get what you want and then you say, “Okay, enough of that … 
  17. Fear of the Truth
     … Ultimately, the Buddha says the highest noble truth—the truth of liberation, the truth of nibbana—is the ultimate protection for the mind, the ultimate place of security and safety. That, too, is a possibility in the mind, a potential in the mind—in your mind. So don’t let all the unskillful potentials scare you off. There are plenty of good things to … 
  18. Choose Your Actions Wisely
     … Turn around and look inside your own mind. That’s where the real problem is.” This is a perspective we have to keep in mind all the time. We’re not just passive recipients of things. The mind is active. It goes out looking for happiness in all kinds of things. Now, the search for happiness is not the problem, it’s that we … 
  19. Don’t Practice in a Row
    One of the favorite teachings of the ajaans is that things in the mind don’t come lined up the way they do in the texts. This applies both to your defilements and to the factors of the path. It’s not the case that you first have gross defilements and then subtler ones. They come in a mixture, willy-nilly. It’s not … 
  20. For the Survival of True Happiness
     … In particular, train the mind through meditation. We use the breath as a way of anchoring our attention in the present moment so that we can observe the mind. We work with the breath both because it provides us with a comfortable place to stay as we’re watching the mind and because the breath is the part of the body most intimately connected … 
  21. Everything Gathers Around the Breath
     … They’re different ways of looking at what’s going on in the process of learning to be mindful and then trying to deal skillfully with what you’re aware of, as you’re mindful and alert. Those are the first steps in the factors for awakening: mindfulness, analysis of qualities, and persistence. In other words, you remember to stay on topic and you … 
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