Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. A Gentle Touch
    Give the mind a chance to settle down, and try to learn just the right amount of pressure to put on the breath to keep it there. For a lot of people, if you could take a picture of what they’re doing to their mind as they’re practicing concentration, it’s as if they’re strangling it, which is why the mind … 
  3. Matters of Life & Death
     … So you want to develop the quality of mind that will serve you as a refuge when you’re old, when you’re ill, when you’re dying. This is why we meditate with so much emphasis on developing mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Mindfulness is not being aware. It’s keeping certain things in mind, especially keeping in mind the idea that you really … 
  4. Your Own Karma
     … When the mind is concentrated, it’s easier to be more careful about your speech and your actions. When you understand how you’re causing stress and suffering, it’s easier to get the mind still. All the different elements of the path work together. So you can’t do just mindfulness practice. That old attitude of. “All you need is mindfulness,” doesn’t … 
  5. The Path Requires Effort
     … And you have to respect the necessary work, because actually, in the process of getting the mind to settle down, you learn a lot of interesting things about the mind, just through this effort of coming back, coming back. You learn a lot of unexpected things about the mind. It’s easy to read books about Buddhism and say, “Well, ultimately you have to … 
  6. A Path Rooted in Desire
    Make up your mind you’re going to stay with the breath—all the way in, all the way out, each breath as it comes in, as it goes out. Notice when you breathe in: Where do you feel it in the body? When the Buddha talks about breath, he’s not talking about the tactile sensation of the air at the nose. He … 
  7. Oozing Bodies, Oozing Minds
     … One is effluent, something that comes flowing out of the mind. Usually in English we think of an effluent as something dirty, and that gives a pretty good idea of the implication in Pali as well. It’s something that defiles the mind, something unclean. Another translation is fermentation, something that comes bubbling up out of the mind. Either translation is effective in getting … 
  8. A Sense of Space Inside
     … And hold in mind the perception that the whole body is breathing: all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the cells. That creates a nice spacious sense here in the present. See how long you can maintain that perception—and what happens to your sense of the body, your sense of yourself sitting here as you keep that perception in mind. Read the … 
  9. Walking Meditation: Stillness in Motion
     … When we sit quietly, we’re trying to get the mind still, and we try to keep the body still as a way of helping the mind along. But you also want to be able to keep the mind still in the midst of movement, in the midst of activity. That’s where walking meditation comes in. When you get up from your sitting … 
  10. Perceiving the Breath
     … The Buddha says to stick your tongue against the palate of your mouth and just crush your mind with the mind, as he puts it. And what does it mean to crush your mind with the mind? It means that you focus down on one spot and you stay there and just blare out every other thought that might come up. You might use … 
  11. Respect for the Path
     … You look at your mind objectively, to see where you’re causing suffering, where you’re causing stress, even the least little bit of stress. You ask yourself, “Why am I doing that?” Usually it’s force of habit. The mind has its old pathways that it keeps following again and again and again. They become like ruts in the mind. And because they … 
  12. To Be Trustworthy
     … You’re alert to what’s actually going on in the mind with regard to the body. And you keep in mind the determination you want to get the best things out of the body before you have to let it go. The same with your feelings, the same with your mind states: You look at these things just in reference to themselves, and … 
  13. Immersed in the Body
     … They can hit the mind with a lot more violence, with a lot more force than the wobbling or sudden braking of a subway train. So the mind needs a really solid stance. This is why we work on providing this support for the mind not only while we’re sitting here meditating but also throughout the day. Some people complain that it’s … 
  14. Tranquility & Insight
     … You’ll also see that the way you breathe creates feelings that will have an impact on the mind. The mind is also shaped by the perceptions you have about the relationship between it and the breath and the body, and all the other things coming in and out: in through the senses, out through your activities and intentions. As you practice the steps … 
  15. Solid Inside
     … In focusing on the breath, we get to know our own minds. Then we can talk about our own minds. We don’t have to bring in the terms Buddhist or Christian.” The first step in the meditation is simply that: to bring your mind to the breath and keep it there. The qualities you develop—mindfulness, alertness, concentration—are qualities that are useful … 
  16. Equanimity on the Path
     … This is the purpose of that instruction the Buddha gave to Rahula at the very beginning of his teachings of mindfulness. Make the mind like earth. Earth is equanimous. You pour good things on it, you pour bad things on it, it doesn’t react. Make the mind like water. Use water to wash away dirty things and the water doesn’t get upset … 
  17. The Karma of Perception
     … It’s also one of the elements most responsive to the image you hold in your mind, and it’s also a good mirror for the mind itself. This practice in perception is useful both for the sake of getting the mind into concentration and also for dealing with other issues as you go through life. You get more and more sensitive to how … 
  18. A Clear, Calm Lake
     … If they’re going to be there in the mind— no matter how much you try to think straight about them, they’re still nagging away at you—you just tell them, “Okay, you can have part of the mind, but you can’t have the whole mind.” Stay with the part that’s calm, collected, confident. Protect that, and the influence of still … 
  19. Creating Your Environment
    Having a conducive place to stay is an important part of training the mind. Having conducive people to practice with is also important. It creates a good environment, an energy that helps to carry us along, especially during the times when, if we were on our own, we’d start flagging. Our energy would start having gaps. It would be nice if we could … 
  20. A Mind like Wind
     … This is why mindfulness practice shades ultimately into concentration practice because you’re sticking with one thing as your frame of reference and it becomes continual. The Buddha himself never drew a sharp line between mindfulness and concentration. Mindfulness as it grows stronger becomes concentration. It becomes purified in concentration, steadied so that your discernment can start doing its work; figuring out where there … 
  21. Honoring the Noble Ones
     … Alertness is watching what you’re doing, and mindfulness is keeping things in mind. Now, alertness can be alert to anything you’re doing at all, skillful or not. The same with mindfulness: You can be mindful of all kinds of things. But when you’re ardent, you’re trying to do this practice well. You’re trying to be mindful—for the sake … 
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