Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Think Outside the Ruts
     … We have to learn to develop some dispassion for them, so that we can get out of them, because they tend to be like ruts in the mind. The Buddha uses the word “bending” the mind. You keep thinking in certain ways and the mind gets bent in those directions. Nowadays, we’d say they’re like ruts—like a rut in a road … 
  3. Appropriate Attention
     … Just keep in mind that while you’re meditating, you’re already doing something that the talk recommends, which is to develop the path—trying to bring the mind into a mindful state of concentration, where it’s still but very alert. It’s in that state that you can begin to see what the talk is talking about. We spend most of our … 
  4. Contemplating the World You Create
    We focus the mind first at the breath because as you get to know the breath, you begin to realize that the mind opens itself up there, right at its attention to the breath. And that’s what we’re trying to understand. Our primary task here is not trying to understand the world outside. It’s trying to understand the worlds of our … 
  5. Battling Negativity
    The work of looking into the mind, ferreting out the causes of suffering and figuring out how to put an end to them, is very delicate work, very precise work. Which is why you have to get the mind very still in order to do it. It’s like threading a needle. You hold your breath, get the rest of the body still, and … 
  6. Beyond Natural Suffering
     … It’s the mind that doesn’t like the pain. As the Buddha said, beings are creations of the mind. If it weren’t for the mind entering into these physical elements, there wouldn’t be a being here. There wouldn’t be a body. It’s the mind that has all these desires. And if you think the mind is perfectly innocent, that … 
  7. Mind Control
     … He’s not the sort of teacher who says, “Just be mindful,” or, “Just be fully present, and everything else will take care of itself.” You’ve got to look for where the suffering is, where there’s a cause of suffering, what events in the mind actually have the potential to become the path to the end of suffering. These are things you … 
  8. The Essence of the Dhamma
     … Always keep that in mind. You look in your mind and you see what needs developing. Right now it’s mindfulness. Alertness. You want to be as consistent as possible in keeping your breath in mind, and in being alert to the breath, at the same time being alert to what’s going on in the mind. Anything that might pull you away from … 
  9. Sunrise, Sunset
     … Or things outside could happen.” What inside your mind would make you not ready to go? If you’re not sure, you don’t have to think in the abstract. Just look at yourself as you go through the day. What kind of thinking does the mind like to settle down in? When you’re trying to meditate and part of the mind wants … 
  10. Time to Heal
    We come out to a place like this because it gives the mind a chance to look at itself without all of the distractions that get in the way when we’re living with other people. Even though there are other people around here, our main purpose in being here is to take care of whatever duties we have to do in the course … 
  11. Undomesticated Happiness
     … The first lesson is, notice the elements in the body—earth, water, wind, fire—and then make your mind like them. Make your mind like earth. People throw disgusting things on the earth, but it doesn’t recoil. Make your mind like wind. Wind blows trash around, but it’s not disgusted by the trash. Water is used to wash disgusting things but isn … 
  12. The Buddha’s Cost-Benefit Analysis
    It’s not the case that we give in to every desire that comes into the mind. After all, so many different desires are clamoring for our attention. We have to decide which ones are worth following, which ones are not. So subconsciously we do a kind of cost-benefit analysis: Is this desire worth the effort? The problem is that some of the … 
  13. Do. Maintain. Use.
     … Get the mind to the breath. Try to keep it with the breath. Experiment with different ways of breathing to see what’s comfortable right now. Experiment with different ways of conceiving the breath that allow the mind to settle down and stay with the sensation of breathing and to connect that with the different sensations in the rest of the body. You want … 
  14. Light Merit
     … The mind can be light; the mind can be fresh. As you work with the breath, you find with each new breath that there is a possibility for good energy coming into the body, bad energy flowing out. It’s a good symbol for what the mind can do, because the mind does not have to be a slave to what was done in … 
  15. In the Mood to Meditate
     … The Buddha talks about gladdening the mind as part of the meditation, and there are lots of different ways to gladden the mind. Even thinking about death can gladden the mind. You realize there’s not much time left, but you do have this opportunity to practice right now. Thinking about death reminds you of how important this is right now. You’ve got … 
  16. Merit: Goodness of the Heart
     … What impact do your actions have on other people? What impact do they have on your own mind? And the happiness itself, what kind of impact does it have on other people and on your own mind? Otherwise, if the impact is bad, the happiness is going to start falling apart, it won’t be solid. Or the people harmed by it will try … 
  17. Arising & Passing Away
     … Otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to keep that theme in mind. It’s actually a form of concentration, watching the arising and passing away. There are stages of concentration—Ajaan Lee mentions them—in which you’re not with a solid or single object but there is a sense of singleness in the mind because the mind is taking the arising and passing … 
  18. From Heedfulness to Purity
     … This is why we work on mindfulness, why we work on alertness. The alertness is there to watch what’s actually happening. And the mindfulness is to remind ourselves, “Okay, we did this, and what were the results? What will they be if we do it again?” That way, you can actually connect the causes with the effects. We start on a crude level … 
  19. Goodwill for Free
     … Vihara means “dwelling place.” When you can develop this attitude, your mind is dwelling in a more spacious place. Brahmas live in extremely spacious places with no outside limitations. Their dwelling is an immeasurable dwelling. As long as there are restrictions on your goodwill, limitations on your goodwill, there will be restrictions and limitations in the sense of space within your mind. The mind … 
  20. Jhana & Insight
    The mind feeds, and it suffers because it feeds: That was the Buddha’s insight. And a further insight was that there actually is a dimension of the mind that doesn’t need to feed. When we can find that, we stop suffering. Without that other dimension, there would be no end to suffering. And that’s what we’re here to find. A … 
  21. Generating Power
     … We often think of it as a place for the mind to rest, and it is, but it’s even more a place for the mind to recharge its batteries. That requires energy, requires effort, requires work. In Thailand the idiom for meditation is “to make an effort.” And in meditating there very definitely are things we have to do. It’s not just … 
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