Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Ardency
     … Over time, you get more mindful and your powers of concentration develop. So this quality of ardency is really important in the practice. Mindfulness is something we all have to some extent or another. We can keep some things in mind. The question is, are we keeping the right things in mind? In the same way, to some extent we already have some alertness … 
  3. True Values
     … It comes from having power over your own mind, your own ability to say No to your defilements. The more you can let go of your attachments, the more you can let go of your cravings and clingings, then the higher the level of your mind. The more you can bring the mind to concentration, the higher its level will be. Even more so … 
  4. Views & Vision
    The mind spends a lot of its time talking to itself. And so when we come to the practice, it’s important that we learn how to use that habit in a skillful way, so that it actually helps the practice and doesn’t get in the way. If you’ve read any of the texts, you know that when the mind gets into … 
  5. The Brahmaviharas Are Not a Complete Practice
     … You could hold in mind the perception that your mind is not just one mind. It’s like a committee. Sometimes the committee’s like the Chicago City Council. It’s got lots of politics; lots of deals are being made in the back rooms. But the fact that an idea has appeared to the committee doesn’t mean that you have to go … 
  6. How to Really Depend on Yourself
     … We want to learn about our minds. In some ways, our minds are all alike; in other ways they’re personal, individual. So it’s going to take some exploration to figure out: Where is your mind like Ajaan Lee’s mind? Where is it somewhat different? Or is it like Ajaan Maha Boowa’s mind? Ajaan Mun’s mind? Where is it different … 
  7. The Problem Is Birth
     … The best way to understand it is to prevent the mind from going into those little worlds. This why concentration is so important. Meditation is not just a matter of following the mind wherever it wants to go. You have to put up some walls. Mindfulness is sometimes thought to be a matter of allowing the mind to go wherever it wants, just being … 
  8. Contentment
     … So the breath gives you a good vantage point, and you can use the breath to soothe the body, to make the body more healthy; and at the same time to soothe the mind and to allow the mind to get to know itself. There’s so much ignorance in the mind about its own self—all those hidden corners and closed rooms in … 
  9. The Buddha’s Lists
     … The skillful things—the seven factors for awakening, the five strengths, the four establishings of mindfulness—give us a hint on what we can develop as a path to put an end to suffering. So learn to see the lists as there to help clear up the darkness in your mind, so that you can name the beasts in your mind, and also the … 
  10. Single-minded
    Concentration is defined as singleness of mind, which gives rise to a question: The first jhāna has five factors. It’s as if you have five pots on the stove that you have to take care of all at once. So how can you be single in your mind? But look carefully at those five factors. Two of them are results of the other … 
  11. A Heart & Mind of Goodwill
     … The mind just wanders around. But here we’re trying to bring the mind under control. The world “mind,” in Pali, citta, can be translated into English both as “mind” and as “heart.” So we’re trying to bring our heart into this as well—in other words, both wanting to do it and having our reasons. The reasons are because we want happiness … 
  12. Behind the Scenes
    One of the reasons why we start the meditation with thoughts of goodwill for all beings in all directions—along with thoughts of compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—is to put the mind in the right frame to meditate. Otherwise, we bring the issues of the day into our meditation. Instead of focusing on the breath, we focus on what we did or somebody … 
  13. Teachings to Rahula
     … This is why mindfulness practice has to shade into concentration practice. You can’t say, “Well, I held this particular object in mind for a few breaths and then I noted something else and then I noted something else.” If you practice that way, you’ll never know what happens if you really do hold one perception in mind. You don’t know the … 
  14. Right Resolve, Right Concentration
    Every time you make up your mind you’re going to meditate, it’s a form of right resolve. You’re looking for a happiness that’s not dependent on sensuality, not dependent on ill will. There are forms of happiness dependent on ill will, when you like to think about all the exquisite pain your enemy is going to go through. But here … 
  15. Strong-hearted
     … Then you will to keep these lessons in mind, because you realize that if you learn these things and then forget them or apply them haphazardly, they don’t really accomplish anything. It’s as if you never learned them. So you’ve got to keep them in mind all the time. That’s the strength of mindfulness, and that requires having some priorities … 
  16. Taking Responsibility
    If the mind were basically good, there’d be no need to train it. You’d just follow whatever impulses come up, and you’d be guaranteed happiness. If the mind were basically bad, you couldn’t train it: It would resist training. What this means is that the mind has both good and bad impulses. And our duty is to learn how to … 
  17. Determination
     … If you think of the mind as a committee, when you make a determination like that, you’re basically putting out a warning to any members of the committee that might want to be traitorous that they would be recognized as traitors and shot. That gives the mind a strong impetus to carrying through. When the Buddha talked about determination, there were four qualities … 
  18. Choosing Freedom
     … As he said when he was old, the only time he found any comfort from his body was when his mind was totally in very deep concentration. Whenever he was ill—when he was attacked by Devadatta or when he had his last major illness—he stayed mindful and alert. His mind didn’t get fogged or confused. Even when he died, right up … 
  19. The Right to Repair Your Mind
     … The Buddha’s approach to the mind is that you have the right to repair your mind. There are a lot of people out there who say, No, somebody else has to do this for you. But he’s saying that you’ve got the wherewithal within yourself to solve the mind’s problems, particularly the problem of suffering. The four noble truths are … 
  20. Take Good Aim
     … You’ll find, of course, that some members of the committee of the mind have lots of other desires as well, most of which are based on very strange ideas of what’s possible in the world. Now, you can’t simply make up your mind about the way things are going to be. You can’t make up your mind, say, that you … 
  21. Sowing Good Seeds
     … If you’re not comfortable with it, the mind is not going to want to stay. Like pushing an inflated ball down under some water: As soon as your grip relaxes just a little bit, the ball comes shooting up out of the water and into the air. The same with the mind: If the mind is uncomfortable with the breath, it’s going … 
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