Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 77
  2. Lighter & Stronger
     … What that means is a mind that has lots of skills. And the skill of peeling things away like this is one of the primary ones. You strengthen the mind by holding in mind perceptions that help you to separate yourself out from the things you felt you had to rely on, or that you actually thought were you. Like this body: It’s … 
  3. The Use of the Present
    The Use of the Present November 28, 2016 We focus on the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, mind states in and of themselves, but we don’t make them the goal in and of themselves. We’re trying to take them apart to see what they’re made of, because we’ve been putting them together in all kinds … 
  4. Hypocrisy
     … But again, it’s the little things, it’s the little movements of the mind you’ve got to watch out for. So when something questionable comes up in the mind, don’t just sweep it under the rug. Look at it. Ask yourself: What is this? And don’t take the mind’s first answers or excuses as the truth. Question them. After … 
  5. The Balance of Power
    There’s a balance of power in the mind, in the same way that there’s a balance of power in the world outside. We have a lot of different desires, and there’s a tension among them. But as long as each of them has its say in one way or the other, things are relatively peaceful. Not really peaceful inside, there’s … 
  6. Success with Breathing
     … There are also the potentials of the mind that are applied here, where you can watch to see how the mind fashions its experiences with its perceptions, with its ways of talking to itself. You can fashion them in all kinds of ways. But you want to fashion them in a way that leads the mind to want to settle down. These potentials are … 
  7. Beginner’s Mind
    Try to bring a fresh mind to the breath each time you meditate. Imagine that you’re someone who hasn’t been living in a body for a couple of lifetimes and you’re suddenly back in this body with this unusual experience: There’s an energy flowing around the body, flowing in the body, flowing in and out. And so you’re curious … 
  8. Remorse
    When you sit down to meditate and settle down with the breath, the mind becomes very sensitive. Sometimes things you did in the past that you don’t feel right about will come up. And they hurt. At times like that, it’s all too easy to start feeling remorse. Remorse is not an attitude or a feeling that the Buddha recommended. Because, as … 
  9. Gladdening the Mind
    Gladdening the Mind September 2, 2004 Gladdening the mind. This is an important skill in the meditation. The Buddha lists it as one of the basic steps in mindfulness of breathing. If your meditation gets dry, it starts to seize up like an engine without any lubricant. So you need to keep your mind lubricated, keep it refreshed as you’re practicing. There are … 
  10. Get Outside Yourself
     … Then there’s the Buddha’s five-step program for stepping out of unskillful mind-states. Look for the origination—in other words, what in the mind triggers this mind-state. All too often we’re in the mind-state without realizing how we got in there. We have to be alert to how we get in. So look for the trigger. Then look … 
  11. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … At the same time, you’re developing good qualities in the mind: mindfulness, the ability to keep all this in mind, alertness to what you’re doing, and ardency, the desire to do this well. These are all potentials we have within us that we can develop. As Ajaan Lee says, most of us have lots of potentials that we’ve never developed, good … 
  12. See Yourself as Active Verbs
     … The mind, he says, is not just sitting there receiving input from outside. Even before we see things, hear them, smell, taste, touch, or think about them, there’s already a lot of activity going out from the mind. The Thai ajaans call these the currents flowing out of the mind. Your intentions, your perceptions, your plans for things: All of these have an … 
  13. Concentration & Renunciation
     … Now, to put the mind in a position where it can answer these questions with some fairness, we have to get the mind into concentration. Because this is the practice that enables you not to be overcome by pleasure, not to be overcome by pain. Sometimes we sit here with pains in the body, but if the breath is comfortable, we can use that … 
  14. A Centered but Broad Awareness
     … One of his terms for a mind in concentration is the mind that’s enlarged or expanded. The Pali word is mahaggata citta, the enlarged mind; the expanded mind. Having the mind expanded like this is important in several ways. One, it helps keep you from falling asleep. Sometimes it’s all too easy when the breath feels comfortable and you’re focused on … 
  15. The Four Jhanas
     … The mind is broadly based, and isn’t easily tipped over. Even as you get up from the meditation, you can maintain that sense of full body as you walk around, as you deal with other things. It may not actually qualify as jhana, but it’s a steady foundation. It’s your foundation of mindfulness. It’s an establishing of mindfulness, which after … 
  16. Knowledge over Fear
     … Because what allows the vision to come is a lapse of mindfulness. The mind gets into a state of concentration where it’s settling down but not fully there with its object. It’s kind of a dreamy state, and that’s where these visions can come in. So as you breathe into the heart, you’re reestablishing mindfulness, reestablishing alertness, and they’ll … 
  17. Noble Treasures
     … All living beings are the owners of their actions.” All these things are good to keep in mind so that you can call them to mind when you need them. Generosity is generosity of spirit. You can express it through giving material things, giving your time, giving your energy. It’s an expansive quality of mind and it brings with it a sense of … 
  18. Samvega
    There’s a series of suttas in the Canon where monks are out in the forest meditating but letting their minds wander in different places, doing things they shouldn’t be doing, thinking about things they shouldn’t be thinking about. Devas come and call them on it. Probably the most famous one is the one of the monk who’s going bathing, and … 
  19. The Desire to End All Desires
     … Where do you start when you change your actions? You start with your mind because your mind is what’s making the decisions. This is why, when we meditate, we focus on the mind in the present moment. Now, you can’t focus directly on the mind as you start out, so you focus on something that’s really close: the breath. You do … 
  20. A Happiness Based Inside
     … You need a combination of tranquility and insight to get the mind firmly established in a good dependable state of concentration and to keep it there—and to realize that if you’re going to have a foundation for happiness, it lies in this direction and not outside. That means, one, steadying the mind with a sense of the breath and learning how to … 
  21. Control from Within
     … He was using this incident to illustrate the difference between the magical mind and the religious mind. The magical mind wants to control everything, whereas the religious mind realizes there’s a lot that’s not under our control. Of course, in some religions, there’s somebody else in charge. But in the Buddha’s teachings, there’s nobody in charge. That’s one … 
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