Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 77
  2. Barriers in the Heart
     … That helps to nourish the mind. When the mind is well nourished, it’s not interested in picking up those obstacles and making them into bigger obstacles than they have to be. When you remind yourself of the happiness that comes from giving, the interest in gaining sensual pleasures and feeding on sensual pleasures gets lessened. When it’s lessened, you find yourself less … 
  3. Get Out of the Way
    Get Out of the Way December 7, 2010 The mind has its ups and downs, and we have to learn how not to get upset by the downs or complacent about the ups. This is where patience and equanimity, combined with conviction, are important elements in the path. On days when you’re down, when the mind is just not cooperating, realize that it … 
  4. Acceptance
     … You learn how to get the mind into concentration, how you get the mind to become more mindful, more discerning: all these skills that we work on as we meditate. So when we find that the mind is not getting concentrated, we don’t just sit there and accept it. We say, “Okay, what’s wrong?” We try to figure things out. If the … 
  5. In Alignment
    If you could take a movie of the different shapes that your mind goes through in the course of a day, it’d be wilder and more bizarre than the shape-shifting screen savers you see on your computer screen. It can stretch out to fill the whole universe then shrink down to a little spot; send an extension out to the east, to … 
  6. Wandering On, Shooting Arrows
     … That willingness to accept the fact that, yes, the mind is sometimes lying to itself, and sometimes hiding things from itself: That’s what keeps us honest. It’s not the case that the mind is a total liar. If it were, then there would be no chance of practicing at all. The mind does have its moments of clarity, and as we practice … 
  7. Dethinking Thinking
     … In the same way, our minds are very instinctive about creating states of becoming. We create little worlds, and then we take on an identity in those worlds. As the worlds fall apart or our identity falls apart, we create new ones. We keep at it. This is how the mind occupies itself, how it uses its imagination to figure out what to do … 
  8. What Are You Doing Right Now?
     … The fullness that comes from this particular state of being makes it easier to watch, to see how you create a state of being in the mind, how you nurture it, and how you keep it going. Creating good states of being in the mind is like giving the mind good food to feed on. It can then start comparing this food with the … 
  9. Feeding Frenzy: Dependent Co-arising
     … The longer the mind stays in the present, the easier it is to be mindful and alert. The more mindful and alert it is, the more clearly it can see these processes as they’re happening. Dig down a few more steps into dependent co-arising, and you come to fabrication. Fabrication comes in three kinds: bodily, verbal, and mental. Bodily fabrication is the … 
  10. Perplexity
     … Once the mind is rested, you realize it still has work to do. And this is where the work lies, in learning how to check where you’re still uncertain about what really is skillful in life. It’s not easy work, but it’s good work. Because the mind that results—the mind with no perplexity—is a mind with no suffering.
  11. Breath by Breath
     … So keep the mind with the breath continuously, and then let them do their work. The mind does its work on the breath, and the breath does its work on the mind. And bit, by bit, by bit, the sense of ease, the sense of pleasure, grows. But even when it gets large and intense, you can’t abandon that producing mode. The ease … 
  12. Defilements at the Door
     … They don’t have to invade the mind and remain. That’s the phrase that the Buddha uses: “invade the mind and remain.” They may present themselves to your awareness, but they don’t have to come inside. It’s like the difference between the third establishing of mindfulness and the fourth. The third talks about different states of mind, those imbued with passion … 
  13. What You Don’t Like About Yourself
     … His therapy was therapy for the mind, the heart and the mind together. So when you look at his teachings—and sometimes they may seem strange because they’re coming from a foreign culture—realize that if you get to know them and appreciate them, they really are therapeutic. That way, the extent to which your heart-and-mind has been involved in creating … 
  14. Food Insecurity
     … You get a disease in the body, and the mind can very quickly go to, “Maybe it’s fatal. Maybe it’s going to paralyze me. Maybe it’s going to do this, do that, make it impossible for me to feed the mind’s desires for pleasures.” This mind is constantly asking the question, “What next? What next?” It’s a very anxious … 
  15. Why It’s Good to Know Why
     … Remember that line toward the end of the Karaniya Metta Sutta: “to be determined on this mindfulness.” After all, goodwill is not necessarily the natural state of the mind. Goodwill is easy in some cases and not easy in others. Ill will can be just as easy in some cases and not in others. Your mind can go either way. So you have to … 
  16. Equanimity & Exertion
     … the pleasure of concentration, in which you get the mind totally focused on an object that has nothing to do with sensuality. You start out by directing your thoughts—which is a fabrication—toward a single object, and evaluating the object so that the mind can settle down with it. Like we’re doing right now here with the breath: You work with the … 
  17. Rooted in Heedful Desire
     … Everyone likes to think that whatever comes up in the still mind is reliable. But the still mind is just as likely to be deluded as an unstill mind. When the mind gets still, it’s as if you’re opening up the doors to different rooms in your house that have been closed for a long time. And just because the doors have … 
  18. Voices in the Mind
     … It’s because of these desires that we take on all kinds of different identities in the mind, all the different voices. You can get involved in dialogues, taking on different parts, different roles, arguing back and forth—or one side of the mind encouraging another side of the mind, going back and forth that way as well. This really destroys any peace and … 
  19. The Languages of the Mind
    The mind is always talking to itself, which makes you wonder: Why is it talking to itself? What does it have to tell itself? Why does it have to tell us things? You’d think that if the mind knew something, it would know it, without one part of the mind having to inform another part of the mind. There’s also the question … 
  20. Dependent Co-arising in Fifteen Minutes
     … These are the things you need to do in order to get the mind to settle down. It’s not the case that you get the mind quiet and then magically it’ll understand the five aggregates because it’s quiet. It understands the five aggregates because you’ve been using those five aggregates, learning how to look at these things as activities, as … 
  21. Working from the Inside
     … Meditation is about action, the actions of the mind. And you have a purpose. This is what ardency is for. It includes your motivation, your desire. This is where desire is a good thing. You decide to do this skillfully. You want to do this skillfully. Then there’s mindfulness, which is your ability to remember, to keep something in mind. As the mind … 
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