Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Analysis of Qualities
    There’s a passage where the Buddha says that getting the mind into strong concentration requires both tranquility and insight. We tend to think of insight as something that comes after the concentration, but the Buddha’s making an important point: If you’re going to get the mind to settle down, you have to understand what you’re doing. At the very least … 
  3. Fabricating Equanimity
     … You breathe in certain ways, you breathe holding certain things in mind, trying to develop a sense of ease, try to develop a sense of rapture. You breathe in a way that calms the mind, steadies the mind when it needs to be steadied, or gladdens the mind when it needs to be gladdened. So what the Buddha’s basically saying is that as … 
  4. A Trustworthy Mind
     … So tonight I’d like us to do the same for our new leaders, so that they can rule wisely, with the common good in mind. So get your mind in a shape that you’d like to give as a gift. That means you want to get it as centered and One as possible. The closer you get the mind to being genuinely … 
  5. The Wall of Discernment
     … You can’t even rely on your own mind if it hasn’t been trained. There’s nothing that can change as quickly as the mind. And as long as the mind hasn’t reached the state where you can totally depend on it, you’re in a state of danger. That’s why the Buddha used the image of the fortress. The mind … 
  6. Training the Mind to Train the Mind
    We’ve come here to train the mind. The problem is that the mind has to train itself, which means that when you’re sitting down here, the mind is in at least two sections: the part that wants to do the training and the part that’s going to be trained. The part that’s going to be trained doesn’t necessarily want … 
  7. Giving Ballast to the Mind
     … But when you get it trained, you see these movements happening, because your attention gets quicker, your mindfulness, your alertness become quicker. You catch the mind in the act, and you can bring it back. This is how you learn how to trust the mind. You get quicker than it is. In other words, the skillful qualities of attention, alertness, and mindfulness get quicker … 
  8. A Strong Mind
    We’ve got a whole hour now, so focus on developing the mind. That’s what the Pali term citta-bhavana, the word for meditation, actually means: You’re developing the mind. The question is, what do you want to develop? You could sit here and develop all kinds of thoughts. But that’s not what the word means. The word really means developing … 
  9. Truth Is Where You’re True
     … That’s the kind of mind you want. That’s the kind of mind you can trust. That kind of mind can be your mainstay. But this business of sneaking off without asking permission: You certainly don’t want that in your family, so why do you want it in your mind? As long as it’s there in the mind, you really can … 
  10. Limitations
     … We’re investing our time in the mind, focusing on qualities which, in the very beginning, may not seem much. Mindfulness and alertness: very ordinary everyday qualities. Mindfulness simply means keeping something in mind, as when we’re focusing on the breath right now. We keep in mind of the fact we want to stay with the breath regardless of whatever else comes up … 
  11. Factors for Awakening
     … That’s a way of showing how mindfulness and discernment working together can bring the mind to concentration. The Buddha actually has lots of different ways of describing the order in which these things happen. Mindfulness always precedes concentration, but sometimes discernment comes first, then mindfulness, then concentration; sometimes mindfulness, then concentration, then discernment, depending on whether he’s talking in terms of the … 
  12. A Special Time
    When you sit down to meditate, keep reminding yourself that this is a special time for giving full attention to the training of the mind. Now, it is important that you regard the whole rest of the day as an opportunity to train the mind as well. In other words, try to keep the mind centered, keep watch over the mind in the midst … 
  13. Balance & Release
    Balance & Release January 27, 2011 When we focus the mind on the breath, we can observe both of them. Ideally, it’s good to be able to observe both of them together. Although some people find it easier to observe the breath, others find it easier to observe the mind. But it’s important to be able to watch them as they interact. First … 
  14. Things Don’t Have to Be This Way
     … For instance, keep the breath in mind. And what is that going to do for the problem of suffering? It’s going to train the mind in the skills it’ll need to understand what it’s doing to cause suffering and how it can stop. The first skills are mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. The mindfulness is, for instance, keeping the breath in mind … 
  15. Watch the Mind at the Breath
    Take a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths, both to refresh the body and to make it easy for the mind to stay with the breath, so that you notice where you feel the process of the breathing. Keep that up as long as deep breathing feels good. When it feels like it’s too much, then you can adjust it … 
  16. Look after Your Baby
     … You have to watch out for the mind’s tendency to put that curtain down, because that’s what makes you forget as you go from one scene to the next in your mind. So make up your mind that when the mind is going to wander off, you want to know, because if you keep telling yourself, “It’s not going to wander … 
  17. The Brightness of Life
     … So always keep that in mind. There’s a very positive thing that we’re working toward here. And the human mind and human effort are capable of obtaining it. To get there, we have deal with the difficult issues that come up in the mind. Nobody likes to look at his or her own greed or aversion, or the times when the mind … 
  18. Rightly Directed
     … But at the same time, mindfulness is what keeps these things going. If you forget the principles of right view, it’s very easy to start doing things that are unskillful. So you have to keep strengthening this quality of mindfulness, this ability to keep something in mind. Mindfulness is like a little message you keep sending to yourself from one moment to the … 
  19. Mindfulness: Get with the Program
     … And it’s the same with mindfulness. You have to remember each bend of the mind. Because after all, you’ve got a program. And to get with the program, you have to notice which things work with the mind and which don’t. The program, of course, is right effort, or the strength of persistence: preventing unskillful qualities from arising, or if they … 
  20. The Best Use of Your Time
    The mind is used to having a long list of things that it has to think about or prepare for, so it’s a special luxury to have some time where you can put the list aside and focus on one thing: the training of the mind itself. So try to make the most of this opportunity. Focus on your breath and be aware … 
  21. Mindful, Alert, & Ardent
     … We’re trying to develop good qualities in the mind, and we start out with a few simple ones: mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. For example, think of the breath and try to keep the breath in mind: That’s mindfulness, the keeping-in-mind part. You have to start out with the intention that you’re going to stay with the breath all the … 
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