Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. Our Variegated Minds
    The Buddha once said that the mind is more variegated than the animal world. When you stop to think of it, that’s saying a lot. Think of all the different kinds of fish and birds and mammals and reptiles and all the little animals, big animals, striped animals, spotted animals, the thousands and thousands of species—and our mind is more variegated than … 
  3. The Second Noble Truth
     … This image applies both to mindfulness and to concentration. The Buddha doesn’t make a clear distinction between mindfulness practice and concentration practice. In fact, the establishings of mindfulness are, in and of themselves, the themes of right concentration. You stay, for instance, with the body, in and of itself, as you’re ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to … 
  4. The Five Faculties Confirmed
     … the four establishings of mindfulness, the four right exertions, the four bases for power. Those are sets that deal with effort, mindfulness, and concentration. The next two sets, which are basically identical—the five faculties and the five strengths—contain effort, mindfulness, and concentration, and they add two more faculties: conviction and discernment. These two faculties provide the framework for our practice. It’s … 
  5. Stop Weaving
     … As the Buddha said, if you want to understand that the problems of the mind, the unskillful habits of the mind, you first have to look at what kind of gratification you get out of maintaining them. Even the habits you don’t like about yourself: There’s got to be something that you enjoy in them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t keep coming back … 
  6. True to the Practice
     … It comes through our efforts to understand what the mind is doing. So the first order of business is to settle down and look at the mind, to see what it’s doing right now. This is why we give the mind a place to stay, because if it doesn’t stay in the present moment, you can’t watch it. It’s like … 
  7. Playing by the Buddha’s Rules
     … Mindfulness of what? We’re remembering to stay with the body, say, in and of itself, ardent, alert and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world—the whole shebang, the whole formula. Mindfulness is not just being aware of the present moment. Mindfulness is remembering. And basically what you’re remembering is the Buddha’s rules. The first rule is … 
  8. Commit Yourself
     … The hard part is staying there, because the mind has a tendency not to hang out with things for very long. It stays a little bit and then gets bored, or it doesn’t like what it’s focusing on, and so moves to something else. Or else something else grabs its attention, forces itself on the mind. But even then, the mind has … 
  9. Specifically
     … You do that by practicing mindfulness, establishing the mindfulness in the right way. At the same time as you do that, you’re taking yourself as your refuge. As the Buddha explained, the reason we suffer is not because of things outside, things that other people are doing, it’s because of things that we’re doing—and we have to change. Change requires … 
  10. The Broken Gong
     … If you find you’re driving yourself crazy over some incident in your family life, at work, whatever, and it echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes in the mind, you can question it: What actually happened, and where right now is the sensation of that event? It’s at the contact at the mind. But why does it have to contact the mind now, when the … 
  11. The Train Trestle
     … As for the mind, is it willing to stay here right now? Sometimes, if it’s not staying, the problem is with the breath or with the feelings. Sometimes it’s with the thoughts going on in the mind: things left over from the day. If you find a lot of left-over stuff, sort through it a bit. Imagine the Buddha’s point … 
  12. The Dhamma Bucket List
     … Which of these qualities is lacking in your mind? See if you can squeeze some of that out of your activities. And how would you go about developing those qualities? You can develop them in daily life. You can develop them by making up your mind you’re going to make a special donation. Or you decide to observe the precepts more than you … 
  13. Dealing with Confusion
     … The Buddha has a statement that the self is its own mainstay, i.e., your mind is its own mainstay, but it can be its own mainstay only if you develop it. What’s going to develop the mind? Well, the mind’s going to develop the mind—but it’s only through this constant process of settling in and watching what your intentions … 
  14. Take Responsibility for Yourself
     … When the Buddha talks about mindfulness as a governing principle, it’s very telling that he doesn’t describe it as simply watching things arising and passing away. He says if there’s anything skillful that you haven’t given rise to yet, you’re mindful to give rise to it. And once it’s there, you’re mindful to make sure it doesn … 
  15. A Heart Bigger Than the World
     … What’s important is that you maintain your state of mind. If you’re going to be losing your limbs, you’re quickly going to be losing your body, and what do you have left? Just your mind—the qualities you’ve developed in the mind. You don’t want your good qualities to be sawed into pieces along with your body. The Buddha … 
  16. Stop & Think
     … Undirected is when nothing much is weighing down the mind. You simply let go of your concerns and find yourself with the breath. You settle in with the breath, you’re mindful, alert, and ardent to stay with the breath. And whatever thinking you engage in has to do only with the breath itself and the mind’s relationship to the breath: the directed … 
  17. Feeding Instructions
    We read in the Buddha’s descriptions about what happens when the mind gets into jhāna that rapture and pleasure spread through the whole body, saturate the whole body, so that there’s no part of the body not saturated by them. We read in Ajaan Lee’s descriptions of the breath energy flowing throughout the body. We begin to think that we have … 
  18. The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless
     … And as you’re carrying through, you begin to realize more and more that the important element is the mind. The mind’s got to be trained beyond just simply having right view. You’ve got to work on developing skillful qualities in the mind and abandoning unskillful ones. That’s right effort. And you have to develop powers of concentration. That starts with … 
  19. King Asoka’s Vow
     … And three qualities of right mindfulness are particularly relevant: mindfulness itself, alertness, and ardency. With mindfulness, you’re keeping something in mind, and it requires some discernment and discretion. What are the things that really are worth keeping in mind? The definition in the text says, “keeping in mind things that were said and done long ago.” That can apply to things that other … 
  20. A Wilderness Mind at Home
    A Wilderness Mind at Home October 13, 2006 Seclusion is an important part of the practice. Coming away to a place like this, where you’re away from your normal responsibilities, your normal environment, throws the spotlight directly on your mind. And it pulls away a lot of the barriers to the practice, at least the outside barriers. You’re left with the inside … 
  21. Breath Energy
     … The mind is constantly putting things together. There’s a sensation here, a sensation there, and there’s something in the mind that puts them together to make sense out of them. Sometimes we make good sense; sometimes we don’t make such good sense. For the purpose of concentration, the sense you want to make out of the body is that it’s … 
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