Search results for: "Mindfulness"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. Keep It Simple
     … So you’re staying with the breath, mindful and alert: that’s right effort right there. It shades into right mindfulness: just being with the breath in and of itself. That gives you three qualities now: You’re mindful and alert and ardent. Ardency is right effort as applied in mindfulness practice. Mindfulness means remembering to stay with the breath. Be alert to the … 
  6. A Refuge Inside
     … What you’re doing is trying to find a place where the mind can stay in the present moment with a sense of ease, a sense of comfort, because if there’s no sense of ease, the mind won’t stay. The Buddha once said that one of the prerequisites for the ability to concentrate the mind, to get the mind to settle down … 
  7. Healing & Protection
     … That way, regardless of the pains there may be in the body, the mind doesn’t have to be pained, because the suffering and stress that’s caused by the mind: That’s the suffering that really gets to the mind. If the mind is well trained, the pains in the body can’t seep into the mind because they’re there in the … 
  8. Above & Beyond Suffering
    We sometimes think that meditation means not thinking, just making the mind very, very still. But you can’t really make it still unless you think about it, think about what you’re doing, take stock of where the mind is right now. There’s an old Thai meditation guide that says, “Is your mind leaning forward? Or leaning back? Leaning to the left … 
  9. Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana
     … Sometimes non-reactivity gets inserted into the path under the factor of right mindfulness. But the Buddha never defined mindfulness as non-reactivity. Mindfulness in his lexicon means the ability to keep something in mind. And there is such a thing as right mindfulness and wrong mindfulness. Wrong mindfulness is when you keep in mind desires that get you worked up about the world … 
  10. In Times of Danger and Fear
     … The perceptions you hold in mind and the feelings you focus on all have an impact on how you relate to the breath and whether the mind can become calm, have a sense of well-being, happy to be with the breath. In other words, as you focus on getting comfortable with the breath, you’re going to begin to notice the mind as … 
  11. Food, Shelter & Work
    Try to get both the body and the mind in position. The body in position: As you’re sitting here right now, place your hands in your lap, palms up, keep your eyes closed and your back comfortably straight. The mind in position: Think thoughts of goodwill, as we did in the chant just now: “May I be happy. May all beings be happy … 
  12. An Island of Concentration
     … Right mindfulness, in his explanations of meditation, shades into right concentration. It’s how you get the mind into right concentration to begin with. For another, he did point out that mindfulness has to be very selective. The definition of right mindfulness begins by saying that you stay focused on the body in and of itself—in this case, that would be the breath … 
  13. Everything’s Right There
    We focus on the breath because when the mind is focused on the breath, everything you need to know to put an end to suffering is right here. You’re at the right spot. It’s simply a matter of getting used to it, realizing the potentials all around you right here, both in the body and in the mind. In the body, you … 
  14. The Tricks of Denial
    Try to get everyone in your mind on board with the idea that you’re going to be meditating right now. If you look around inside, you’ll find that there are the voices that want to meditate and voices that want to do something else. In some cases, you can reason with the other members of the committee and they’ll be willing … 
  15. Lift Your Mind
    The Buddha’s basic instructions for concentration practice are found in his description of right mindfulness. You’re doing two things: One, you’re giving the mind a focal point, a theme to stick with, and then two, you’re putting aside all other thoughts. He describes the focal point as being focused on the body, in and of itself—how you experience the … 
  16. A Cure for the Sluggish Mind
    When you sit down to meditate, take stock of your body, take stock of your mind. Look to see where things are out of balance. With the body, it’s always good to energize it first. Take a couple of good long, deep, in-and-out breaths, because eventually you’re going to be calming things down. If things are already too calm, by … 
  17. A Flammable Mind
     … Of course, for the human mind, our minds, it’s always fire season. Our minds are always ready to catch fire. They seem awfully dry. A traditional simile for the Dhamma is that it’s water to put out fires of the mind. And what are the fires of the mind? Passion, aversion, delusion. They’re like the fire element in dry grass just … 
  18. All Three Functions of Mindfulness
    All Three Functions of Mindfulness March 3, 2018 Mindfulness means keeping something in mind, like we’re doing right now. We’re keeping the breath in mind. But why are we keeping the breath in mind? There are basically three functions for mindfulness on the path. One is to remember to stay alert to what you’re doing in the present moment and not … 
  19. Why We Train the Mind
     … Cultivate this sense of being very steadily aware, mindful, alert, and ardent. Those are the three qualities you work on when training the mind. Mindfulness means keeping something in mind, as when you keep the breath in mind. Alertness is watching what’s happening with the breath. When it comes in, where do you feel it? When it goes out, where do you feel … 
  20. On Your Own Two Feet
     … Which is why this quality of the imperturbable mind is really important—the attitude of mind that can step back a little bit and just watch things, to observe: “What am I doing? What are the results?” This is also why mindfulness and alertness are the two main qualities you need in order to develop this sense of the observer. With mindfulness, you keep … 
  21. The Possibility of Letting Go
     … You want to be able to develop the mind so that even though the body gets weaker, the mind doesn’t have to get weaker along with it. This is why we need to make the mind more independent. Its skillful qualities are the things that make it independent. Often they’re just simple things—like learning how to keep your mind under enough … 
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