Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 92
  2. The Noble Truths of the Breath
    To get the mind to settle down, you need to give it a comfortable place to stay. That’s why we work with the breath. Or you can say we play with the breath. In other words, we experiment to see what kind of breathing feels good. You can try long breathing or shorter breathing. It’s good to start with long breathing to … 
  3. Food for Consciousness
     … In the meantime, though, you want to learn how to be more selective in how your mind feeds, and realize that you have choices. All too often, we’re driven by our old habits: the habit of the mind that likes to engage, say, in lust or in anger, the habit of the mind that’s afraid it won’t be something so it … 
  4. A Passion for the Path
     … That’s the quality of ardency that leads from mindfulness into concentration. You really want to put your whole heart into it. Then you want to develop the right resolve that goes along with it, the resolve that makes up the mind to focus on a happiness that doesn’t involve sensuality, doesn’t involve harm to anybody. Where are you going to find … 
  5. Unlearning Unskillful Behavior
     … So many people misunderstand mindfulness as meaning simply being aware of whatever comes up, and accepting whatever comes up. The Buddha’s definition was different, though: Mindfulness for him was keeping something in mind, keeping in mind what you’ve done, and the results you’ve experienced from what you’ve done—and also keeping in mind that you want to learn how to … 
  6. Relationships
     … As it fills the body, you find that the mind feels a lot less frazzled. At the same time, the qualities it needs to develop to maintain this, in terms of mindfulness and alertness, give nourishment to the mind. So you’re putting yourself in a position of strength. When you’re in this position, then when you’re dealing with relationships with people … 
  7. Developing Discernment
     … You’ll find that the committee of the mind has some members who are happy to be here, and other members who are not. This is why the Buddha says there are two duties that you *do *as you get the mind to settle down with right mindfulness and into right concentration: One is to keep track of the object you’re determined to … 
  8. Correcting, Fostering, Cutting Away
     … These are some things you can think about to bring the body and mind together, by focusing on the mind first, correcting the mind first. Then, of course, there’s the question of correcting the body. How’s the breath? Too long? Too short? Too heavy? Too light? What kind of breathing would feel really good right now? Think about this for a while … 
  9. The Focus on Suffering
     … Keep perfecting, keep refining your understanding through developing these qualities of mind: virtue, concentration, discernment. Mindfulness, the Buddha said, is always appropriate—mindfulness and alertness. But as for whether the mind needs energizing or whether it needs calming down, you have to use the mindfulness and alertness to figure that out. And then apply whatever’s appropriate. In this way, your right view and … 
  10. Acceptance Without Suffering
     … Our main problem is that we’re looking for food for the mind outside, because the mind needs food, too, just like the body. Food for the body is pretty simple. We know what it is. With food for the mind, though, you have to ask yourself: What are you feeding on? You can feed on your intentions. You can feed on acts of … 
  11. Truthful & Observant
    One of the Thai idioms for meditation is “making an effort,” and of course it means making an effort with the mind. There’s the physical effort to do walking meditation, the effort that goes through sitting long periods of time and dealing with the pain that comes up when you sit for long periods of time. But primarily it’s an effort with … 
  12. Maintaining Stillness
     … But to see these ways requires that the mind be still, and that we learn to keep the mind still in all sorts of situations. All too often, it’s easy to get the mind to settle down as you’re sitting here with your eyes closed. The trick lies in maintaining that same sense of balance, that same sense of stillness, even in … 
  13. The Four Noble Truths
     … So we develop good qualities in the mind that help us develop that sense of being solidly grounded. And they come down essentially to two: getting rid of things that get in the way of seeing clearly; and then developing the qualities of the mind—like mindfulness, concentration, right understanding—that help us comprehend the pain, to help us see. As for the things … 
  14. Freedom Through Painful Practice
     … Sometimes the things you hold to dearly—and not just things, also ideas you hold to in your mind—you have to experiment with dropping them for a bit to see what the results would be. Which parts of the mind would actually be lighter? Which parts of the mind would actually feel less burdened? Even the things around which you create a very … 
  15. The Food of Feelings
     … the food for our minds. If you look at the different feelings that go through you in the course of the day, you realize that a lot of them are toxic. If you feed on them, it’ll be toxic for the mind. Feelings of sadness, feelings of depression, feelings of anger, discouragement: All these things can really weaken the mind if you feed … 
  16. Practicing on Your Own
     … They come from the mind in the way you look at things, and also they’re going to come back and have an impact on the mind. So it’s not just innocent things passing by your eyes or ears. There’s a causal process going on that comes out of the mind and then comes back into the mind, and then through your … 
  17. Shoulds & Desires
     … So if you find that there’s any conflict in the mind as you’re practicing, it’s not because the Buddha’s shoulds are unreasonable or punitive. It’s because there’s all that ignorance still in your mind about what actually would lead to true and reliable happiness. There are voices in the mind that can say, “Hey, I can find some … 
  18. Ingenuity
     … They lift the level of your mind. It’s interesting that learning the Dhamma would be the one that would lift it. It’s good to keep that in mind, to stock your mind with Dhamma. Because things are going to come up in your meditation and you want something to measure them against. Think of Ajaan Mun out in the forest, with visions … 
  19. Persistence
     … Anything that comes out of the mind based on greed, aversion, or delusion is going to be unskillful. Anything based on absence of greed, aversion, or delusion will be skillful. That means with your effort you have to notice when something comes up in the mind, where is it coming from? Then you have to decide what to do. The realization that you have … 
  20. Our Sense of Self
     … When you learn to identify with a generous mind-state, you find you really enjoy it. It’s much more expansive than a greedy or stingy mind state. You learn how to withdraw from the greedy or stingy mind state. It may come up, but you decide you don’t have to identify with it. That’s a little teaching on not-self right … 
  21. Worry vs. Heedfulness
     … There’s so much about the future that you can’t know, but you do know that if anything unexpected comes up, you’re going to need mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment—all the good qualities of the mind. Those will be your refuge. So, when you find the mind is consumed by worries, stop and think for a minute: What can be done? What … 
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