Search results for: "Mindfulness"

  1. Page 95
  2. The Humble Way to Awakening
     … Particularly in the mind. Pain in the body, as it turns out, is not the issue. We make it an issue that spreads into the mind. If pain simply arose in the body without our connecting it to any suffering or disease in the mind, it wouldn’t be an issue. The problem is that the mind has laid claim to the body. After … 
  3. The Fabrication of Pain
     … There can be a physical pain in the body but it doesn’t have to affect the mind. What affects the mind is the bridge that comes through the perception—where you’re laying claim to some part of the body but the pain has invaded the spot that you’ve laid claim to. You picture it as having a particular shape and a … 
  4. The Flow of Time
     … What’s the best use of those things? The Buddha said the best use lies in training the mind, because everything you do and say and think comes out of the mind. And you don’t want your mind to be run by impulses. You want it to think of the long term. This is the beginning of wisdom and discernment, when you ask … 
  5. How the Breath Helps You to Die Well
    There are meditation traditions that have you look directly at your mind and they say of those of us who are focusing on the breath, “You’re going to spend all of your life focusing on your breath? What are you going to do when you die? When you die, the breath’s going to leave you. And you’ll be left with nothing … 
  6. Mindfulness of Death
     … Which is why mindfulness of death gathers into it all kinds of meditation topics. You can trace every meditation topic, every skill about the things you need to abandon, to mindfulness of death. That’s how they’re all connected. And that’s why mindfulness of death is a good meditation topic for encouraging you to get really good at the other topics, because … 
  7. Strengthening Conviction
    Strengthening Conviction January 1, 2012 Meditating, strengthening the mind, is very similar to strengthening the body. You have some strength to begin with, and you use that strength to develop further strength. In Thai, the word for exercising is awk kamlang, which means to put forth energy. And in putting it forth, you gain something in return. So as you meditate, you have to … 
  8. Choices
     … It can provide a sense of well-being, a place where the mind can settle down and gain some concentration. That concentration can be your food. So breathe in a way that feels refreshing, that creates a sense of fullness in the body. That is possible. Then when the mind settles down, you can start seeing things in the mind more clearly. The little … 
  9. Undividing the Mind
    Everyone comes to meditation with a divided mind. Part of the mind wants to meditate, and the other part has other plans, other agendas. And it’s not just two parts; there are lots of parts. So you have to recognize this fact and be prepared for it. One of the ways is to remind yourself of all the dangers that come when you … 
  10. Making an Effort
     … Even before we sense things, there’s an element of fabrication going on in the mind. If the mind weren’t active, if it weren’t putting effort into this, it wouldn’t be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch anything at all. Then there’s all the effort that goes into being happy to do this, sometimes requiring the mind to … 
  11. The Middle Way
     … Anything unskillful coming up in the mind, you’re going to let it go. As for skillful things that are not there yet, you try to give rise to them and then to develop them. The instructions for how you do that are in right mindfulness. You focus on the body in and of itself. You’re ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed … 
  12. Patience & Endurance
     … What’s skillful right now? Try to get the mind to settle down. We want to get the mind in a position where it doesn’t get worked up over pleasure or pain, where it can see things clearly for what they are. To do that, you’ve got to give the mind a sense of well-being right now. It does need some … 
  13. For a Routine That Isn’t Routine
     … He says you can simply take the body sitting here as your object, and ask questions about it: “Is the mind sitting in the body? Is the body sitting in the mind? Who’s doing the sitting? Does the mind sit? Or is it just the body that sits?” You can ask all kinds of questions. You’ll find that, as you ask the … 
  14. The Power of the Will
     … So in your own mind, you decide you’re going to change things inside and see what happens. You make up your mind to stay here with the breath. Without your making up your mind, it’s not going to happen. There may be some fluke times when the mind simply settles in, but you wouldn’t understand anything. You wouldn’t understand why … 
  15. Your Inner Ally
     … So always keep that in mind, that whatever else is coming up in the mind, you can choose where you want to focus your attention. It’s like reading a newspaper. If you tried to follow all the stories in the news, you wouldn’t have time for your own life. So you select which issues are most important, and as for everything else … 
  16. Samvega & Pasada
    Focusing on the breath, trying to get the mind to stay with the breath, can sometimes be a very chastening experience. On the first level, there’s the simple difficulty of getting the mind to stay with one thing: something as simple and nearby as the breath, and yet you find it slipping off, slipping off, slipping off. You start out with the best … 
  17. Determined to Make a Difference
     … We start with finding wise people to associate with; learning restraint; developing all sorts of good qualities in the mind and in our outside actions—that’s our protection. Ordinarily, we find ourselves swinging back and forth between wanting to do skillful things and wanting to do unskillful things. Our minds are scattered. Our intentions are scattered. Like the light of the sun: It … 
  18. Building Character
     … All of this relates to a quality that Ajaan Maha Boowa defined as singleness of mind—ekaggata. In his definition of the term, it’s not that the mind is one-pointed. It’s that the mind has a solid stability that can weather the ups and downs. Whether they’re ups and downs in outside conditions or ups and downs in your meditation … 
  19. Metta
     … You have to make up your mind this is something you really want to do. Once you’ve made up that determination, then you maintain it as a form of mindfulness, something you want to keep in mind. The Buddha doesn’t say much about how to do it. He does say you should protect your goodwill as a mother would protect her only … 
  20. Agreements to Perceive
     … Another is the whole issue of thoughts coming into the mind. When a thought comes into the mind, a part of the mind will say, “I’ve got to look into this, to see what this is all about. Maybe there’s entertainment. Maybe there’s something important.” Learn to switch that perception around. Look at the thought as an energy that’s simply … 
  21. Papañca
    As you sit here focused on the breath, you get some hands-on experience in seeing how the mind relates to objects. On the one hand, you have the object that you intend to stay with: the breath. And you’ve got to ask yourself: Where are you in relation to the breath? And what does it mean to keep the breath in mind … 
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