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In the first stage of meditative concentration (dhyana), both kinds of thinking are present. In the second stage, neither is there.
There are four practices related to Right Thinking: (1) “Are You Sure?”
Wrong perceptions cause incorrect thinking and unnecessary suffering.
(2) “What Am I Doing?”
Ask yourself, What am I doing? often. When your thinking is not carrying you away and you do things in mindfulness, you will be happy and a resource for many others. (3) “Hello, Habit Energy.”
Our way of acting depends on our way of thinking, and our way of thinking depends on our habit energies.
When we can accept these ingrained thoughts and not feel guilty about them, they will lose much of their power over us. Right Thinking leads to Right Action. (4) Bodhichitta.
With bodhichitta at the foundation of our thinking, everything we do or say will help others be liberated. Right Thinking also gives rise to Right Diligence.
The easiest way, he said, to keep unwholesome thoughts from arising is to live in a wholesome environment, a community that practices mindful living. With the help and presence of Dharma sisters and brothers, it is easy to sustain Right Thinking. Dwelling in a good environment is preventive medicine.
Compare dharma community with the concepts of the local church, temple/synagogue, or ashram.
When you practice Right View and Right Thinking, you dwell deeply in the present moment, where you can touch seeds of joy, peace, and liberation, heal and transform your suffering, and be truly present for many others.
Right Mindfulness (samyak smriti) is at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings.
When Right Mindfulness is present, the Four Noble Truths and the seven other elements of the Eightfold Path are also present.
Right Mindfulness is the energy that brings us back to the present moment.
To cultivate mindfulness in ourselves is to cultivate the Buddha within, to cu...
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A good gardener knows the way to grow flowers from compost.
Right Mindfulness accepts everything without judging or reacting. It is inclusive and loving. The practice is to find ways to sustain appropriate attention throughout the day.
Mindfulness is remembering to come back to the present moment.
The First Miracle of Mindfulness is to be present and able to touch deeply the blue sky, the flower, and the smile of our child. The Second Miracle of Mindfulness is to make the other — the sky, the flower, our child — present, also.
The Third Miracle of Mindfulness is to nourish the object of your attention.
The Fourth Miracle of Mindfulness is to relieve the other’s suffering.
In difficult moments, if you have a friend who can be truly present with you, you know you are blessed. To love means to nourish the other with appropriate attention.
When you practice Right Mindfulness, you make yourself and the other person present at the same time.
When someone is about to die, if you sit with him stably and solidly, that alone may be enough to help him leave this life with ease.
The first four miracles of mindfulness belong to the first aspect of meditation, shamatha — stopping, calming, resting, and healing. Once you have calmed yourself and stopped being dispersed, your mind will be one-pointed and you will be ready to begin looking deeply. The Fifth Miracle of Mindfulness is looking deeply (vipashyana), which is also the second aspect of meditation.
The Sixth Miracle of Mindfulness is understanding.
Understanding is the very foundation of love. When you understand someone, you cannot help but love him or her.
The Seventh Miracle of Mindfulness is transformation.
It can take years to transform a habit energy, but when we do, we stop the wheel of samsara, the vicious cycle of suffering and confusion that has gone on for so many lifetimes.
It is helpful to read the Discourse on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness at least once a week, along with the Discourse on the Full Awareness of Breathing2 and the Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone.3 You might like to keep these three books by your bedside and take them with you when you travel.
The first establishment is “mindfulness of the body in the body.”
The second establishment is mindfulness of the feelings in the feelings.
The third establishment is mindfulness of the mind (chitta) in the mind.
The basic unwholesome mental formations are greed, hatred, ignorance, pride, doubt, and views. The secondary unwholesome mental formations, arising from the basic ones, are anger, malice, hypocrisy, malevolence, jealousy, selfishness, deception, guile, unwholesome excitement, the wish to harm, immodesty, arrogance, dullness, agitation, lack of faith, indolence, carelessness, forgetfulness, distraction, and lack of attention.
The fourth establishment is mindfulness of phenomena (dharmas) in phenomena.
there are Six Elements.” These are the Four Great Elements (mahabhuta) of earth, water, fire, and air, plus space and consciousness. All physical phenomena are made up of these Six Elements. If we observe these Six Elements inside us and around us, we see that we are not separate from the universe. This insight frees us from the idea of birth and death.
When something causes us to suffer, if we look deeply into it, we may see that it is exactly what we need to restore our happiness. In fact, suffering is essential for happiness.
If we look deeply into our craving, we see that we already have what we crave, because everything is already a part of everything else.
To live in the realm of non-harming is to love.
Every time we practice Right Mindfulness, it is like jumping into that cool lake. If we are standing, we only have to know that we are standing. If we are sitting, we only have to know that we are sitting. We don’t have to add or take away anything. We only need to be aware.
Finally, the Buddha taught the meditation on the Two Realms — the realm of the conditioned (samskrita) and the realm of the unconditioned (asamskrita).
These two realms are not separate.
To arrive at liberation from narrow views and to obtain fearlessness and great compassion, practice the contemplations on interdependence, impermanence, and compassion.
Every object of the mind is itself mind. In Buddhism, we call the objects of mind the dharmas.
The object of our mindfulness is actually the whole cosmos.
If we see the truth of one thing in the cosmos, we see the nature of the cosmos.
When Thich Quang Duc made himself into a human torch, people all over the world had to recognize that Vietnam was a land on fire, and they had to do something about it.
Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.
What is essential is to be alive and present to all the wonders of life that are available.
The practice of the precepts (shila) is the practice of Right Mindfulness.
The heart of Buddhist meditation is the practice of mindfulness, and mindfulness is the practice of the precepts. You cannot meditate without practicing the precepts.11
