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February 24, 2020 - September 28, 2022
Our happiness and the happiness of those around us depend on our degree of Right View. Touching reality deeply — knowing what is going on inside and outside of ourselves — is the way to liberate ourselves ...
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“Image teaching” uses words and ideas. “Substance teaching” communicates by the way you live.
To practice is to go beyond ideas, so you can arrive at the suchness of things. “No idea” is the path of nonconception. As long as there is an idea, there is no reality, no truth. “No idea” means no wrong idea, no wrong conception. It does not mean no mindfulness. Because of mindfulness, when something is right, we know it’s right, and when something is wrong, we know it’s wrong.
Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice to help us eliminate wrong views.
From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views.
Right Thinking
When Right View is solid in us, we have Right Thinking (samyak samkalpa). We need Right View at the foundation of our thinking. And if we train ourselves in Right Thinking, our Right View will improve.
Thinking is the speech of our mind. Right Thinking makes our speech clear and beneficial. Because thinking often leads to action, Right Thinking is neede...
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Right Thinking reflects the way things are. Wrong thinking causes us to see in an “ups...
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When we concentrate on our breathing, we bring body and mind back together and become whole again.
When Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” he meant that we can prove our existence by the fact that our thinking exists. He concluded that because we are thinking, we are really there, existing. I would conclude the opposite: “I think, therefore I am not.” As long as mind and body are not together, we get lost and we cannot really say that we are here.
Much of our thinking is unnecessary. Those thoughts are limited and do not carry much understanding in them. Sometimes we feel as though we have a cassette player in our head — always running, day and night — and we cannot turn it off. We worry and become tense and have nightmares. When we practice mindfulness, we begin to hear the cassette tape in our mind, and we can notice whether our thinking is useful or not.
Extremely relevant to me. The story of my life.
Thinking has two parts — initial thought (vitarka) and developing thought (vichara).
In the first stage of meditative concentration (dhyana), both kinds of thinking are present. In the second stage, neither is there. We are in deeper contact with reality, free of words and concepts.
There are four practices related to Right Thinking: (1) “Are You Sure?” — If there is a rope in your path and you perceive it as a snake, fear-based thinking will follow. The more erroneous your perception, the more incorrect your thinking will be. Please write the words “Are you sure?” on a large piece of paper and hang it where you will see it often. Ask yourself this question again and again. Wrong perceptions cause incorrect thinking and unnecessary suffering. (2) “What Am I Doing?” — Sometimes I ask one of my students, “What are you doing?” to help him release his thinking about the past
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When you ask, What am I doing?, reflect deeply on the question. If your thoughts are carrying you away, you need mindfulness to intervene.
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.”
We tend to stick to our habits, even the ones that ca...
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As in the DSM definition of addiction.
Our way of acting depends on our way of thinking, and our way of thinking depends on our habit energies. When we recognize this, we only need to say, “Hello, habit energy,” and make good friends with our habitual patterns of thinking and acting. 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.
So many therapy modes here, like CBT (and some of its offshoots) and IFS, among others.
(4) Bodhichitta. — Our “mind of love” is the deep wish to cultivate understanding in ourselves in order to bring happiness to many beings. It is the motivating force for the practice of mindful living.
Right Thinking also gives rise to Right Diligence.
we need to learn how to change the peg and replace those patterns with wholesome thoughts.
duh
The easiest way, he said, to keep unwholesome thoughts from arising is to live in a wholesome environment, a community that practices mindful living.
Right Thinking is thinking that is in accord with Right View.
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
Right Mindfulness (samyak smriti) is at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. Traditionally, Right Mindfulness is the seventh on the path of eight right practices, but it is presented here third to emphasize its great importance. When Right Mindfulness is present, the Four Noble Truths and the seven other elements of the Eightfold Path are also present. When we are mindful, our thinking is Right Thinking, our speech is Right Speech, and so on. 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
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According to Buddhist psychology (abhidharma, “super Dharma”), the trait “attention” (manaskara) is “universal,” which means we are always giving our attention to something. Our attention may be “appropriate” (yoniso manaskara), as when we dwell fully in the present moment, or inappropriate (ayoniso manaskara), ...
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Right Mindfulness accepts everything without judging or reacting. It is inclusive and loving. The practice is to find ways to sustain app...
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The Sanskrit word for mindfulness, smriti, means “remember.” Mindfulness is remembering to come...
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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.
If you do not give right attention to the one you love, it is a kind of killing.
The Fourth Miracle of Mindfulness is to relieve the other’s suffering. “I know you are suffering. That is why I am here for you.”
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.
Your presence is like a mantra, sacred speech that has a transforming effect. When your body, speech, and mind are in perfect oneness, that mantra will have an effect even before you utter a word.
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. Because you are calm and concentrated, you are really there for deep looking. You shine the light of mindfulness on the object of your attention,...
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The Sixth Miracle of Mindfulness is understanding.
When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, we can see and listen deeply, and the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy. 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. When we practice Right Mindfulness, we touch the healing and refreshing elements of life and begin to transform our own suffering and the suffering of the world.
the Buddha offers four objects for our mindfulness practice: our body, our feelings, our mind, and the objects of our mind.
Discourse on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness
Discourse on the Full Awareness of Breathing2
Discourse on Knowing the Better Way t...
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The Four Establishments of Mindfulness are the foundation of our dwelling place.
The first establishment is “mindfulness of the body in the body.”
We begin by noting all of our body’s positions and movements. When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we stand, walk, or lie down we know we are standing, walking, or lying down. When we practice this way, mindfulness is there. This practice is called “mere recognition.”
