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Mindfulness (sati) |
The meditation practice of maintaining awareness of one's body and consciousness |
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The Gift of Waiting
When we are forced to wait, say in a traffic jam, our instinct is to do something to distract ourselves from the discomfort of waiting. We turn on the radio, call or text someone on the phone, or just sit and fume. Practicing mindfulness while waiting helps people find many small moments in the day when they can bring the thread of awareness up from where is lies hiding in the complex fabric of their lives. Waiting, a common event that usually produces negative emotions, can be transformed into a gift, the gift of free time to practice. The mind benefits doubly: first, by abandoning negative mindstates, and second, by gaining the beneficial effects of even a few extra minutes of practice woven into the day. More » -
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Meditation Instructions
SIT comfortably, with your back straight but not stiff or tense. Gently close your eyes and feel the sensations of the breath as the air passes the nostrils or upper lip. The sensations of the in-breath appear simply and naturally. Notice how the out-breath appears. Or you might choose to feel the movement of your chest or abdomen as the breath enters and leaves your body. Wherever you choose to follow the sensations of breathing, whether the in and out at the nostrils or the movement of the chest or abdomen, train your awareness to connect clearly with the first moment of the beginning in-breath. Then sustain the attention for the duration of just that one in-coming breath. Connect again at the beginning of the outbreath and sustain your attention till the end.More » -
From the Canon: The Visible Teaching
Once a wandering ascetic, Moliya Sivaka, addressed the Blessed One as follows:“It is said, venerable sir, ‘The dhamma is directly visible.’ In what way, venerable sir, is the dhamma directly visible, immediate, inviting one to come and see, worthy of application, to be personally experienced by the wise?”“Well, Sivaka, I shall in return question you about this. You may answer as you see fit.“What do you think, Sivaka: when there is greed in you, will you know, ‘There is greed in me’? And when there is no greed in you, will you know, ‘There is no greed in me’?” — “Yes, venerable sir, I shall know.”“If you thus know of the greed present in you that it is there; and when greed is absent that it is absent—that is a way the dhamma is directly visible. More » -
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Water the Flowers, Not the Weeds
If you’re out watering your flower garden by hand, you naturally concentrate the flow of water to benefit your beautiful flowers. If there’s an area of weeds, you don’t waste water there. As best you can, you avoid watering the weeds.It’s the same with your consciousness. You can learn to selectively water the positive seeds and flowers in you by attending to them. There are enough weeds. You don’t have to encourage them. More » -
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Commit to Sit: Week 4, Thoughts
WEEK FOUR: ThoughtsYou’ve made it to the final week. Acknowledge your hard work and recognize the joy that comes from following through on a commitment. In this final week we will further develop the skills we have worked on over the last twenty-one days and will expand our realm of focus to include thoughts. Working with Thoughts For the purpose of meditation, nothing is particularly worth thinking about: not our childhood, not our relationships, not the great novel we always wanted to write. This does not mean that thoughts will not come. In fact, they may come with tremendous frequency. We do not need to fight with them or struggle against them or judge them. Rather, we can simply choose not to follow the thoughts once they have arisen. The quicker we notice that we are thinking, the quicker we can see thought’s empty nature. More »
