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Category: Mindfulness

  • Mindfulness

    Mindfulness
    Mindfulness

    Mindfulness is both
    a state of being and
    a daily spiritual practice,
    a form of meditation.
    ~ David Richo

  • Perception

    Thich Nhat Hanh
    Thich Nhat Hanh

    Thich Nhat Hanh spoke of perceptions when I went to listen to him in London on my birthday in October 2000, and what he had to say has stuck with me all of these years. He said that we see everything through our perceptions, and they are nearly always wrong.  This was brought home to me again  when reading Byron Katie’s work. The first question she says to ask about anything we are facing is ‘is that true?’ It is amazing how many thoughts can float through our minds each day, and when the question ‘is that true?’ is asked, the answer is ‘no’.

    ~ gill

    The following is from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
    by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Our perceptions are conditioned by the many afflictions that are present in us: ignorance, craving, hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, habit energies, etc. We perceive phenomena on the basis of our lack of insight into the nature of impermanence and interbeing. Practicing mindfulness, concentration, and deep looking, we can discover the errors of our perceptions and free ourselves from fear and clinging. All suffering is born from wrong perceptions. Understanding, the fruit of meditation, can dissolve our wrong perceptions and liberate us. We have to be alert always and never seek refuge in our perceptions.

     

  • Observing Mindfulness

    Observing Mindfulness Shanitdeva quote Allspirit
    Observing Mindfulness

    Again and again, examine
    Every aspect of your mental and physical activities.
    In brief, that is the very way of observing mindfulness.

    ~Shantideva

     

  • Being Nobody

    By Ajahn Sumedho

    Now how many of you feel you have a mission in life to perform? It’s
    something you’ve got to do and some kind of important task that’s been
    assigned to you by God or fate or something. People frequently get
    caught up in that view of being somebody who has a mission. Who can be
    just with the way things are, so that it is just the body that grows
    up, gets old and dies, breathes and is conscious? We can practice,
    live within the moral precepts, do good, respond to the needs and
    experiences of life with mindfulness and wisdom – but there’s nobody
    that has to do anything. There’s nobody with a mission, nobody
    special, we’re not making a person or a saint or an avatar or a tulku
    or a messiah or Maitreya. Even if you think: ‘I’m just a nobody,’ even
    being a nobody is somebody in this life, isn’t it? You can be just as
    proud of being nobody as of being somebody, and just as deluded
    attached to being nobody. But whatever you happen to believe, that
    you’re a nobody or a somebody or you have a mission or you’re a
    nuisance and a burden to the world or however you might view yourself,
    then the knowing is there to see the cessation of such a view.

    Views arise and cease, don’t they? ‘I’m somebody, an important person
    who has a mission in life’: that arises and ceases in the mind. Notice
    the ending of being somebody important or being nobody or whatever –
    it all ceases, doesn’t it? Everything that arises, ceases, so there’s
    a non-grasping of the view of being somebody with a mission or of
    being nobody. There’s the end of that whole mass of suffering – of
    having to develop something, become somebody, change something, set
    everything right, get rid of all your defilements or save the world.
    Even the best ideals, the best thoughts can be seen as dhammas that
    arise and cease in the mind.

    Now, you might think that this is a barren philosophy of life because
    there’s a lot more heart and feeling in being somebody who’s going to
    save all sentient beings. People with self-sacrifice who have missions
    and help others and have something important to do are an inspiration.
    But when you notice that as dhamma, you are looking at the limitations
    of inspirations and the cessation of it. Then there is the dhamma of
    those aspirations and actions rather than somebody who has to become
    something or has to do something. The whole illusion is relinquished
    and what remains is purity of mind. Then the response to experience
    comes from wisdom and purity rather than from personal conviction and
    mission with its sense of self and other, and all the complications
    that come from that whole pattern of delusion.

    Can you trust that? Can you trust in just letting everything go and
    cease and not being anybody and not having any mission, not having to
    become anything? Can you really trust in that or do you find it
    frightening, barren or depressing? Maybe you really want inspiration.
    ‘Tell me everything is all right; tell me you really love me; what I’m
    doing is right and Buddhism is not just a selfish religion where you
    get enlightened for your own sake; tell me that Buddhism is here to
    save all sentient beings. Is that what you’re going to do, Venerable
    Sumedho? Are you really Mahayana or Hinayana?’

    What I’m pointing to is what inspiration is as an experience.
    Idealism: not trying to dismiss it or to judge it in any way but to
    reflect on it, to know what that is in the mind and how easily we can
    be deluded by our own ideas and high-minded views. And to see how
    insensitive, cruel and unkind we can be by the attachment we have to
    views about being kind and sensitive. This is where it is a real
    investigation into Dhamma.

    I remember in my own experience, I always had the view that I was
    somebody special in some way; I used to think, ‘Well I must be a
    special person.’ Way back when I was a child I was fascinated by Asia
    and as soon as I could, I studied Chinese at the university, so surely
    I must have been a reincarnation of somebody who was connected to the
    Orient.

    But consider this as a reflection: no matter how many signs of being
    special or previous lives you can remember or voices from God or
    messages from the Cosmos, whatever – not to deny that or say that
    those things aren’t real – but they’re impermanent. They’re anicca,
    dukkha, anatta. We’re reflecting on them as they really are – what
    arises ceases: a message from God is something that comes and ceases
    in your mind, doesn’t it? God isn’t always talking to you continuously
    unless you want to consider the silence the voice of God. Then it
    doesn’t really say anything does it? We can call it anything – we can
    call it the voice of God or the divine or the ringing of the cosmos or
    blood in your eardrums. But whatever it is, it can be used for
    mindfulness and reflection – that’s what I’m pointing to, how to use
    these things without making them into something.

    More from Ajahn Sumedho

    More Buddhist writings on Allspirit

     

     

     

  • Everything Depends on Your Steps

    From: The Long Road Turns to Joy

    By Thich Nhat Hanh

    The seed of mindfulness is in us, but we usually forget to water it.
    We think that happiness is possible only in the future-when we get
    a house, a car, a Ph.D. We struggle in our mind and body, and we
    don’t touch the peace and joy that are available right now-the blue
    sky, the green leaves, the eyes of our beloved. What is most
    important? Many people have passed exams and bought houses and
    cars, and yet they are still unhappy. What is most important in life is
    to find peace and to share it with others. To have peace, you can
    begin by walking peacefully. Everything depends on your steps.

    Read selected poems from Thich Nhat Hanh

    Read quotations and excerpts from Thich Nhat Hanh

    More Buddhist writings on Allspirit

     

  • Taking Personal Responsibility

    Excerpted from The Mind and the Way

    By Ajahn Sumedho

    With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other people are taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for acting in a virtuous way, regardless of what the rest of sociery is doing.I can be kind, generous, and loving toward you, and that is a joy to me.But if I make my happiness dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be threatened, because if you aren’t doing what I like-behaving the way I want you to-then I’m going to be unhappy. So then, my happiness is always under threat because the world might not behave as I want it to.

    It’s clear that I would spend the rest of my life being terribly disappointed if I expected everything to change-if I expected everybody to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be wasted, governments to be compassionate, sharing, and giving-everything to be just exactly the way I want it! Actually, I don’t expect to see very much of that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being miserable about it ; happiness based on what I want is not all that important.

    Joy isn’t dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way you want, or on people behaving the way they should, or on their giving you all the things you like and want. Joyfulness isn’t dependent upon anything but your own willingness to be generous, kind, and loving. It’s that mature experience of giving, sharing, and developing the science of goodness. Virtuousness is the joy we can experience in this human realm. So, although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my control-I can’t go around making everything how I want it- still, I can be kind, generous, and patient,and do good, and develop virtue. That I can do, and that’s worth doing, and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted society is doesn’t make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do good.

    More from Ajahn Sumedho

    More Buddhist writings on Allspirit