Being mindful
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:14 pm
LIVING THIS LIFE FULLY....
... sati is absolutely crucial to dharma practice—the
linchpin. “For forty-five years, Buddha taught Dhamma in different parts of India, under
different circumstances, to different people, at different levels,” he affirmed. “He gave
about 84,000 discourses. All the teachings can be summarized in one word—appamāda:
mindfulness, heedfulness, nonforgetfulness.” Appamāda is a synonym for sati.
This message would emerge “like clockwork,” says Danny Taylor, who at times
wondered why Munindra was “rambling all over the place” in his talks: “He would
always come back to the same thing. Right on the dot of the hour, he’d say something
like, ‘If you have trouble with any of this, it doesn’t really matter. There’s only one thing
you’ve got to remember, there’s only one duty, and that is to be mindful.’ He’d always
finish with this.”
All the dirt accumulated in our unconscious, subconscious, we are just following life
after life. So when you observe silence, all kinds of thoughts come up on the surface.
It is not somebody sending it to us; it is part of our life. You get caught up with the
thought because, say, somebody scolded you in the past but you suppressed it. But
when the mind is silent, not talking, not busy, anything can come up. At that time,
you see things because of awareness. You are asked to develop mindfulness because
sati illuminates [the] whole mental field. As soon as things come, you see them as
they are. When they come in darkness, they get fed; when there is light, they get
dissolved, they remain unfed, unnourished. Our duty is just to observe. Passive
observer: You have nothing to do. When you are running after this sight or this
sound or this thought, you are wasting your energy, no? Mind becomes exhausted.
But when you are a passive observer, if anything comes up, you see it in the light of
mindfulness and it dissolves
...
By constant practice, our whole inner being comes into the conscious level—nothing
remains hidden. It is the process of self-discovery. As you go deeper and deeper,
then those impressions that accumulate in our daily lives by action and reaction will
come up on the surface level, and they are washed away. In every moment—
sometimes happiness, sometimes unhappiness, sometimes good, sometimes bad,
sometimes disturbed, sometimes concentrated—one’s duty is just to be mindful, not
to be stuck to any phenomena, and not to react. The Buddha always said to be
mindful and equanimous. Awareness and equanimity, these two factors go together.
Excerpted from LIVING THIS LIFE FULLY
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhis ... 0Fully.pdf
Have a mindful and peaceful day.
... sati is absolutely crucial to dharma practice—the
linchpin. “For forty-five years, Buddha taught Dhamma in different parts of India, under
different circumstances, to different people, at different levels,” he affirmed. “He gave
about 84,000 discourses. All the teachings can be summarized in one word—appamāda:
mindfulness, heedfulness, nonforgetfulness.” Appamāda is a synonym for sati.
This message would emerge “like clockwork,” says Danny Taylor, who at times
wondered why Munindra was “rambling all over the place” in his talks: “He would
always come back to the same thing. Right on the dot of the hour, he’d say something
like, ‘If you have trouble with any of this, it doesn’t really matter. There’s only one thing
you’ve got to remember, there’s only one duty, and that is to be mindful.’ He’d always
finish with this.”
All the dirt accumulated in our unconscious, subconscious, we are just following life
after life. So when you observe silence, all kinds of thoughts come up on the surface.
It is not somebody sending it to us; it is part of our life. You get caught up with the
thought because, say, somebody scolded you in the past but you suppressed it. But
when the mind is silent, not talking, not busy, anything can come up. At that time,
you see things because of awareness. You are asked to develop mindfulness because
sati illuminates [the] whole mental field. As soon as things come, you see them as
they are. When they come in darkness, they get fed; when there is light, they get
dissolved, they remain unfed, unnourished. Our duty is just to observe. Passive
observer: You have nothing to do. When you are running after this sight or this
sound or this thought, you are wasting your energy, no? Mind becomes exhausted.
But when you are a passive observer, if anything comes up, you see it in the light of
mindfulness and it dissolves
...
By constant practice, our whole inner being comes into the conscious level—nothing
remains hidden. It is the process of self-discovery. As you go deeper and deeper,
then those impressions that accumulate in our daily lives by action and reaction will
come up on the surface level, and they are washed away. In every moment—
sometimes happiness, sometimes unhappiness, sometimes good, sometimes bad,
sometimes disturbed, sometimes concentrated—one’s duty is just to be mindful, not
to be stuck to any phenomena, and not to react. The Buddha always said to be
mindful and equanimous. Awareness and equanimity, these two factors go together.
Excerpted from LIVING THIS LIFE FULLY
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhis ... 0Fully.pdf
Have a mindful and peaceful day.