What do pumpkins and stones have to do with Right Mindfulness? Bhikkhu Bodhi says the mind without mindfulness is like a pumpkin, while the mindful mind is like a stone. If you place a pumpkin on the water’s surface, it will bob at the top and…
When you awaken to Right Mindfulness, you free your reality. To be clear, you don’t free reality itself. But you absolutely free yourself from only being able to see your particular version of it. In other words, if we practice Right Mindfulness, some of the places…
In the fourth foundation of Right Mindfulness, we watch the object of our thoughts. I know this sounds confusing, because in the third foundation we watch our thoughts. What’s the difference? The fourth foundation is contemplation of phenomena. Phenomena means both our thoughts, and the things…
Who doesn’t want to practice Right Mindfulness in a pandemic, right?! I’ll return with the fourth foundation of Right Mindfulness in the next post, but today I want to share a few thoughts about practicing Right Mindfulness in the midst of coronavirus, social distancing, and so…
The third foundation of Right Mindfulness is contemplation of the mind. When you practice this, you learn to mind your mental formations. And that includes…just about everything. Formations in Buddhism is a technical term for anything that is made of something else. So fear is a…
In the second foundation of Right Mindfulness, we contemplate how we are feeling. Then we use that feeling “as a springboard for understanding the nature of experience,” according to Bhikkhu Bodhi. And part of that nature of experience is that all feelings pass. They arise, and…
There are four foundations of Right Mindfulness, and the first is contemplation of the body. Quite simply, we begin by learning to just breathe. Obviously, the intention is to practice this in meditation, but it’s a teaching we can do anytime. The great news is we…
This month, we will practice the seventh step on the Eightfold Path, Right Mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh says Right Mindfulness is “the energy that brings us back to the present moment.” When we cultivate it, we find ourselves not looking to the past or looking toward…
Practicing Right Effort in the most beneficial way means tuning the strings. A string musician came to visit Buddha to seek his advice. He was learning how to meditate but he couldn’t concentrate well and was feeling really frustrated. The Buddha asked him, “You play a…
Right Effort carries within it a quality we could describe as holy chutzpah. Here’s where my life took me last week: I did a brief dive into Kabbalistic teaching and stumbled onto something that feels totally related to Right Effort. I love it when this happens,…
