"Mindfulness in Plain English" by H. Gunaratana Mahathera

• No two moments are ever the same.
• A well-disciplined mind brings happiness.
• Nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight.
• That which has been learned can be unlearned. The first step is to realize what you are doing, as you are doing it, and stand back and quietly watch.
• Anything really valuable takes time to develop. Patience, patience, patience.
• Question everything. Take nothing for granted. Don’t believe anything because it sounds wise and pious and some holy men said it. See for yourself.
• Your objective is to achieve a posture in which you can site for the entire session without moving at all.
• The state you are aiming for is one in which you are totally aware of everything that is happening in your perceptual universe, exactly the way it happens, exactly when it is happening: total, unbroken awareness in the present time.
• Every major religious tradition has some sort of procedure which they call meditation, and the word is often very loosely used.
• Liberation is the goal of all buddhist systems of practice. But the routes to attainment of the end are quite diverse.
• Using the breath as his primary focus of attention, the meditator applies participatory observation to the entirety of his own perceptual universe.
• Meditation is a living activity, an inherently experiential activity. It cannot be taught as a purely scholastic subject.
• Meditation is not easy. It takes time and it takes energy. It also takes grit, determination and discipline. It requires a host of personal qualities which we normally regard as unpleasant and which we like to avoid whenever possible.
• Life seems to be a perpetual struggle, some enormous effort against staggering odds. And what is our solution to all this dissatisfaction? We get stuck in the ‘If only’ syndrome.
• The essence of our experience is change. Change is incessant. Moment by moment life flows by and it is never the same.
• No two moments are ever the same.
• Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around ourselves and we are trapped with the prison of our own likes and dislikes.
• The essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha.
• No matter how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and scheming how to get more.
• In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.
• Happiness and peace. Those are really the prime issues in human existence. That is what all of us are seeking.
• What we really seek is not the surface goals. They are just means to an end. What we are really after is the feeling of relief that comes when the drive is satisfied.
• You can’t ever get everything you want. It is impossible.
• You can learn to not want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.
• We are just beginning to realize that we have overdeveloped the material aspect of existence at the expense of the deeper emotional and spiritual aspect, and we are paying the price for that error.
• You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now.
• Mental culture through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.
• What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now.
• A well-disciplined mind brings happiness.
• Meditation is intended to purify the mind. It cleanses the thought process of what can be called psychic irritants, things like greed, hatred and jealousy, things that keep you snarled up in emotional bondage. It brings the mind to a state of tranquility and awareness, a state of concentration and insight.
• Civilization changes man on the outside. Meditation softens him within, through and through.
• Meditation is called the Great Teacher. It is the cleansing crucible fire that works slowly through understanding. The greater you understanding, the more flexible and tolerant you can be.
• Buddhism does not advocate faith in the sense of believing something because it is written in a book or attributed to a prophet or taught to you be some authority figure. The meaning here is closer to confidence. It is knowing that something is true because you have seen it work, because you have observed that very thing within yourself. In the same way, morality is not a ritualistic obedience to some exterior, imposed code of behavior.
• The purpose of meditation is personal transformation.
• It changes your character by a process of sensitization, by making you deeply aware of your own thoughts, word, and deeds.
• Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power.
• The goal is awareness, an awareness so intense, concentrated and finely tuned that you will be able to pierce the inner workings of reality itself.
• All meditation procedures stress concentration of the mind, bringing the mind to rest on one item or one area of thought.
• The purpose of meditation is to develop awareness.
• No activity is entirely without risk, but that does not mean that we should wrap ourselves in some protective cocoon.
• The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found and how to deal with it when it arises.
• There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation--morality, concentration and wisdom. Those three factors grow together as your practice deepens. Each one influences the other, so you cultivate the three of them together, not one at a time.
• Meditation teaches you how to disentangle yourself from the thought process. It is the mental art of stepping out of your own way, and that’s a pretty useful skill in everyday life.
• You can only have bliss if you don’t chase it.
• The fact is we are more selfish than we know. The ego has a way of turning the loftiest activities into trash if is is allowed free range.
• Sorry, meditation is not a quick cure-all. You will start seeing changes right away, but really profound effects are years down the line.
• Nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight.
• If you learn nothing else from meditation, you will learn patience. And that is the most valuable lesson available.
• Every culture on earth has produced some sort of mental practice which might be termed meditation. It all depends on how loose a definition you give to that word.
• Within Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct address to some spiritual entity. Contemplation in a prolonged period of conscious thought about some specific topic, usually a religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of mental culture, both of these activities are exercises in concentration.
• All Buddhist meditation aims at the development of awareness, using concentration as a tool.
• Zen meditation uses two separate tracts. The first is the direct lunge into awareness by sheer force of will. You sit down and you just sit, meaning that you toss out of your mind everything except pure awareness of sitting. The second Zen approach used in the Rinzai school is that of tricking the mind out of conscious thought and into pure awareness. This is done by giving the student an unsolvable riddle which he must solve anyway, and by placing him in a horrendous training situation.
• Zen is tough. It is effective for many people, but it is really tough.
• Vipassana is a direct and gradual cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. It proceeds piece by piece over a period of years.
• The object of Vipassana practice is to learn to pay attention.
• We are simply not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention.
• The ironic thing is that real peace comes only when you stop chasing it.
• The process of change is constant and eternal.
• That which has been learned can be unlearned. The first step is to realize what you are doing, as you are doing it, and stand back and quietly watch.
• The more hours you spend in meditation, the greater your ability to calmly observe every impulse and intention, every thought and emotion just as it arises in the mind.
• Your progress to liberation is measured in cushion-man hours. And you can stop any time you’ve had enough.
• Don’t expect anything.
• Let the meditation move along at its own speed and in its own direction.
• Don’t strain.
• Don’t force anything or make grand exaggerated efforts.
• Don’t rush.
• There is no hurry, so take your time.
• Anything really valuable takes time to develop. Patience, patience, patience.
• Don’t cling to anything and don’t reject anything.
• Don’t fight with what you experience, just observe it all mindfully.
• Accept everything that arises. Accept your feelings, even the ones you wish you did not have.
• Don’t condemn yourself for having human flaws and failings.
• Be gentle with yourself.
• You may not be perfect, but you are all you’ve got to work with. The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.
• Investigate yourself.
• Question everything. Take nothing for granted. Don’t believe anything because it sounds wise and pious and some holy men said it. See for yourself.
• It means you should be empirical. Subject all statements to the actual test of your experience and let the results be your guide to truth.
• View all problems as challenges.
• Look upon negatives that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow.
• Don’t ponder.
• You don’t need to figure everything out.
• Don't’ dwell upon contrasts.
• Differences do exist between people, but dwelling upon them is a dangerous process. Unless carefully handled, it leads directly to egotism.
• Rather than noticing the difference between self and others, the meditator trains himself to notice similarities. He centers his attention on those factors that are universal to all life, things that will move him closer to others. Thus his comparison, if any, leads to feelings of kinship rather than feelings of estrangement.
• When the meditator perceives any sensory object, he is not to dwell upon it in the ordinary egotistical way. He should rather examine the very process of perception itself.
• Although there are many subjects of meditation, we strongly recommend you start with focusing your total undivided attention on your breathing to gain some degree of shallow concentration.
• The mind cannot be purified without seeing things as they really are.
• Feeling is one of the seven universal mental factors. The other six are contact, perception, mental formations, concentration, life force, and awareness.
• When we face a situation where we feel indignation, if we mindfully investigate our own mind, we will discover bitter truths in ourselves.
• Mindfulness practice is the practice of one hundred percent honesty with ourselves.
• We have to be extremely wise and mindful to thank the person who explicates our faults so we will be able to tread the upward path toward improving ourselves.
• We should consider the person who shows our shortcomings as one who excavates a hidden treasure in us that we were unaware of.
• It is by knowing the existence of our deficiencies that we can improve ourselves. Improving ourselves is the unswerving path to the perfection which is our goal in life. Only by overcoming weaknesses can we cultivate noble qualities hidden deep down in our subconscious mind. Before we try to surmount our defects, we should know what they are.
• Both pointing out shortcomings and responding to them should be done mindfully.
• We should speak mindfully and listen mindfully to be benefitted by talking and listening. When we listen and talk mindfully, our minds are free from greed, selfishness, hatred and delusion.
• As meditators, we all must have a goal, for if we do not have a goal, we will simply be groping in the dark blindly following somebody’s instructions on meditation. There must certainly be a goal for whatever we do consciously and willingly.
• Our goal is to reach the perfection of all the noble and wholesome qualities latent in our subconscious mind. This goal has five elements to it: purification of mind, overcoming sorrow and lamentation, overcoming pain and grief, treading the right path leading to attainment of eternal peace, and attaining happiness by following that path.
• Once you sit, do not change the position again until the end of the time you determined at the beginning.
• Do not change your original position, no matter how painful it is.
• To avoid changing your position, determine at the beginning of meditation how long you are going to mediate. If you have never meditated before, site motionless not longer than twenty minutes.
• After sitting motionless, close your eyes. Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly. SImilarly, if you keep quiet without moving your body, focusing your entire undivided attention on the subject of your meditation, your mind settles down and begins to experience the bliss of mediation.
• The mind can never be focused without a mental object. Therefore we must give our mind an object which is readily available every present moment. What is present every moment is our breath.
• After sitting in the manner explained earlier and having shared your loving kindles with everybody, take three deep breaths. After taking three deep breaths, breath normally, letting your breath flow in and out freely, effortlessly and being focusing your attention on the rims of your nostrils. Simply notice the feeling of breath going in and out.
• When one inhalation is complete and before exhaling begins, there is a brief pause. Notice it and notice the beginning of exhaling. When the exhalation is complete, there is another brief pause before inhaling begins. Notice this brief pause too.
• Do not verbalize or conceptualize anything.
• When you focus your attention on the breath ignore any though, memory, sound, smell, taste, etc., and focus your attention exclusively on the breath, nothing else.
• As soon as you notice that your mind is no longer on your breath, mindfully bring it back to it and anchor it there.
• As soon as you notice that your mind is not on your subject, bring it back mindfully.
• The purpose of counting is simply to focus the mind on the breath. Once your mind is focused on the breath, give up counting. This is a device for gaining concentration.
• Any counting should be done mentally. Do not make any sound when you count.
• Remember that you are not supposed to continue your counting all the time. As soon as your mind is locked at the nostril-tips where the inhaling breath and exhaling breath touch and being to feel that your breathing is so refined and quiet that you cannot notice inhalation and exhalation separately, you should give up counting. Counting is only used to train the mind to concentrate on one point.
• After inhaling do not wait to notice the brief pause before exhaling before exhaling but connect the inhaling and exhaling, so you can notice both inhaling and exhaling as one continuous breath.
• A gatekeeper does not take into account any detail of the people entering a house. All he does is notice the people entering the house and leaving the house through the gate.
• Also notice that your mind can be concentrated only on the present moment. This unity of the mind with the present moment is called momentary concentration.
• To unite the mind with the present moment, we must find something happening in that moment.
• To make any progress in insight meditation you need this kind of momentary concentration.
• Don’t try to create any feeling which is not naturally present in any part of your body.
• When the mind is united with the breath flowing all the time, we will naturally be able to focus the mind on the present moment.
• We must remember that all these mental journeys are made within the mind itself.
• Buddhist practice has always recognized that the mind and body are tightly linked and that each influences the other. This there are certain recommended physical practices which will greatly assist you to master your skill. And these practices should be followed. Keep in mind, however, that these postures are practice aids. Don’t confuse the two.
• The purpose of the various postures is threefold. FIrst, they provide a stable feeling in the body. This allows you to remove your attention from such issues as balance and muscular fatigue, so that you can then center your concentration upon the formal object of meditation. Second, they promote physical immobility which is then reflected by an immobility of mind. This creates a deeply settled and tranquil concentration. Third, they give you the ability to site for a long period of time without yielding to the meditator's three main enemies--pain, muscular tension and falling asleep. The most essential thing is to sit with your back straight.
• There should be no muscular tension involved in keeping the back straight. Sit light and easy.
• We generally sit in tight, guarded postures when we are walking or talking and in sprawling postures when we are relaxing.
• Your objective is to achieve a posture in which you can site for the entire session without moving at all.
• If you slouch, you are inviting drowsiness.
• The clothes you wear for meditation should be loose and soft.
• When you are sitting on the floor in the traditional Asian manner, you need a cushion to elevate your spine. Choose one that is relatively firm and at least three inches thick when compressed. Sit close to the front edge of the cushion and let your crossed legs rest on the floor in front of you.
• There are a number of ways you can fold your legs. We will list four in ascending order of preference: American Indian style. Burmese style. Half lotus. Full lotus.
• In these postures, your hands are cupped one on the other, and they rest on your lap with the palms turned upward. The hand lies just below the navel with the bend of each wrist pressed against the thigh. This arm position provides firm bracing for the upper body. Don’t tighten your neck muscles. Relax your arms.
• Your eyes can be open or closed. If you keep them open, fix them on the tip of your nose or in the middle distance straight in front. You are not looking at anything. You are just putting your eyes in some arbitrary direction where there is nothing in particular to see, so that you can forget about vision. Don’t strain.
• Half and full lotus positions are the traditional meditation postures in asia. And the full lotus is considered the best.
• The main criterion by which you choose a posture for yourself is not what others say about it. It is your own comfort. Choose a position which allows you to sit the longest without pain, without moving.
• You want to achieve a state of complete physical stillness, yet you don’t want to fall asleep.
• Your body is a tool for creating desired mental states. Use it judiciously.
• There is a difference between being aware of a thought and thinking a thought. That difference is very subtle.
• Deep concentration has the effect of slowing down the thought process and speeding up the awareness viewing it.
• Distraction cannot be seen as distraction unless there is some central focus to be distracted from.
• Meditation tames the mind.
• A useful object of meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness. It should be portable, easily available and cheap. It should also be something that will not embroil us in those states of mind from which we are trying to free ourselves, such as greed, anger and delusion. Breathing satisfies all these criteria and more.
• Breathing is a non-conceptual process, a thing that can be experienced directly without a need for thought.
• When we truly observe the breath, we are automatically placed in the present.
• The first step in using the breath as an object of meditation is to find it. What you are looking for is the physical, tactile sensation of the air that passes in and out of the nostrils.
• Focus on the natural and spontaneous movement of the breath. Don’t try to regulate it or emphasize it in any way.
• Don’t increase the depth of your breath or its sound.
• Breathing, which seems so mundane and uninteresting at first glance, is actually an enormously complex and fascinating procedure.
• Observe the breath closely. Really study it.
• In the wordless observation of the breath, there are two states to be avoided: thinking and sinking. The thinking mind manifests most clearly as the monkey-mind phenomenon we have just been discussing. The sinking mind is almost the reverse. As a general term, sinking mind denotes any dimming of awareness. At its best, it is sort of a mental vacuum in which there is no thought, no observation of the breath, no awareness of anything. It is a gap, a formless mental gray area rather like a dreamless sleep. Sinking mind is a void. Avoid it.
• Concentration is a strong, energetic attention to one single item. Awareness is a bright clean alertness.
• The meditation experience is not a competition. There is a definite goal. But there is no timetable. What you are doing is digging your way deeper and deeper through the layers of illusion toward realization of the supreme truth of existence. The process itself is fascinating and fulfilling. It can be enjoyed for its own sake. There is no need to rush.
• The purpose of meditation is not to deal with problems, however, and problem-solving ability is a fringe benefit and should be regarded as such.
• Don’t think about your problems during your practice. Push them aside very gently.
• Mindfulness of breathing is a present-time awareness. When you are doing it properly, you are aware only of what is occurring in the present. You don’t look back and you don’t look forward.
• The state you are aiming for is one in which you are totally aware of everything that is happening in your perceptual universe, exactly the way it happens, exactly when it is happening: total, unbroken awareness in the present time.
• First of all, you need to establish a formal practice schedule, a specific period when you will do Vipassana meditation and nothing else.
• There are certain traditional aids that you can employ to set the proper mood. A darkened room with a candle is nice. Incense is nice. A little bell to start and end your sessions is nice. These are paraphernalia, though. They provide encouragement to some people, but they are by no means essential to the practice.
• You will probably find it helpful to sit in the same place each time. A special spot reserved for meditation and nothing else is an aid for most people. You soon come to associate that spot with the tranquility of deep concentration, and that association helps you to reach deep states more quickly.
• Meditation is not a duty, nor an obligation.
• First thing in the morning is a great time to meditate.
• Make meditation the first major thing you do in the morning.
• When you first start meditation, once a day is enough.
• There is another word for ‘self-discipline.’ It is ‘patience.’
• Meditation is a tough job. It is an inherently solitary activity.
• Mindfulness is egoless awareness.
• Giving is the opposite of greed.
• Remember that your thoughts are transformed into speech and action in order to bring the expected result. Thought translated into action is capable of producing tangible result.
• Problems come in all shapes and sizes, and the only thing you can be absolutely certain about is that you will have some. The main trick in dealing with obstacles is to adopt the right attitude.
• The [difficulties] provide invaluable opportunities for learning.
• It is essential to learn to confront the less pleasant aspects of existence. Our job as meditators is to learn to be patient with ourselves, to see ourselves in an unbiased way, complete with all our sorrows and inadequacies.
• The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom.
• Pain exists in the universe; some measure of it is unavoidable. Learning to deal with it is not pessimism, but a very pragmatic form of optimism.
• Pain is inevitable, suffering is not.
• If you experience pain in your lower back, your posture is probably at fault.
• Pain is a mental state.
• When your legs fall asleep in meditation, just mindfully observe the phenomenon. Examine what it feels like.
• Apply your mindfulness to the state of drowsiness itself.
• Take care of your body’s physical needs. Then meditate.
• If you are very sleepy then take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can. Then breathe out slowly. Take another deep breath again, hold it as long as you can and breathe out slowly. Repeat this exercise until your body warms up and sleepiness fades away. Then return to your breath.
• Meditation goes in cycles. You have good days and you have bad days.
• Emptying the mind is not as important as being mindful of what the mind is doing. If you are frantic and you can’t do anything to stop it, just observe. It is all you. The result will be one more step forward in your journey of self-exploration.
• You are going to run into boredom repeatedly in your meditation. Everybody does. Boredom is a mental state and should be treated as such.
• Mindfulness is never boring.
• When you are clearly mindful of breath or indeed anything else, it is never boring. Mindfulness looks at everything with the eyes of a child, with the sense of wonder. Mindfulness sees every second as if it were the first and the only second in the universe.
• At some point in your meditation career, you will be struck with the seriousness of what you are actually doing. You are tearing down the wall of illusion you have always used to explain life to yourself and to shield yourself from the intense flame of reality. You are about to meet ultimate truth face to face. That is scary.
• Restlessness is often a cover-up for some deeper experience taking place in the unconscious.
• Sitting through restlessness is a little breakthrough in your meditation career. It will teach you much.
• Beginners in meditation are often much too serious for their own good. So laugh a little. It is important to learn to loosen up in your session, to relax into your meditation.
• It should be pointed out that you learn about meditation only by meditating. You learn what meditation is all about and where it leads only through direct experience of the thing itself. Therefore the beginner does not know where he is headed because he has developed little sense of where his practice is leading.
• Trying too hard leads to rigidity and unhappiness, to guilt and self-condemnation. When you are trying too hard, your effort becomes mechanical and that defeats mindfulness before it even gets started.
• Drop your expectations and straining. SImply meditate with a steady and balanced effort.
• The direct upshot of pushing too hard is frustration. You are in a state of tension. You get nowhere. You realize you are not making the progress you expected, so you get discouraged. You feel like a failure. It is all a very natural cycle, but a totally avoidable one. The source is striving after unrealistic expectations.
• A sense of failure is only another ephemeral emotional reaction.
• There is no such thing as failure in mediation. There are setbacks and difficulties. But there is no failure unless you give up entirely.
• Meditation is not a ritual conducted in a particular posture. It is not a painful exercise, or period of enforced boredom. And it is not some grim, solemn, obligation. Meditation is mindfulness. It is a new way of seeing and it is a form of play. Meditation is your friend.
• Concentration and mindfulness go hand-in-hand. Each one complements the other.
• Counting the breaths as they pass is a highly traditional procedure.
• We humans are obsessional beings. It’s one of our biggest problems.