How to Train a Wild Elephant

When we focus our attention on the breath, we cannot attend to our list of things to worry about. That is how breath meditation can lower blood pressure and reduce stress.

mind can cause harm to us and those around

When we are unable to be present, we tend not to act wisely or skillfully.

When the thinking mind quiets down, it shifts into open awareness. Then we are anchored in the body, alert and present.

musicians for example, have been trained to listen with absorptive attention to musical sounds, but that does not mean they are able to listen in the same way when a person is talking to them.

Kind words are a gift. They create wealth in the heart.

It may be dismaying to discover how pervasive aversion is in even a single day in a life that we might describe as happy.

Mindfulness helps stabilize the heart and mind so they are not so badly tossed around by the unexpected things that arrive in our life.

a mind filled with anxiety is likely to create what it most fears. The anxious mind doesn’t realize that when it pulls us into daydreams of regret about the past, we are not attending to the present.