The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness

Peripheral awareness filters out unimportant information and “captures” the objects that deserve closer scrutiny by attention. This is why specific objects can seem to pop out of peripheral awareness to become the objects of attention. Attention will also browse the objects in peripheral awareness, searching for something relevant or important, or

When you have cultivated mindfulness, life becomes richer, more vivid, more satisfying, and you don’t take everything that happens so personally. Attention plays a more appropriate role within the greater context of a broad and powerful awareness. You’re fully present, happier, and at ease, because you’re not so easily caught up in the stories and

“eight worldly dharmas.” Here’s an easy formula to help you remember them: gain-loss, pleasure-pain, fame-obscurity, and praise-blame.

You’ve just had a minor epiphany, an “aha!” moment of realizing there’s a disconnect between what you’re doing (thinking about something else) and what you intended to do (watch the breath). But this wasn’t something you did. Nor can you voluntarily make it happen. The process that discovered this disconnect isn’t under your conscious control. It h

Take note of, savor, and even purposely induce feelings of peace and happiness, especially as your attention becomes more stable and you experience more inner calm.

A helpful phrase to remember when dealing with distractions of any kind is, let it come, let it be, let it go. Don’t try to suppress it, just let it come into peripheral awareness. Don’t engage the distraction or focus attention on it, simply disregard it and let it be in the background. Then, let it go away by itself. This is a passive process. Th

Diligence helps start you on your way, but the real solution to these obstacles is learning to enjoy your practice. One simple, powerful way to do that is to intentionally savor all feelings of physical comfort and deliberately cultivate the pleasure that can be found in quietness. Take satisfaction in the fact that you have actually sat down to me

A mind with this type of Insight experiences life, and death, as a great adventure, with the clear purpose of manifesting love and compassion toward all beings.

Force, guilt, and willpower won’t produce a sustainable practice, not least because of the negative emotions they stir up. Training yourself means working on your motivation and intentions until the simple acts of sitting down and meditating follow naturally.