Henepola Gunaratana - Mindfulness in plain English (1991)

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Watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you can gain insight into your own behavior.

Henepola Gunaratana
Let come what comes, and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal, and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens.

Henepola Gunaratana
You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that changes will flow naturally.

Henepola Gunaratana
The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.

Henepola Gunaratana
No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed.

Henepola Gunaratana
You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.

Henepola Gunaratana
We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. In the long run avoiding unpleasantness is a very unkind thing to do to yourself.

Henepola Gunaratana
You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option: You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of the endless cycle of desire and aversion.

Henepola Gunaratana
No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you.

Henepola Gunaratana
Deeply buried in the mind, there lies a mechanism that accepts what the mind experiences as beautiful and pleasant and rejects those experiences that are perceived as ugly and painful. This mechanism gives rise to those states of mind that we are training ourselves to avoid— things like greed, lust, hatred, aversion, and jealousy.

Henepola Gunaratana
But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.

Henepola Gunaratana
Discipline is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret.

Henepola Gunaratana
They have no power over you. It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won't do it.

Henepola Gunaratana
The principal cause of suffering is craving. Once craving is eliminated, much suffering will be eliminated. Still more suffering will be eliminated once ignorance is eliminated. Both craving and ignorance are equally powerful defilements that cause suffering.

Henepola Gunaratana
When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic.

Henepola Gunaratana
Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don't have to be swept away by your feeling. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.

Henepola Gunaratana
The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side.

Henepola Gunaratana
View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.

Henepola Gunaratana