Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Work with It
     … So you have to change the perceptions. This is why the Buddha provides us with those three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. In some passages he parses them out to nine altogether, seeing whatever the issue is as a cancer, an arrow, alien, empty—anything to convince yourself that it’s not worth going with. That’s changing the perception. You can … 
  3. Calming the Breath
     … So if you can hold the perception of whole body as breath, when you breathe in and out, it comes in and out through every pore of the skin. Just hold that perception in mind and see what it does to the way you breathe—how the breathing process is felt. You find that it calms it down and makes it a lot easier … 
  4. The Buddha’s Map
     … We live in touch with our cartoon ideas about reality—our perceptions. The Buddha compared perceptions to mirages. They bear some resemblance to something someplace. But when you get close to them, they disappear. The magician will get you to be interested in one sketch. He leaves false clues all around. And you begin to stitch the false clues together, creating a sketch in … 
  5. It’s up to You
     … So the wilderness is not necessarily a comfortable place to be, which means there’s some disturbance in your mind as you think, “Here I am in the wilderness, exposed to dangers.” The Buddha says to drop that perception. Hold on to the perception of earth. Or you can focus on the perception of breath. Think of the breath energy spreading everywhere. Or think … 
  6. Insight into Pain
     … You hold a perception in mind. As the Buddha said, the levels of concentration are a series of perception attainments, all the way from the first jhana up through the dimension of nothingness. At each level, there’s a perception you hold in your mind, a mental label you apply to your object. That’s the action. That’s what keeps you in touch … 
  7. Relaxing into the Body
     … A lot of this depends on the power of perception. Perception means the mental label you have for things. If you carry in mind the perception that there are these impenetrable, solid parts of the body, they’re going to be impenetrable. Perception has a lot of power, especially over the way the energy flows in the body. If you hold in mind the … 
  8. A Soiled, Oily Rag
     … So remember those three perceptions. And that’s what the Buddha called them, “perceptions”: the perception of inconstancy, the perception of stress, the perception of not-self. He never called them characteristics. He never talked about three characteristics. You do a search for the term, “three characteristics” in the Pali Canon, and you’re not going to find it. The Buddha’s talking about … 
  9. Potentials for Refuge
     … So change your perception. This is a lot of what’s required in developing the potentials of the body, the potentials of the mind: that you change your perception of what’s going on. The first change is to remind yourself that the breath comes first. It’s your primary experience of the body. Without the breath, you’d be paralyzed. Without the breath … 
  10. Balancing Tranquility & Insight
     … Or by adjusting the breath, or by adjusting your perceptions of the breath, the perceptions of what you’re focusing on. Then you allow the mind to get more and more steady. What perceptions allow it to get more steady? Perception of the breath as a whole body process gets it more steady. Your perception that you’re not separate from the breath, that … 
  11. The Hedgefox
     … Then you use your perceptions, your imagination to think about what’s going on in the body right now and how the breath might possibly go to different parts of the body. Perception, you see, has a huge power over how things work in the body. It’s actually one of the ways in which the mind communicates with itself or different parts of … 
  12. To Be Worthy of the Dhamma
     … But also you calm the perceptions, perceptions about the breath and that induce these different feelings. You can calm things even further. The perception of space is more calming than any of the perceptions having to do with the four elements. When you get so that the breath does stop, then you begin to notice that the movement of the breath was what allowed … 
  13. In Context
     … After all, even not-self is a perception. When you let go of all perceptions, you have to let go of that, too. But in the meantime, you learn how to use these perceptions wisely in line with the proper time, the proper place. So right now, as you’re trying to get the mind into concentration, you don’t just let it wander … 
  14. Samatha, Vipassanā, Jhāna
     … You’re dealing with form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness. If the mind is willing to settle down, you don’t have to think about those things. Just give it one thing to think about, and your perceptions and thought fabrications will center on that, revolve around that, without your having to identify what they are. After all, we’re not here to think … 
  15. The Power of Intention
     … Learn how to use this perception with other things that seem to be holding you in, confining you, as well. The perception of confinement: That’s what is actually holding you in. When you can drop that perception, you have a lot more freedom. You have a foundation from which you can deal with these things so that they’re not overwhelming. You’re … 
  16. First Principles
     … Hold that perception in mind. It helps get rid of a lot of the sense of blockage that comes from pushing the fluids in the body around too much, and not enough of the breath. So there are ways you can create discomfort through different perceptions, but then you change the perceptions. Make sure to resist the tendency to push things physically. Let the … 
  17. Inconstancy
    One of the perceptions that’s used to develop a sense of dispassion is the perception of anicca, inconstancy. Sometimes it’s translated as “impermanence,” but the word nicca doesn’t mean permanent. It means constant. *Anicca, *its opposite, means not constant. When you realize that, you see it all around you. Of course, we see impermanence around us, too. We know that everything … 
  18. Recollection of Hell
    Recollection of Hell February 9, 2010 We’re sitting here fabricating, putting together a sense of the body, putting together feelings, perceptions, more fabrications, even putting together our consciousness of these things. It’s something we do all the time. And the things we put together are not totally mind-made. The raw materials come from our past actions. Sometimes those materials are good … 
  19. Breath Meditation – The Four Tetrads
     … But eventually as he says you want to calm those feelings and perceptions down. What kind of perceptions, what kind of feelings are most calming for the mind? Try to take your practice in that direction. Now, it’s not the case that you have feelings floating off in some realm of reality separate from the breath. They’re very closely connected to how … 
  20. Together but Separate
     … You can latch on to a perception. You can latch on to a thought construct, or just latch on simply to awareness—or any combination of these. And even within a particular perception, it’s not always the same perception. Or with a thought-construct, it’s not always the same thought-construct. Sometimes you find that you can switch the perception around the … 
  21. Awe
     … The perception of the elements goes together with the perception of wilderness as a way of cleansing the mind of its small everyday concerns, the concerns that otherwise loom so large. These perceptions help you realize how small you are, or at the very least how small your body is: your little bundle of earth, wind, water, and fire right here. That’s one … 
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