Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 107
  2. Greed for Outer & Inner Wealth
     … The purpose of the meditation is to give you some satisfaction, to find some well-being simply by breathing in a comfortable way, learning to develop skillful qualities in the mind, to abandon unskillful qualities, and to have a sense of how much lighter the mind feels when it’s trained, how much better it feels. Then you can look back at the qualities … 
  3. Present-Moment Intelligence
     … one, how you breathe; two, how you talk to yourself; and then three, the perceptions and feelings you focus on. Often these things are underground. Most people go through life without paying much attention to their breath. As for the way they talk to themselves, they take it for granted: This is the conversation, this is how it tends to be, these are the … 
  4. A Heart Set on Goodwill
     … If you allow yourself to have perceptions of feeling threatened by the people who are difficult to have goodwill for, it makes it even more difficult. This is why the Buddha recommends perceptions of your goodwill being like the earth—solid. Like the river Ganges—vast and cool. Like space also—even more vast. Just as nobody can write anything on space, nobody can … 
  5. Mindfulness over Time
     … the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, mind in and of itself, dhammas in and of themselves. These are the messages he would have you send on. So first you create a sense of feeling at home here where you can settle in and be concentrated. Then, once there’s concentration, you can look at whatever else comes up as … 
  6. Dualities
     … Which feels freer? Which feels less burdened? Here at home, you’ve got all the issues of being at home: the house itself, the people in the house. When you’re out in the wilderness, things are a lot simpler. The issues of the home and the village begin to fall away. But then, of course, there are still the issues of being in … 
  7. For Your Future’s Sake
     … There’s a feeling of wealth. You have enough to share. That’s a benefit right in the present moment, but it also develops good qualities in the mind that will serve you well down the line. You learn to appreciate your freedom of choice. You easily could have not given the item, but you choose to give it. In fact, that’s probably … 
  8. Lessons of Distraction
     … You learn how to breathe in ways that are comfortable, that feel right for the body right now. After all, one of the main reasons we have craving for becoming is our hunger for pleasure. Well, here’s some pleasure right here in the concentration. It’s harmless, it saturates the body when you do it right, so you’re more inclined to come … 
  9. Disposable Worlds
     … Learn to relate to the breath in such a way that you feel at ease. Sometimes this means simply allowing the breath to come in and out as it has been, noticing where it’s already comfortable and then protecting those little comfortable spots. Other times it means actively making the spots more comfortable. We try to do it with an attitude of being … 
  10. Protective Meditations
     … If the needs of the body lead you to feel greed, remind yourself of what the Buddha had to say about sharing: Even if it were your last meal, if there was somebody there to share something with, he’d say go ahead and share. The power of generosity is that strong. Then finally, recollection of death: This also counteracts greed, with the thought … 
  11. A Doctor’s Strategies
     … If you’re feeling down on yourself, think about your generosity, the things you’ve given to other people in the past when you didn’t have to. Think about your own virtue, the times when you did the right thing even though it was hard. These are in the traditional list of what they call recollections—meditation as thinking. Because, the Buddha points … 
  12. The Buddha Didn’t Play Gotcha
     … The resolve to overcome attachment to sensuality, the resolve to be harmless, the resolve not to feel ill will: These are all types of desire. And even more explicitly, the factor of right effort starts out when you generate desire for doing away with unskillful qualities and making sure they don’t arise again. You generate desire to give rise to skillful qualities and … 
  13. Three Levels of Concentration
     … Then you allow the breath to adjust so that it feels good, as good as possible, throughout the whole body. Another way is to go through the body, section by section, working on the breath energy in each section until it feels pleasant, and then letting the pleasure in all the sections connect. This way you get used to working with your pleasure. This … 
  14. Three Noble Truths Versus Four
     … The feeling of pleasure that comes when you stay with the breath is feeling. The mental image, the mental label that tells you, “This is where the breath is. This is how the breath flows. This is where you should be focused”: That’s perception. The directed thought and evaluation that adjust the breath to fit the mind, adjust the mind to fit the … 
  15. Discerning Actions
     … It’s through the practice of concentration that restraint becomes possible— and it doesn’t feel like a burden. It becomes something that you can do and not feel strung out. The other healthy ego functions—compassion or altruism and humor—have to come in as well, so that the path is not a burden. It doesn’t become something really hard to take … 
  16. Producing Discernment
     … As the breath feels really good, the mind settles down and doesn’t have to jump around. It feels just right here. Then there’s you the commentator, watching all this, deciding when the you as the producer is doing well or not, giving some encouragement to the you as the consumer, the enjoyer of the meditation, checking how much enjoyment you actually get … 
  17. The Heart to Keep Going
     … Part of your approach is to keep trying to develop a sense of the pleasure that can come from form, the way you feel the body from within. Whether or not the pleasure comes automatically, the fact that you’re aiming in this direction—trying to think of the breath, trying to think of the body right here, right now, as you feel it … 
  18. The Opportunity to Be Quiet
     … Even if the mind can’t settle down, if it still feels antsy about this, that or the other thing, at least remind yourself that you’re heading in the right direction, trying to get the mind still, seeing the value of stillness. There are so many people out there in the world who don’t see the value of this at all. But … 
  19. Smart vs. Wise
     … He says that when you’re feeling tempted to wander off the path, you have to ask yourself, “Do I really want to go back to where I was before? Would I really be caring for myself? What kind of happiness would I be creating for myself?” It’d be pretty miserable. So one of the signs of wisdom certainly is not how you … 
  20. Who’s in Charge Here?
     … If you’re doing something that’s skillful but suddenly you decide you don’t like it anymore, you’ve got to ask yourself, “How am I going to feel after having given up?” If you really have compassion for yourself, you’re not going to give up, because if you give up, then either you simply suffer the results or you put yourself … 
  21. When You Don’t Like Your Selves
     … So, what are the Buddha’s recommendations? He recommends how to breathe, what kinds of feelings to create, what kind of perceptions to hold in mind, and how to talk to yourself. The sixteen steps in breath meditation are a way to recalibrate your bodily fabrication. When an angry self comes up, what does it do? It seizes your breath and does something weird … 
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