Search results for: "Feelings"
- Page 114
- Things as They’ve Come to Be… They won’t come out unless they feel frustrated because they can’t pull the strings anymore, so you have to step on their strings. This is how you ultimately come to understand the whole process of fabrication. And where do you look for it? Wherever there’s stress. Ajaan Suwat used to mention this often: Look at where there’s stress, and that …
- At Home with the Breath… If you have lots of entertainment in the house, lots of good books to read or a good entertainment system, you feel less and less inclined to go out and demonstrate in the streets, to get into trouble on a street corner, or to get run over by a car, because as you stay at home, there’s lots to keep you occupied at …
- The Brightness of the World… If you find yourself feeling stingy, go ahead and give a gift to somebody. If you don’t have anything material to give, give your forgiveness. It costs nothing and makes life a lot lighter. Of course, our sense of being wrongly injured by someone else is something that, for some reason, we tend to hold on to very dearly. But it’s like …
- Action & the End of Action… If there are areas where you could be more skillful but you’re feeling lazy, ask yourself why. Here we’re practicing in a very conducive environment, and if you can’t get your act together in this kind of environment, what are you going to do in difficult situations? You want to train the mind so that it’s ready for anything, so …
- The Practice is Wherever There’s Mindfulness… In other words, you know that no matter what you do, things are going to go poorly in this particular situation, and you might feel inclined just to give up on trying to do the skillful thing. Or when you’re sick, or when you’re getting old, or when you’re facing death, you might say, “Well, who cares?” You’ve got to …
- Getting Familiar with Concentration… There are feelings of ease or dis-ease, which are associated with the breath. Your perceptions: the labels you give to the breathing and the other sensations that arise up around the breathing. So everything you need to know is right here, and it’s largely a matter of getting familiar with it. To be familiar with it, you have to stay with it …
- Suffering Comes from What You’re Doing… Sometimes you notice that when there are thoughts of sensual desire, there’s just a slightly irritating feeling in, say, your hands or some other part of the body. And you immediately go running off with a thought as a way of getting away from that slight irritation. Sometimes it can be very slight. The point of this is to see that a lot …
- An Anthropologist from Mars… After all, they want to make sure that everyone around them shares the same values so that they can feel comfortable, so they don’t have to face the huge abyss inside their hearts, the huge emptiness, the huge void, when those values are exposed for what they are. And their way of avoiding that is to rest assured that everybody else believes the …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… You might be focused on feelings around these things, perceptions around these things, thoughts, acts of evaluation, even craving for these things—you can crave the craving. So when you think you crave one thing, ask yourself: Is it really that thing? Is that where your craving is located? Maybe it’s in the perception you have about this thing, an association you have …
- Leaving Distractions Alone… Keep that up as long as it feels good. Then if you find the breath is too subtle or too gentle to keep the thoughts out, you can use the word *buddho. *Keep repeating it to yourself. You don’t have to coordinate it with the breath, just say *buddho, buddho, buddho *over and over in the mind until the mind has had enough …
- Fear of Death… But if it’s a pleasure that comes from concentration, that’s yours, You’re inhabiting your sense of the body as you feel it from within. Nobody’s going to come and move in, trying to inhabit the same place. So this is your territory. There’s no debt; there’s no danger. The little bit of danger is that you’d be …
- A Real Education… So much of our culture is designed to make you feel bad about yourself so that you’ll buy something to make yourself feel better, which has nothing to do with your genuine well-being at all. Your genuine well-being comes from the mind. As the Buddha said, wisdom and discernment begin with the questions, “What when I do it will lead to …
- The Wounded Warrior… When the breath energy feels good in the body, the body gets stronger, and the mind dwelling in a comfortable place finds it easier to stick with the skillful path. And then there’s mindfulness: What things can you keep in mind right now that are healing to the mind? Sometimes simply reflecting on the body: If you start thinking about your emotions about …
- Good Fundamentals… At first my feelings were hurt, but then I realized, “Wait a minute, he’s not doing this to hurt my feelings. He’s doing it to teach me, to show me what’s right and what’s wrong so that I can improve.” After all, he couldn’t just pour the knowledge into my head. It was a skill that I had to …
- Flexibility… Ajaan Fuang would often talk of the different levels of concentration not in terms of this jhāna or that jhana, but he would say to focus on the breath and feel it this way, then think of the breath that way, then experience the breath this way, and you find yourself going through levels of concentration. Or sometimes he would have you give your …
- What Am I Becoming?… We’ve got perceptions and images in the mind; feelings that we develop through the way we breathe. These, too, are things we’re doing all the time. But if we get them in line with the practice, they can become part of the path. You hold on to the raft as you make an effort with your hands and feet, as the Buddha …
- Goodwill Without Limits… Questions of deserving don’t matter right here, because if you’re going to be skillful only to people you feel deserve your kindness or your goodness, there will be a lot of limitations on your goodness. Do you want that? We’re not talking about love here, or even loving-kindness, just simple goodwill, wishing people to be happy. Now, this doesn’t …
- Making an Effort… It feels as if the anger has gotten into your body, into your nerves, and you’ve got to get it out of your system. But if you change the way you breathe, smoothing out the breath, letting the breath grow more calm, it weakens the anger because the anger now has no place to hold on in the body. Then it’s simply …
- How to Save the World… Once the mind starts feeling stronger and has a greater sense of well-being in the present moment, it’s a lot easier to be kind to other people. There’s a lot of talk about people who want to be kind to themselves, to do something good for themselves, so they go off and buy something for themselves. But that’s not necessarily …
- Appropriate Attention… You’re clinging to the five aggregates of form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, and consciousness. And why are you doing that? Because of craving. Now, that right there is pretty radical. Most of us, when we suffer, tend to focus on the causes coming from outside. This person did that, that person did this, the society’s like this, the weather’s like that …
- Load next page...
