Search results for: "Fabrication"
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- Analyzing AngerWhen the Buddha describes the steps for breath meditation, he words them in a way aimed at making you to be sensitive to three kinds of fabrication, or saṅkhāras, that you’re doing right now and that you’re doing all the time: First is bodily fabrication – the in-and-out breath. Second is verbal fabrication – the way you talk to yourself. In his …
- The Five Aggregates… So the question is, what are you going to do with these functions? There’s an interesting spot where the Buddha talks about the functions of the different khandhas, and one of them, fabrication, is the most basic. Because, he says, our experience of all the khandhas depends on fabrication. There’s a potential for form, a potential for feeling, for perceptions, for fabrication …
- Strong Through Commitment… So a lot of the Buddha’s teachings are specific instructions in how to fabricate more skillfully. They’re all pretty basic things: bodily fabrication—the way you breathe; verbal fabrication—the way you talk to yourself; and then, mental fabrication—the perceptions, the labels and images that give meaning to things, as when we say, “This is this and that’s that.” As …
- Protest Your Virtue & Right View… How do you process things? How do you fabricate things? This is why, when the Buddha gave breath meditation instructions, he talked about bodily fabrication and mental fabrication. Bodily fabrication is the way you breathe. Mental fabrication has to do with the feelings and perceptions, the images you hold in mind. He uses these technical terms like fabrication, sankhara, even when he’s talking …
- The Power of Attention… One of them is fabrication. In fabrication, there’s the directed thought—the act of choosing something to focus your thoughts on, which counts as part of verbal fabrication. In name and form, there’s attention, how you pay attention to things, the questions you ask. These two go together. As you’re focusing on the breath, that’s the first choice you’ve …
- Part I : Basic Instructions… We mentioned earlier today that the big issue is the way the mind fabricates things, and you get to know how the mind fabricates things by fabricating good things first. We’ve been fabricating all kinds of ignorant things that lead to stress and suffering, so now let’s fabricate something good: a state of concentration in the mind. Make way for the things …
- Diagnosing the Mind… So you’re not just sitting here, noting just whatever comes up, because what that does is that it blinds you to the fact that there’s a lot of fabrication going on under the surface. So as long as there’s fabrication, you might as well fabricate things in a skillful direction. That gives you insight into how the process of fabrication works …
- A Multilingual Mind… how your intentions give rise to suffering, how the process of fabrication gives rise to suffering. He wants you to look at these things as a process so that you can understand the patterns. The first step is to see what kinds of fabrication are blatantly unskillful, so that you can learn how to drop them. And then as your sensitivity to the idea …
- The Psychology of Harmlessness… One of the interesting features of those steps is that the Buddha doesn’t say simply, “Let the breath calm down.” He says, “Calm bodily fabrication.” Bodily fabrication*, kaya-sankhara,* is a technical term. It basically means the in-and-out breath. Why would the Buddha use a technical term? He wants to alert you to the extent to which you’re shaping your …
- The Uses of Fear… But as you get more sensitive to the full process of fabrication, you begin to realize what you’re doing is creating a thought world here that includes all forms of fabrication: breath, which is bodily fabrication; directed thought and evaluation—verbal fabrication; and your feelings and perceptions—mental fabrication. They’re all right here. When they’re all right here, you’re in …
- Forest Bathing… The list chases things down through the processes of fabrication –* sankhara.* There basically are three types. There’s bodily fabrication, which is your in-and-out breath; verbal fabrication, directed thought and evaluation, the way you focus your mind on a topic and then make comments about it, ask questions about it—basically, the way you talk to yourself. And then mental fabrication: feelings …
- Fabricating Equanimity… That, too, is fabricated, but it’s based on only one fabrication: just the perception of the still breath. The third level is the equanimity that comes about as a result after you gain full awakening and you reflect on the fact that your mind is released. You can respond with joy or rapture or equanimity. But it’s the result of having completed …
- Lust… There are some—and these are the really important, tenacious ones—where you have to, as the Buddha says, exert a fabrication against them. In other words, you have to do something intentional in order to get past them. Like working with the breath: That’s bodily fabrication. The way you breathe can help weaken a lot of the defilements, so at the very …
- The Radiant Mind… Part of the clarity comes from the vocabulary the Buddha gives us for analyzing what’s going on, say, in terms of fabrication, particularly the way the mind shapes its experience through its intentions. The breath is shaped through our intentions: That’s bodily fabrication. Then we talk to ourselves, with certain intentions in mind: That’s verbal fabrication. And then mental fabrication, perceptions …
- A Friend to the World, A Friend to Yourself… This is where the different kinds of fabrication come in. The most obvious one, of course, is getting the mind into concentration: directing your thoughts to the breath, working with the breath, evaluating the breath in a way that makes it really good, something you really like to breathe. It feels good; it feels nourishing. There you’ve got bodily fabrication and verbal fabrication …
- Vitakka & Vicara… This is where you have to use all three fabrications of exertion: bodily, verbal, and mental. Verbal fabrication, of course, is directed thought and evaluation. You use this in conjunction with all the other fabrications: working with the breath, which is bodily fabrication; working with your perceptions, the images and individual words that have power over the mind—which are mental fabrications; and working …
- The Breath All the Way… And in the fourth set, you focus on the mental qualities that are involved in developing dispassion for the whole process of fabrication. Because of the focus on fabrication, this is an insight practice. Because you’re using your understanding of fabrication to bring those fabrications to calm, it’s a tranquility practice. So you’re working on insight and tranquility in tandem, which …
- The Skills of Truth & Calm… Who’s sending them? Who’s receiving them? Why does there have to be a sender and a receiver? Why is the mind divided like this?” You begin to look askance at these fabrications and any potential for becoming that you might develop around them. When you drop them, and there’s nothing else being fabricated, you realize that these are the fabrications that …
- Endurance with a Purpose… The Buddha calls them fabrication, and there are three kinds. There’s bodily fabrication, which is the in-and-out breath, then verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself. In technical terms, it’s called directed thought and evaluation, as when you direct your thoughts to a topic and then talk to yourself about it, make comments about it. And then finally, mental …
- Go, Do Jhana… This way you understand that even though you may not want to identify with any fabrications, still there are the fabrications that form the path. Those are the ones you want to encourage, because they’re skillful. Ultimately, they take you beyond fabrication. This is a part of insight. The fabrications that keep the mind still and steady, that keep the mind engaged in …
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