Search results for: "Feeling"

  1. Page 124
  2. Conviction & Confidence
     … It gives rise to the feeling that you might as well go ahead and die and get it over with, if that was going to circumscribe the totality of your life. But thinking about the possibility that true awakening can be found through your efforts: that breaks through those circumscribed limits. That’s not part of anybody else’s plan, but that can be … 
  3. Practicing for Dispassion
     … We work with all the techniques for giving rise to energy when we’re sleepy, and ways of talking to ourselves when we feel restless or anxious or overcome with uncertainty. We have to realize that no matter what’s going to happen in the future, things are very uncertain. You can’t nail down your plans, but you can expect that there will … 
  4. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … Even if you keep the body or feelings in mind, you may not necessarily get anywhere with them. There are two other qualities that need to be brought together with the mindfulness to make it do its work. One is alertness, when you’re actually watching what you’re doing, and you keep referring back to the mind. You look at the breath, say … 
  5. Immersed in the Body
     … So as you begin to settle down and the breath begins to feel good, allow yourself to plunge into the body. Put the breath on. Wear it. Remember that image of the man with the white cloth surrounding his body. You want your awareness to be all-around like that. Then allow it to stay there. That’s another aspect of respect for concentration … 
  6. How to Use the Teaching on Kamma
     … For most of us, a lot of the interest in the stories coming up in our lives is about the injustices, the feeling that something hasn’t been settled, something hasn’t been brought to closure. But when you realize it’s part of a long, long, long mudslinging battle through the many lifetimes, it gets less and less and less interesting. Less and … 
  7. Questions in the Practice
     … Our feelings, our thoughts, our sense perceptions make up this world, and they’re very different from person to person. Your actions really do shape this world; actions from the past and actions from the present are combining right now to shape what you experience. So that’s why the Buddha said it’s important to focus on your actions, what you’re doing … 
  8. Intelligent about Change
     … There are basically five, and all five are things you want to work at bringing into being so that when you feel weak, you have something to fall back on. When the mind feels very susceptible to change, wanting to give up in its pursuit of what’s really good for it and to accept a less-than-ideal happiness, you want to be … 
  9. Breath by Breath
     … The pleasure may not be overwhelming, but at least it will feel okay. That’s to make sure that the producer isn’t going overboard. Otherwise, just stay with the producing continuously. The continuity is what’s going to make all the difference. It’s like planting a seed. If you give it five minutes of sunlight and just a little bit of water … 
  10. Turtle Mind
     … As meditators, we have to get very sensitive to the mind, the breath, how we feel the body from within, so that we can understand what’s going on in the mind. After all, some very subtle things are happening that can lead to major results. If we’re not sensitive, we don’t sense them. But we live in a rough and tumble … 
  11. Homage Through the Practice
     … Now it feels comfortable with the breath coming in, now it feels comfortable with the breath going out, and where you can gauge whether the breath is too long or too short. All of this comes under the quality of alertness. And then finally the third quality the Buddha recommended applying to the meditation is ardency. You really stick with it. You don’t … 
  12. Gather Around the Breath
     … When you breathe, there are going to be feelings of pleasure or pain in the body that are related to the breath. The fact that they’re related to the breath means that they’re not outside of the realm of your concentration. And there’s the state of your mind as you try to stay with the breath—you’re going to be … 
  13. Three Intoxications
     … Which do I prefer? What combination do I prefer?” Then, when the sensation of breathing feels good, how far can you spread it through the body? Give yourself challenges like this. Ask yourself questions like this to make the present moment more interesting, so that the mind will be happier to be here. After all, there will be long periods when it doesn’t … 
  14. Generosity First
     … They feel they have to rely on sheer determination instead. If you look at the way meditation, virtue, and generosity are taught here, it’s the exact opposite of the order in which they’re taught in Asia. Here, people sign up for a retreat to learn some meditation, and only when they show up at the retreat center do they learn they’re … 
  15. Put Some Heart into Your Practice
     … The lowest level, of course, is thinking, “Whatever I’m giving away, I’m going to get back through the principle of karma, hopefully with interest.” Giving with that attitude is better than not giving at all, but the higher levels think about how giving is good, how you don’t feel right if you have more than enough of something and other people … 
  16. The Field Hospital
     … in other words, the pleasure of form, which we gain from getting the mind in concentration, as you feel the body from within. Or formless pleasures, when everything in the body gets so still that you can have a perception of infinite space, infinite consciousness, and the body doesn’t interfere. It’s so quiet that you can ignore it. It’s only then … 
  17. An Apprenticeship in Integrity
     … How do you talk to people less educated than you so that they won’t feel you’re talking down to them? How do you talk to people above you on the social scale so they won’t feel you’re after their money? More importantly, how do you talk with people, how do you behave toward them in a way that you can … 
  18. The Spider on the Web
     … You want to get to know this process really well, starting with thoughts that don’t have much impact on you, don’t seem to be harmful at all—just mild, entertaining little thoughts—because you want to be able to apply the same analysis to thoughts that have a deep impact on you, that arouse strong feelings of lust or anger, anguish, shame … 
  19. Hold on to Your Frame of Reference
     … The Buddha has you remember that you can’t go back and change what you did, and that simply sitting here feeling remorseful is not going to undo what you did in the past. The best way to deal with memories of that sort is just to tell yourself, “Okay, that was a mistake, but I’m not going to make that mistake again … 
  20. Meaning Through Perfections
     … focusing on the breath as you feel it; breathing in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being. This is a pleasure that’s not sensual. It’s the pleasure of form. And it doesn’t have the drawbacks of sensuality. This is one way you can develop perfections: simply by finding your happiness here. As you go through the day … 
  21. Walking Meditation: Stillness in Motion
     … Look for whatever you can recognize as form, feeling, perception, thought construct, or consciousness within the concentration, and then contemplate its behavior. One simple way is contemplating the activity of perception. To what extent does the perception you’re using as a marker for your concentration create stress or disturbance for the mind? Learn to observe that perception, the label you place on things … 
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