Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 136
  2. The Roles of Equanimity
     … That’s taking it out and blowing on it, letting things rest and cool downfor a while, trying to gain a sense of energy that comes from the pleasure, the ease, the feelings of fullness that you can get as you settle into the breath. But then there are times when you just have to watch what’s going on. You’re not sure … 
  3. Strength of Body, Strength of Mind
     … Even a king can’t say, “I’ve got this illness right now, I demand that my courtiers and subjects share out the pain of this illness so that I don’t have to feel so much pain.” He can’t do that. You can’t do that. You have to face the pain on your own. So you want to have the qualities … 
  4. A Blameless Happiness
     … But the same also applies to pains and to feelings of equanimity. In other words, there are certain pains that are bad for your mind, painful ways of thinking in particular. The kind of thinking that says, “I can’t do this practice, I’m a miserable person, I’m a horrible person, there’s nothing good in the world”: Those thoughts create unhealthy … 
  5. A Sense of Well-being
     … Some people, for instance, begin to feel as if their bodies are made out of lead because they focus too intently on the perceptions of solidity. When it’s too heavy like that you can turn your perception around. You can intentionally focus on the more open, shapeless sensations, the space sensations that are already present in different parts of the body. You can … 
  6. Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself
     … We shape our sense of the body through the way we breathe; we shape our speech through directed thought and evaluation; we shape our mind through our perceptions and feelings. When you look in the Buddha’s teachings or the teachings of the ajaans, you find that they’re giving you examples of how to shape your mental speech, how to shape your mind … 
  7. The Right Attitude to the Body
     … You focus on the breath, you focus on the elements, i.e., the properties of warmth or coolness, energy, solidity in the body as you feel it from within. You take those as themes for your meditation so that you can develop a sense of ease, a sense of rapture, a really good solid base for your mindfulness and concentration. Then as you maintain … 
  8. Learning Right Speech
     … Just because you feel like saying something is not reason enough to say it. It has to pass the Buddha’s three tests. If you take that seriously, it means that you don’t say that much in the course of the day, but then, most of us speak too much anyhow. I think I’ve told you that story about Ajaan Fuang up … 
  9. Goodness
     … Or that the people you feel ill will for really are horrible people, and you’d be really happy to see them suffer a little bit—or more than a little bit. When you get a little bit drowsy, “Ah, yes. The body needs to rest,” you tell yourself, “It’s got all the signs. I just can’t put in any more effort … 
  10. Honest & Observant
     … directed thought and evaluation, feelings and perceptions—with the realization that you have to be mindful around goodwill, you have to be determined on it. You make up your mind to have goodwill for everybody, and you hold that in mind. You don’t slip in any ill will and then pretend it’s not there. If you detect ill will, you’ve got … 
  11. Strong Through Mindfulness
     … That’s a symbol for trying to hold on to your body, to your feelings, perceptions, thought constructs—the aggregates. They get pulled away and can cut you as you try to hold on to them. You need something better—the island you build through your mindfulness, your alertness, and your ardency. That island becomes the island of concentration. There’s a school of … 
  12. Complexities of Karma
     … Sometimes people are in a lot of pain when they’re approaching death and they feel, “Hey, I’ve done all this good in my lifetime and it hasn’t done me any good in preventing this disease.” They change their attitude, develop wrong view, and that wrong view can pull them down. Now, that doesn’t totally erase the good that they’ve … 
  13. Meticulousness
     … The novice didn’t feel like doing it, but he went ahead and did it anyhow. And he made a vow. He said, “With the wisdom that comes from this act of merit, I want to be able, in a future lifetime, to ask questions that nobody else can answer.” Well, the teacher happened to overhear him make the vow. And the teacher said … 
  14. Emptiness
     … No wonder you feel weighed down, no wonder things are difficult—more than you can bear. The trick is to put the pole down. You don’t have to carry the future; you don’t have to carry the past. For the time being, as you’re practicing concentration, just carry the present moment. Be responsible for the present moment, and look to see … 
  15. Wilderness Wealth
     … body, feelings, mind states, mental qualities, in and of themselves. Yet there’s even a state of concentration that doesn’t focus on those themes at all. It’s totally independent: No object whatsoever, but awareness is concentrated. But even that, he says, is fabricated. When you realize that—that there is even an element of effort that goes into that, that it’s … 
  16. Craving & Desire on the Path
     … You focus on the breath, developing a feeling of ease using a perception of the breath to hold you in place. You fabricate the processes of directed thought and evaluation to settle in, and you’re aware of all these things. Well, that’s the five aggregates right there—creating right concentration. Then there are four forms of clinging around the aggregates. One of … 
  17. A Good Buddhist Ego
     … The fact that you’ve made the raft out of things on this side of the river means basically that you’re taking the aggregates—form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness—and turning them into the path. Like we’re doing when we concentrate: You’re focused on the breath, which is an aspect of form. You’re trying to develop a feeling … 
  18. Teaching Old Dogs New Selves
     … With your body, your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and especially your awareness, there are aspects here that you can control, and so you say, “They’re useful for this or that purpose, and holding onto them in this way or that way I can get some happiness.” And you identify with that happiness. So you identify with the tools for getting that happiness as well … 
  19. A Friend When You’re on Your Own
     … If I was feeling victimized about something, I could remember that maybe I wasn’t just a victim. Maybe I had been the victimizer at some point in time, and this process had gone back and forth, back and forth, to the point where I just wanted to say enough. When you think in those terms, rather than trying to tally up who was … 
  20. Equanimity in Action, Equanimity at Rest
     … Whatever you need to feel equanimity for, no matter how easy or how hard, you’re able to do it. This will depend on the situation, because remember, equanimity is never taught as a quality on its own. It’s always part of a series of qualities. In the four brahmaviharas, you need to develop it together with goodwill, compassion, and empathetic joy. You … 
  21. Feeding on Ardency
     … It’s because of intention that you take the raw material for an experience of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, or consciousness, and turn it into an actual experience of those things. So there are many layers of feeding that go on in our experience, and because we can’t simply stop feeding, the Buddha’s path gives us something good to feed on. Think … 
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