Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 137
  2. Meaning & Happiness
     … They like to content themselves with the idea that they did as best as possible by having a family and finding meaning in the family, and when the children start looking for something more than that, the parents feel threatened. They try to pull the child back into looking for happiness in relationships. Ajaan Fuang’s comparison is of someone who stepped in dog … 
  3. You Are Not Redundant
     … If you can learn how to look at what you’re doing and see the extent to which your feelings and your perceptions shape the state of your mind right now, you can do something about it. As the Buddha says, basically, you can take that principle all the way to the ultimate happiness. But even if you don’t go that far, the … 
  4. Older than the Cosmos
     … It makes you feel very small. But then the Buddha says we’ve been around longer than they have. This is just one universe, but we’ve been through many cycles of many universes, to the point where he says you can’t trace back and find a point where ignorance began and got the whole process started—and he was someone whose mind … 
  5. Body Contemplation
     … the embroidery, the fabrication around the actual feeling of pleasure—our thoughts of the kind of sensual pleasures we’d like and the sensual pleasures we’ve had. The free play of our imagination is what keeps pulling us back—because, in that free play, you’re free to lie to yourself, and the mind likes to lie to itself. After all, what are … 
  6. Effortlessness Through Effort
     … And then you learn to make a sport, say, out of shooting down your defilements, instead of regretting them and feeling nostalgia for them and saying, “Well, as long as they don’t do too much damage in the present moment, I’m okay with their being here.” When you let them in that much, it’s like the story of the camel that … 
  7. Skillful Distress
    I know a psychologist who has a map of emotions in terms of where you are in your head, in your intentions, and in your gut feelings. She’ll put you on the map, try to identify where you are, and then look at where you want to go. The map then lays out the steps from where you are to where you want … 
  8. Ups & Downs
     … Just have confidence that as long as you’re focused in the right spot, and the breath feels good, you’re doing the right thing. Remember all those in the past who hit troughs in their practice and yet were able to come out of the trough. There was nothing superhuman about them. They simply had the patience and equanimity to maintain a state … 
  9. Building Character
     … You have to watch out for the tendency to want to be a jhana junky or an insight junky—in other words, to go for the hits and then to feel frustrated when you can’t get the mind to settle down like before, to get the insights you had before, and you’re not in the zone that meditators like to get into … 
  10. Delight in the Dhamma
     … He feels gratified. He’s free from all that disturbance. In the same way, learn how to delight in getting alone. Get the mind to settle down. Get some pleasure out of the breath. Get some pleasure out of concentration. That way, you allay your itch and find a well-being that comes from inside. So learn to delight in that. And finally, the … 
  11. The Gift of Discernment
     … What are you holding onto in terms of the form, whatever forms there may be in your experience right now? What are you holding onto in terms of feelings, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness? How are you holding on? Why do you hold on? What’s the allure? When you see the allure, then you want to see the drawbacks of holding on like that. That … 
  12. Responsible for Your Actions
     … Then adjust the rhythm and texture of the breathing so that it feels just right. Experiment a bit. It’s like fixing food. You taste it and then decide if it needs more salt or less salt or this spice or that spice until you get the taste that’s just right. Because concentration is food for the mind. It’s nourishment for the … 
  13. The Buddha’s Compassion
     … People feel they’re owed this, they’re owed that. And whatever good things come their way, they just take it for granted, without realizing all the difficulties that people have gone through in order to create a society that works somewhat. It may not be perfect, but think of what society would be like if everyone just decided, “Okay, I’ve had enough … 
  14. Cutting New Paths in the Mind
     … thoughts of shame, thoughts of inadequacy, fear, feeling threatened very easily. There are lots of ways in which we bring unnecessary suffering onto ourselves, and they tend to be very quick. They’re like paths in the mind over which we’ve walked back and forth many, many times. There’s nothing in the way, we’ve killed all the grass, we’ve cut … 
  15. The Dhamma Eye
     … You have to know this part of the mind really well, the part that’s adjusting things in the present moment, using the different kinds of fabrication—bodily fabrication, the way you breathe; verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself; and mental fabrication, feelings and perceptions. Get to know these things really well, so that when they finally fall away, you’ll know … 
  16. Joy & Discontent
     … When you can finally get past it, even just temporarily, notice how good it feels. Notice that you’re able to do this. There will be part of the mind that comes back and says, “Well, you can do it only temporarily,” or, “It doesn’t really count.” If you don’t have a positive voice inside to counteract that, what are you going … 
  17. Straightening the Arrow
     … This is the sense of inner spaciousness that allows you to place restrictions on other things, other activities, without feeling too hemmed in. So even though there may be elements in your outside world that are beyond your control, the way you look and listen to things is under your control. The way you direct the mind, the perceptions you hold in mind as … 
  18. Intelligent Equanimity
     … Even the equanimity you feel when you’ve obtained the goal: There’s a transcending of that as well, in what the texts call “non-fashioning.” In other words, you realize that equanimity is a choice you make: These are the things you’re going to put aside; these are the things you’re going to focus on. The things you put aside, you … 
  19. Right Effort & Right Mindfulness
     … the rest of the body, feelings, the mind that’s aware of the breath, mental qualities that are involved in staying with the breath. You stay with these things and put aside other contexts. In particular, you put aside the context of the world out there. Any greed or distress with reference to the world, any desires you have for the world, or any … 
  20. Respect for the Triple Training
     … He said, “A person who feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie: There’s no evil that person will not do. That person is empty of the qualities of a contemplative.” He raised the issue of not lying the very first thing when he taught his son, Rahula. The practice begins there. Only when that’s firmly established are you really ready for … 
  21. Brahmaviharas at the Breath
     … What kind of breath would feel good? Make that your intention right now. That’s the beginning of goodwill: learning how to find pleasure in a harmless way, learning to explore the various resources you have right at hand. One of the themes in the teachings of the forest ajaans is that all you need for awakening is right here. You have it. You … 
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