Search results for: "Feelings"
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- Taking Responsibility… First figure out what kind of breathing does feel good right now, and then how you let it spread. You learn from trial and error until you arrive at trial and success. So you take responsibility for your training. That’s what “being in training” means. It’s interesting to note that when the Buddha talks about those who are in training, it starts …
- Saṃvega & Pasāda… Concentration feels pleasant. The breath is pleasant. Your state of mind is pleasant. The world doesn’t look so bad after all. If you could maintain that state of mind, it would be very easy to live in the world and not suffer—too much. At least that’s what you think. So you need the saṁvega, a sense of urgency, a sense of …
- How to Fall… Now, the mind may come up with other reasons: “Oh no, you can’t turn around now; you’ve committed yourself.” Well, that’s interesting! You’ve suddenly committed yourself to the distraction — which isn’t committed to you — and you don’t feel you’ve committed yourself to your meditation. This is one of the many tricks the mind plays on itself. The …
- Being Your Own Teacher… You get a nice state of equanimity and you feel it’s going to take care of you. But as the Buddha points out, you can get stuck on equanimity. It leads to a long rebirth in a nice place, but even those nice places are places you’ll ultimately have to leave. When you leave them, the number of people who go on …
- Truth Through Training… We’re trying to get a sense of just right with the breath, so that the breath feels good and nourishing coming in, relaxing going out. It’s not too heavy, not too light, not too fast, not too slow. So fine-tune your breathing right now—and then fine-tune your understanding of your mind. Remember, your mind is not just up in …
- Inconstancy… Try to figure out what kind of breathing feels best for you right now. The best way to know that is to be here continually. It’s like watching a TV show. If you walk into the room and then walk out of the room, five minutes later come back; then walk out after five minutes and come back ten minutes later, you don …
- Noble Priorities… form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness. The clinging is the big problem. That’s the suffering. What causes it? The three kinds of craving, which are things that you do. You could attack those three kinds of craving by doing other things—in other words, following the path, starting with right view all the way through right concentration under the headings of virtue, concentration …
- Expanded Possibilities… I had a similar feeling with Ajaan Fuang. The world opened up. There were more possibilities than I had imagined before. Part of this came from sensing his psychic abilities—he seemed very quick to read my mind—but also his wisdom and compassion. He never bragged about his powers. He never talked about them. But they were there, and he used them well …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
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