Search results for: "Feelings"
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- The Bureaucracy of the Defilements… Third, notice, when they’re coming, what’s their appeal? Why does the mind go for these things? What felt need does it satisfy? And do you really feel that need anymore? Because this is the problem: A lot of the times you assign a job to a certain functionary and then you forget about it entirely. These old habits: Some of them go …
- Appropriate Attention… So as you’re sitting here meditating, you’re trying to develop your sensitivities—to the breath, to the way you feel the body from within, to the way you sense your mind from within. We tend to run roughshod over these things as we stampede out to look at the world outside, engage with the world outside, or fascinated by what’s happening …
- Deconstruction… clinging to the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, thought constructs, and consciousness. The clinging is in the desire and passion you have for those things. The suffering is the clinging-aggregates altogether. Think of this in terms of the image of feeding. You’re hungry: That’s the craving; that’s the desire and passion. You find something you want to eat, so you …
- The Complexity of Pain… But two, it just takes the focus away from “me and my pain.” You don’t feel like you’re being singled out to be treated in an unjust manner. The question of fairness doesn’t come into it at all. Then you make your mind like earth, big like the Earth. Make your goodwill big like the Earth. This is the other way …
- Adult Dhamma… If you feel no shame in telling a lie, he said, your goodness is empty. It’s thrown away. You can’t be trusted. Then he taught Rahula to apply truthfulness in looking at his actions, to learn from his actions. That is basically what it means to become an adult. When you do something, you notice what actually happens as a result, and …
- The Taste vs. the Reality… Ajaan Lee feels like he’s being pulled in three different directions. He thinks to himself, “Boy, I wish I were back as a monk.” Then he realizes, “Of course, I’m still a monk.” That puts the issue of disrobing in a different light. In other words, he talked himself out of doing something foolish by allowing his dreams of disrobing to get …
- The Equanimity that Doesn’t Give Up… The mind can settle down and there’s a sense of well-being where you can observe the mind very clearly and feel at home here. And whether it’s jhana or not-jhana doesn’t matter. The fact that the mind is settled is what matters. You want the mind to be clear and mindful. Alert. So as the concentration develops, you can …
- Where the Mind & Body Meet… As long as the concentration feels really good, the fact that it’s fabricated doesn’t bother you. But as you get more sensitive, there comes a point where you say, “Wouldn’t it be better if there was something that was not fabricated?” That’s when the mind begins to move on. But again, it moves on in a way that you don …
- Developing Absorption… While you’re with the breath, you try to be as sensitive as possible to how the breath feels, to where it could be adjusted a little bit here or adjusted a little bit there, where you could open up the energy channels in the body so that the breath energy flows smoothly. This is how you get the mind into right concentration. So …
- Mindful of Your Potentials… The breath will go out on its own, until it reaches a point where you feel you need a new breath. Well, let it come in. Think of the breath as existing in the context of the body as a whole: everything from the tips of the fingers on up the arms, the tips of the toes on up the legs, up the torso …
- Virtue… These are qualities you have to bring to the act of being focused on the body in and of itself, focused on feelings in and of themselves, whatever the topic of your meditation, so that when you sit down and meditate, you’re not coming totally green to the practice. You’re already developing these qualities in your daily life, in the way you …
- Serial Clinging Is Still Clinging… Sometimes you identify with your body, sometimes with your feelings, sometimes with your perceptions, your thoughts, your consciousness, or any combination of these. If you were to draw a picture of your sense of self, it would be like an amoeba, changing shape all the time. It all still counts as clinging, because the Buddha’s not telling you, “Wander around with your ideas …
- Freedom & Responsibility… The crucial context is your own sense that you’ve had enough suffering—however you feel burdened—and that you want to put an end to it. This may take you a lot farther and require a lot more from you than you might have originally imagined. But as you get on the path, you realize that that’s where you want to go …
- Determined Goodwill… When you find yourself overwhelmed with thoughts of ill will, stop and ask yourself: “How am I breathing? How am I talking to myself about the issue? What’s wrong with what I’m saying? How can I change what I’m saying to myself?” And finally, “How can I change my perception of the situation? The feelings that I’m focusing on?” In …
- Conviction in the End of Suffering… If you feel that conviction really is a form of wealth, then you’ll be able to find the extent to which they are true. If you don’t, then you’ll never really will know, because you won’t have tested them. But conviction is what allows you to put them to the test and to come out with a fair judgment of …
- Patience & Endurance… What kind of breathing feels good right now? What’s going to be good for the body? What’s going to be good for the mind? You can experiment. It’s interesting to note, though, that when the Buddha taught breath meditation to his son, he didn’t start out with the breath. He started out with teachings on patience and endurance: to make …
- Strong Against Anger & Fear… You break through your fear of other people and you feel that you’re justified in doing things that are really harmful. But, as the Buddha points out when he talks about speech, people can say things that are true or untrue; useful or useless; say it with a heart of goodwill or a heart filled with hate. Some people say hateful things that …
- Meditate to Win… Similarly with training in feelings, mind-states, mental qualities. So when you come here, you’re submitting to a training. We often translate those passages as, you train yourself to do these things, and you do have to play a big role in your own training. But also have to try to live up to the standards the Buddha set. Some of us have …
- Ask the Right Questions… In other words, you feel that you can do this, and you’re willing take responsibility. That keeps you on the path. If you see that what you’re doing is harmful, you decide to stop the harm, and then do what you can not to repeat it. Then you can also create a sense of self that’s going to benefit from this …
- Believing & Knowing… Sometimes we read about the ajaans and the ajaans’ students and the psychic powers they had, and we feel envious that they had a lot more evidence than we do, a lot more encouragement in the practice. Well, it’s not necessarily so. You can have these experiences and still not really trust them. And sometimes, if you misuse that kind of knowledge, it …
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