Search results for: "Perception"
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- A Good Foundation… No matter where you start, things come back to the aggregate of perception. When you focus on the unattractiveness of the body, you begin to realize that the problem is not so much the body, it’s your perceptions around the body. You see this clearly. You could be doing analysis and visualizing all the different organs, take them apart, put them down on …
- In the Context of the Path… To begin with, the Buddha himself never called them “three characteristics.” He called them perceptions: There’s the perception of inconstancy, the perception of stress or suffering, and the perception of not-self. These perceptions play a role in two of the duties of the four noble truths: the duty to comprehend suffering and the duty to abandon its cause. What is suffering? The …
- WYSIWYG… In the same way, your perception has an impact on what gets highlighted and what gets thrown into the background, thrown into the darkness. So you’ve got to play with these perceptions for a while. See which perceptions of the breath are helpful and which ones are not helpful for getting the mind to settle down. It’s in this way that the …
- Unfabricated Happiness… At the same time, look at the perceptions you’re holding in mind right now. What kind of perception do you have of the breath? If you think of it simply as air coming in and out through the nostrils, it’s going to be hard to use the breath to help spread those feelings of ease and well-being around the body. But …
- Restlessness & Anxiety… Try to see what exactly is the perception that’s got you all worked up, and try to provide an alternative perception that will change it. After all, what’s the opposite of anxiety? Confidence. Have some confidence in the Buddha, when he said that you protect yourself through your virtue, you protect yourself through your generosity and meditation. The more you can do …
- Feeding on Feeding… the form clinging-aggregate, feeling clinging-aggregate, perception clinging-aggregate, fabrications clinging-aggregate, consciousness clinging-aggregate. People have often asked: Where did the Buddha get this analysis? Because you don’t see it in any pre-Buddhist teachings. He mentions it in his first discourse, explains a little bit more in his second, and the people that were listening gained awakening. What was he …
- Analyzing Anger… It went from a feeling to a perception. Or sometimes the perception came first then the feeling. Then there’s the conversation and it turns into craving. And then on up. It causes a lot of problems. So when you’re sitting there with a narrative, ask yourself, “What is it made up out of?” Make it something you can take apart. Cut it …
- Discernment… Look for the feeling, and then look for the perception. An important perception is saying, “This is my suffering, this is happening to me,” which may be true but you don’t have to think it. It’s an optional thought. You could simply say, “This is suffering,” and leave it at that. That would adequately describe the situation and would also be more …
- The Uses of the Breath… The first two, as I said, were, one, getting sensitive to this aspect of your experience; two, getting sensitive to how you’re fabricating it; and then three, learning how to calm the fabrication down, calming your breath down, making your perceptions and feelings more calm. In other words, what perception of how you breathe is going to make the breathing calmer? What perception …
- The Riddle Tree… In other words, you have to change your perception of what you’re focused on in order to overcome the attraction to the feeling. This of course then gets you into issues of perception— sañña in Pali—and the role it plays in meditation. In cases like that you may find that the perception becomes the issue on which you have to focus in …
- Fear & Insecurity… You can take your form, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, consciousness, and turn them into a path—like you’re doing right now as you meditate. You’re focused on the breath, that’s form. You’re creating a feeling of well-being. You use perceptions to stay with the breath, and directed thought and evaluation, which are fabrications, to adjust the breath and the …
- Controlling… A lot of that, of course, will depend on the perceptions you hold in mind. What’s happening as you breathe in? Where does the breath come in? Where does it go out? Where did it start? To what extent should you jump-start it? How do you picture these things to yourself? Which perceptions are most helpful? You find yourself changing your perceptions …
- A Path of Aggregates… Then there’s perception. There’s the perception of what’s edible and what’s not edible. Think of a child crawling across the room: It encounters something on the floor, what’s the first thing it does? Picks it up, puts it in its mouth to see if it’s edible. That’s how we begin sorting out the world. And it’s …
- Not-self… And at that point, none of the three perceptions apply. No perceptions really apply at all. If you’re going to say it’s self, that would be clinging. If you say it’s not-self, that’s muddying up the waters of something that’s really pure. So when we understand that not-self is a perception, and it has its uses on …
- Whole-body Consciousness… Hold that perception in mind. You learn the power of your perceptions as you focus on each of these things. When you’re focused on fire or warmth, you find that it can be warm through the whole body. You focus on coolness. Well, coolness can be cool through the whole body as well. Then once you’d been through the four elements, he …
- Dhamma Is a Quality of the Heart… There is the truth of perceptions. And there’s the truth of actualities. We start out with the perceptions, in other words, the labels we have in our minds. And we use true perceptions as we speak, because otherwise, what would we have to direct our practice? We’re already fabricating our experience through our perceptions, so the Buddha’s giving us new perceptions …
- What You’re Bringing… Okay, where is it a case of perception? What role does perception play there?—in other words, the labels you’re putting on things, the images you have in the back of the mind, the things that come up from the lizard brain that tend to circulate a lot around greed and fear. And where can you see that those perceptions are really off …
- Rooted in Desire… When fear comes on, how are you breathing? How are you talking to yourself? What are the perceptions you hold in mind? When there’s greed, when there’s lust, when there’s anger: How are you breathing? How are you talking to yourself? What are the perceptions and feelings you’re focusing on? Can you change them? Part of you will say, “Why …
- Staying Still… Can you erase that perception of forward and back in the mind? You notice that the perception will come up and you’ll ordinarily go with it. But now you have the choice. You can say, “I don’t need that perception right now. I can drop it.” It’s playing around like this that you learn a lot about the aggregates, you learn …
- Solving Real Problems… Then the Buddha teaches perceptions to hold in mind. One is the perception that death is not the end. Even though you can’t come back to this body, you’re going to find another one. Your craving and clinging will take you to another one. So what are your craving and clinging doing right now? What are they talking about? All kinds of …
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