Search results for: "consciousness"
- Page 14
- The Return of Chickens from Hell… You’ve got perceptions, the labels you put on things, and you’ve got the intentions that are fabricating these things, and then you’ve got consciousness, which is aware. Those five activities—form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness—are the aggregates. And as the Buddha said, if we cling to them, we’re going to suffer. Particularly if we cling to them with …
- Respect, Confidence, & Patience… You can be more realistic about what you’re undertaking here, which is the total re-training of the mind, learning radically new habits in how you relate to the body, how you relate to your feelings, how you relate to your perceptions, your thought- constructs, even how you relate to consciousness. The Buddha points out that we tend to relate to these things …
- Tranquility & Insight… Our whole experience of the form of the body, our feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, even our consciousness, has an element of intention in it. We’re doing it for a particular purpose. We want happiness out of these things, in line with whatever we conceive the happiness to be. And we shape these things because of our passion for the happiness. It’s a …
- Everybody Suffers… We’re also talking about emotional food, the food of sensory contact, the food of our thoughts, the food of consciousness. All these things can dry up, they can all be threatened. You have to look for a happiness that lies outside of their range. It was the Buddha’s discovery that there is such a happiness, and it can be attained through human …
- Fears… Then consciously expand that sensation of physical relief and open it up to counteract the fear’s physical symptoms. At the same time, ask yourself, “Exactly what is this fear?” “What’s being threatened?” “Where do you feel weak?” “What is the danger?” Learn to take the reasons for the fear apart, because a lot of the fear lies in the confusion. You don …
- Good Friends Inside… Infinite consciousness. Nothingness. Emptiness. They’re all right here. It’s a question of what you’re tuned-in to. They say that alcoholics, as soon as they walk into a house, very quickly pick up on were the alcohol is kept. The same with chocoholics: They walk into a house and soon know where the chocolate is kept. Well, you want to be …
- Taking the Long View… But the Buddha is saying that if you really want to comprehend clinging, you have to see that all of those things are composed of just form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness—things that are pretty ephemeral. When you see how ephemeral they are, you realize that this reality you cling to so much may not be so real at all, not so dependable …
- Step Back & Watch… As the mind reaches deeper and deeper levels of concentration and starts experiencing the infinity of space or the infinity of consciousness, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that you’ve reached the Ground of Being, that you’ve hit some metaphysical absolute. This is where the Buddha’s questions are important. What are you doing to experience this? As you make …
- A Strong Mind… You can consciously say, “No. Relax. There’s no need for me to tense up, no need for me to make myself miserable inside just because a situation outside is bad.” It was just an old habit you have, picked up who knows when. We’ve picked up so many habits, particularly related to our relationship to the breath, our relationship to the immediate …
- Comprehending Pain… We have passion for forms, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, passion for sensory consciousness. Our passion for these things is what constitutes stress. So you’ve got to cut through that passion by comprehending what’s actually going on. The other interesting duty is that we have to develop right concentration, because if you’re going to sit here and watch the pain until you …
- The Second Noble Truth… form, feeling, perceptions, mental fabrications, and consciousness at the senses. We try to grab onto these things, to pull ourselves to safety, to find some place to rest, because as the Buddha said, it’s only when there’s peace, when there’s a sense of resting, that the mind has any real happiness. And yet, this is all that the river can grow …
- The Four Noble Truths from Within… Then there’s your consciousness of all this. When he uses these terms, he’s talking about right here. And he wants you to look at how you’re creating suffering out of these things right here. The word he uses for the essential part of suffering is *upadana, *which can mean clinging. It can also mean taking nourishment. You’re feeding off these …
- Two Things to Keep in Mind… Even prior to consciousness, there are already intentions moving in different directions. And this is where the meditation settles in: right at that process of what the Buddha calls fabrication. Take right mindfulness, for instance. Mindfulness basically means keeping something in mind. All too often it’s defined as bare awareness, or an open receptive awareness of the present moment. That’s alertness. Mindfulness …
- The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless… There’s a passage where the Buddha compares consciousness to a magic trick. And the nature of a magic trick is that the magician tries to divert your attention from what he’s actually doing. He gets you to focus on something far away. You think you’re paying careful attention to where he’s paying careful attention, but actually he’s doing something …
- See Yourself as Active Verbs… The aggregates are form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and consciousness—all of which the Buddha defines with verbs. Form, he says, deforms. In other words, in the form of your body there’s nothing static. Feelings feel: pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions perceive. Thought fabrications fabricate, and consciousness cognizes. These are all verbs, and we cling to them. The act of clinging …
- The Dhamma Eye… fabrication, name-and-form, consciousness, your experience of the six sense media. The fact that you’re aware of the six senses comes from the fact that there’s something in the mind that flows out to the senses. That’s what allows you to have that experience of the senses to begin with. But when you can see the mind at a point …
- The Power of Intention… As the Buddha said, our past karma gives us the potential for different experiences of form, feeling, perception, thought fabrications, and consciousness. Then with our present fabrications—our present intentions—we turn these potentials into something actual for the sake of having an actual experience, and then, of course, for the sake of whatever activities we want to do with those forms and feelings …
- Understanding Through Developing… Wherever there’s attachment, there’s a being.” What are people attached to? They’re attached to form, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness. Your sense of what you are is something you define. You define yourself through your clingings, through your attachments. You should find that thought liberating, because if how you’re defining yourself is unsatisfactory, you can define yourself in new ways …
- The Karma of Ideas… In this case, what picture do you have of the breathing process? When the breath comes in, what’s coming in? How does it come in? What’s making it come in? Have you stop to examine it? One way to examine it is to give yourself a new perception, consciously, intentionally. Think of the body as a big sponge. It’s got holes …
- What You’re Bringing… There are the things we consciously bring to it and there are the other things that we bring to it unconsciously, that we’re not aware of. So it’s important that you make your conscious intention as clear as possible. This is why Ajaan Lee would often start his meditations with a vow, “I’m going to sit here and I’m going …
- Load next page...
