Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 141
  2. Doing Meditation
     … It’s no wonder we feel such a lack of peace in our lives, because the mind is constantly coming up with things to do. Even when things are peaceful, after a while the mind says, “This is getting boring. Let’s try something else.” So the trick is to learn how to take this doing of the mind and turn it to our … 
  3. The Four Precepts
     … Afterwards, one of the people who’d organized the retreat was very upset, feeling that Ajaan Suwat was talking down to the laypeople, assuming that all they could handle was the precepts, and they couldn’t handle “real meditation” in daily life. Which was not his purpose at all. His purpose was to point out that the precepts form a very important part of … 
  4. The Karma of Not-self
     … The skills you learn in trying to attain your desired feelings or objects or whatever: That’s another form of I-making and my-making. In this way, you make lots of different selves. And given that part of your sense of self is based on the things you can control, the things you can manipulate, your sense of self depends to a great … 
  5. True & Beneficial
     … What do you make the raft of? You make the raft out of the twigs and branches on this side of the river, which the Buddha identifies as form, feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness of the senses—in other words, the things that you ordinarily cling to that cause suffering, but now you’re going to cling to them strategically as you make this … 
  6. What We Have in Common
     … I’ve run into some nominal Buddhists who thought that their actions were totally determined by their genes, which means that deep down inside they don’t feel that they’re responsible for what they do. It’s hard to live with someone who thinks like that. If you want to live together, you have to admit, “I do make choices and my choices … 
  7. When Aging Closes In
     … It’s a matter developing the mind to the point where you no longer have to identify with the body, with feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, or consciousness. That way, when these things change, as they inevitably will, the mind won’t be affected by the change. That’s a really healthy mind. This is what we’re working on as we meditate. We develop … 
  8. Consistently on the Path
     … bodily fabrication, the way you breathe; verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself; and mental fabrication, the feelings you focus on and the perceptions you hold in mind, the images you give to yourself of the world and of yourself. As long as we do these things in ignorance, they’re going to cause suffering. If we bring some knowledge to them, they … 
  9. Intelligent Effort
     … focused on the body in and of itself—or feelings or mind states in and of themselves—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. It’s good to know, to have a sense of which world you’re living in. If you’re living in the world of the media, there’s so much that has to be done to fix … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. Pleasure & Pain
     … You have to take an inquisitive attitude toward what it’s doing: “What here is the pleasure in this thinking? Why am I attracted to it? Why does it capture my imagination? What about it makes me feel that it’s worthwhile?” If you find you’re beginning to get answers to that, then it’s worth investigating. Otherwise, if no answers are coming … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. Samvega for Samsara
     … form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness. Once we latch on to these things, we become a being. Then the problem is that beings need to feed on physical food and mental food, and it’s in the feeding that we suffer. Now, we think that feeding is our main pleasure in life, so when we hear people say that the Buddha said that life … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. The Buddha’s Lists
     … We live in a culture where a lot of people feel oppressed by the judgments of others. And some of those judgments are oppressive because they’re using terms that are not related to anything that we would want to do in our lives. But if there are terms related to how to put an end to suffering, what you can do to put … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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