Search results for: "consciousness"

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  2. A Multilingual Mind
     … In particular, he focuses on the connections between what he calls name and form on one hand and consciousness on the other. Starting with this connection, he points out how suffering is built on top of it. The important elements of name and form are contact and intention. The way you regard the contact is another element of name and form, called attention. But … 
  3. The Path Is in the Details
     … There’s a potential for form, for feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness, but with your present intention you choose how to put those things together and turn them into actual forms, feelings, perceptions, and so on. This is something very quick. We’re very adept at it. Because it’s so quick, it’s hard for us to catch sight of it. And because we … 
  4. Learn from the Ants
     … form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and consciousness. Once you read the definitions, you realize that these are things you do, and you’re doing them all the time. How the mind functions, how the mind works: That’s a constant. If it works certain ways, it’s going to cause suffering. If it works in other ways, it’s going to lead to the … 
  5. Truth in Action
     … Even the highest form of non-duality, the Buddha said—the non-duality of consciousness—is still fabricated. It’s still something that’s put together. And you want to see that as an activity. That’s how you get to go beyond it. So it’s not the case that we work at being very careful about what we’re doing up to … 
  6. Wise Endurance
     … clinging to form, feeling, perception, thought fabrications, or consciousness. In particular, what are your perceptions, what are your thought fabrications about a particular issue? Remember that even with the aggregates, there’s an element that comes in from the past and an element of fabrication in the present. The way you breathe, the way you talk to yourself, the perceptions and feelings you focus … 
  7. Discernment in Concentration
     … And then there’s your consciousness, your awareness of all this. These are the things you’re going to need to know, and this is the best way to get to know them: by turning them into concentration, a state of body and mind where things come together. So it’s important that you realize that as you’re doing concentration you’re also … 
  8. In Terms of the Four Noble Truths
     … attachment to the body, to feelings, perceptions, ideas, even attachment to sensory consciousness. You want to notice that when you leave concentration, these things get heavier, more burdensome. The stories you build around them, the sense of who you are that you build around them, the sense of the world that you build around them, all of which is called becoming: It becomes a … 
  9. Like an Athlete in Training
     … It feeds off of contact, consciousness, and intentions. Like right now, we’re meditating. We’ve set the intention that we’re going to stay with the breath. That’s our food right now, and it’s good food. It’s healthy food, but you want to make sure it’s not just the kind of health food that tastes awful and the only … 
  10. Common Ground
     … The form of the body, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, these we have in common. And the ways we cling: We cling through sensuality, through our habits and practices, through views about the world, and through ideas of who we are. And although the views and the ideas of who we are, and our habits and practices, and the particularity of our ideas of … 
  11. A Position of Strength
     … The Buddha talks about the different properties of the body—earth, water, wind, and fire—and then the properties of space and consciousness. The way he uses the word property, or dhatu in Pali, is that it has potential. You have the potential for breath feelings all over the body, solid feelings, liquid feelings, warm feelings, all over the body. And you can make … 
  12. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … We cling to form, we cling to feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, which means we feed on them, hoping to get some satisfaction out of them. As the Buddha points out, that’s why we’re suffering. So he wants us to gain a sense of having had enough of this kind of feeding. It’s through having had enough that we gain release … 
  13. Concentration
     … your consciousness. You learn about the five aggregates in a hands-on way by maintaining your concentration. So as you learn how to maintain it in lots of different situations, you learn lots of useful things about the mind. You learn about the aggregates, you learn about which ones are skillful and which ones are not. You learn how to develop skillful fabrications and … 
  14. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … There’s a feeling going into it, a way of breathing that goes into it, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness. Seeing things in those terms helps pull you out. So there’s the alertness to see what you’re doing, and the mindfulness to remind yourself, “Okay, this is a mind state.” That puts it in a framework. Then, recognizing what mind state it is, you … 
  15. Recollection of the Buddha
     … If you believe that all you are is a body and that your consciousness is just an epiphenomenon, as they call it—a side effect of there being a body—then you can’t really believe that by training the mind you’re going to have any impact on anything at all—because in the materialist view, the only reality is physical reality. Yet … 
  16. Distinctions That Make a Difference
     … Then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. In order to do concentration properly, you have to have a hands-on mastery of these aggregates. That’s how you get to know them. When you get to know them in a hands-on way like this, then you can be more precise in noticing: “Where are you focused?” Are you focused … 
  17. Beyond Duality
     … You can do the same thing with consciousness, contact, feeling, craving, or clinging. In other words, you learn to see these mental events as just that—as events, as actions—and then you apply that question of skillful and unskillful to those events. What kind of fabrication leads to more stress? What kind of fabrication leads to less stress? What happens if you can … 
  18. The Brightness of Life
     … He didn’t consciously think about the fact that the world was lacking a Buddha before he met the Buddha. But as soon as he found one, he realized, “Oh. This is what it’s been missing.” So don’t just lie around and wait until the path is closed, when it gets forgotten. It gets buried by what the Buddha called “improved Dhamma … 
  19. What Are You Bringing?
     … You consciously go through the people you love, the people you like, the people you’re neutral about, and even the people you dislike, trying to feel an attitude of genuine goodwill for them all. Of course, the people you dislike are the hardest ones. Don’t pretend that you feel goodwill when you don’t, but you’ve got to dig out: Why … 
  20. Getting into the Body
     … The Buddha says that if you really want to see your attachment to form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness, this is the place to see it: in a concentrated mind. As you fully inhabit the body, you can see what it’s like to identify with the body. Ordinarily, our sense of identification is very erratic. It’s like the reflections of sunlight off … 
  21. Keeping Your Head
     … your spirit. They can’t crush the goodness of the heart. They can’t crush the strength of your heart. Even as the body gets crushed, the heart will move on. Consciousness will move on. That’s the time where you really need to keep your head. So if the news is making you lose your head right now, how will you keep your … 
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