Search results for: "Feeling Tone"

  1. Page 2
  2. Your Tranquility & Your Insight
     … But given the images he provides of the state of mind you’re trying to attain—a state of good strong concentration—being aware of the long breaths and short breaths seems to involve trying to find a way of breathing that feels good, feels comfortable, gives a sense of refreshment, a sense of ease, pleasure, because that’s the feeling tone you’re … 
  3. Oppressed by Old Kamma
     … When a thought comes up, is it associated with a pattern of tension in your neck, in your back, in your arms, in your hands? What’s the quality, the feeling-tone that goes along with it? Can you change that feeling-tone, at will, using the breath? Sometimes you change the way you breathe, and the thought will go away. And just seeing … 
  4. Not Getting What You Want
     … Feelings are not emotions so much, they’re more feeling tones: feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain. There’s an intentional element in all of these things, which is why the Buddha calls them fabrications. This means that every present moment experience has an element of intention. We’re in there shaping things. The problem is that we’re so … 
  5. The Reality of Your Thoughts
     … Emotions often seem to have more reality; in fact, we tend to identify with them even more than just thoughts that go in and out of the mind with neutral feeling-tones. The ones that really stir-up a lot of greed, aversion, delusion, fear, jealousy, grief: They seem real because they have such a lasting impact in the body. But the Buddha has … 
  6. On the Surface of Things
     … And then, what’s the feeling, the feeling tone? Body and feelings: two different aggregates that we’ve glommed together. Can you see them as separate things—separate notes in the bird song? The same goes for perceptions, thought constructs, acts of consciousness: They’re all happening right here. Our problem is that we tend to be conspiracy theorists. We want to know: What … 
  7. The Uses of Pleasure
    When the Buddha called his path of practice a middle way between the extremes of indulgence in sensual pleasure and indulgence in self-torment, he didn’t mean that it was going to adopt a neutral feeling-tone. He was offering a different kind of pleasure and a different way of relating to it. The different kind of pleasure is the pleasure of concentration … 
  8. Fabrication at the Breath
     … Then there are your perceptions and feelings. “Feeling” means feeling-tones of pleasure and pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. These are the elements that create states of mind that inhabit both the body and the mind. So keep remembering, reminding yourself: It’s just these three types of fabrication. This is how concentration helps you gain insight into the mind, first in the … 
  9. The Role of the Observer
     … Then there are perceptions and feelings—the labels we put on things and the feeling tones we focus on—pleasant, unpleasant, neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant: Those are mental fabrications. Those are our tools, our weapons in our internal battle over those thoughts that come into the mind and just seem to hang on because there’s part of the mind hanging on to them … 
  10. In Touch with Your Fabrications
     … Then feelings, in this case, are feeling tones: pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. These three kinds of fabrication are the basic elements we put together to create an emotion. One of the reasons why we meditate is to get in touch with those elements. Once you see how they’re used to fashion a state of concentration, then you begin to notice that … 
  11. Calm & Insight
     … Feelings, which are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions—the labels you put on things, either as individual words or as images. Thought fabrications, where you put things together and think in full sentences. Then, consciousness which is aware of all these things. These are said to be fabricated because the way you experience them is that there’s a … 
  12. Nurturing Your Inner Adult
     … They’re more feeling tones: pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. Perceptions are the images that underlie the thoughts—the basic concepts, words, or images that you then turn into sentences, which then become verbal fabrication. So when an emotion comes up, ask yourself, what’s fabricating here? In particular, what kinds of perceptions are making it difficult to see the situation clearly? Often … 
  13. On an Even Keel
     … The four jhanas are defined by their feeling tone. You want to develop pleasure, you want to develop rapture, but you have to learn how to do it in such a way that you don’t destroy your concentration. So you stay with the breath, and you stay with the breath in such a way that you give rise to feelings of pleasure. Part … 
  14. The Four-in-One Establishing of Mindfulness
     … terms. One of the aspects of the body on its own terms is the breath that you’re experiencing right here, right now. Then there are feelings in and of themselves: feeling tones of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. Those are right here, too. You try to breathe in a way that’s pleasurable, easeful. That sense of pleasure and ease is … 
  15. Fourth Truth, First Duty
     … It’s a general feeling tone—and you can keep it relaxed. If you sense yourself tensing up, you automatically relax it again. Breathe through the tension. Again: hands-on experience with feelings and perceptions. You begin to see the ways in which you really do make yourself suffer by the way you cling to unskillful fabrications, unskillful feelings and perceptions. Then you can … 
  16. A Pervasive Well-being
     … You may not actually sense light—some people do—but even without the light, there is a sense of radiance, a sense of brightness in the feeling tone of the way you experience the body, the way you experience your awareness, and this forms the central factor of the path. Once the mind is in this state of awareness and supported by all the … 
  17. The Alternative of Concentration
     … It’s useful when you start out meditating to make a very quick scan through the body—through your various joints, especially around the wrists, around the hands, any part of the body that tends to be tense most of the time—and just consciously relax it, to create the right feeling tone for what you’re about to do. Then the mind can … 
  18. Focal Points
     … In those cases, you may want to just be aware of the general feeling-tone of the body, or you can choose any one of your sensitive spots. Because after all, as you get more and more acquainted with the different energy centers of the body, you’ll get a sense of when they seize up. When a strong emotion comes in, you tend … 
  19. Food for Endurance
     … Right concentration is always defined by the feeling tone—either rapture and pleasure, or just pleasure on its own, or equanimity—all of which are good feelings that you can give rise to from within, totally independent of anything outside. That’s how you make the most of your inner resources. There’s an incident in Thai history where a neighboring country came in … 
  20. Fixing the Present
     … He also talks about calming mental fabrication, looking at the feelings you have—and “feelings” here doesn’t mean emotions, it means feeling tones: pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain—and looking at your perceptions, the images running around in your mind, giving rise to greed, anger and delusion, fear, panic, whatever. You want to calm both the feelings and the perceptions. And a … 
  21. Delight in Striving
     … Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. These are things that we *do *fabricate. We may think that our feelings just come at us ready-made, but they’re not. There are potentials for pains, potentials for pleasure, in the body and in the mind. But how we actually experience them is going to depend on how we prepare them … 
  22. Load next page...