Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. A Noble Warrior’s Path
     … Hold a perception of the breath in mind and try to adjust the perception so that it allows you to breathe in a way that’s really comfortable. You have to question your perceptions if your breathing feels cramped or tight. Maybe you’re perceiving the breath in the wrong way. What other ways can you picture it to yourself? Experiment. And as you … 
  3. Equanimity Isn’t Everything
     … You’ve got to learn how to keep these perceptions in mind to help wean yourself away from the defilements of lust, anger, or greed. To bring the mind into concentration requires perceptions as well. You need to have a certain perception of the breath, a certain perception of the body to get into concentration and stay there. At the very least, you need … 
  4. At the End of the Day
     … Mental fabrication is perception and feeling. You want to see how those two things together have an impact on the mind. If there’s a pain in the body, it’s having an impact on the mind not only because of the pain but even more importantly because of the perception. This is where Ajaan Maha Boowa’s instructions on dealing with pain fit … 
  5. Patient & Inquisitive
     … It also reminds you that as you’re exploring, as you experiment, you can’t just say, “Well, I’ll experiment with this particular idea or this particular perception for a few breaths, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll throw it away and try something else.” You have to stick with things to see what results they have over the long term … 
  6. What You Sense Directly
     … Mental fabrication is composed of feelings and perceptions. Feelings are the feeling tones you have right here: pleasant, painful, neither pleasant nor painful. Then perceptions are the images you hold in mind that help you stay with the breath—the markers of the mind, the signposts—or the way you visualize to yourself how the breath goes through the body. So the question is … 
  7. Heedfulness
     … Sometimes you cling to your perceptions, the images and labels you use to identify things, as when you see a stoplight: One, you know that it’s red; that’s a perception. Two, you know what it means; that’s also a perception. And then three, you notice how important it is—you really do have to pay attention to that red light. There … 
  8. Analyzing Suffering
     … As the Buddha said, the ultimate attachment is to these very high states of jhana, the equanimity that comes with neither perception nor non-perception. That’s the ultimate clinging. But if you learn from the practice to this extent, you realize, okay, true happiness comes from letting go even of that amount of attachment. You let go. In that case, you don’t … 
  9. Do, Maintain, Use
     … Is it really that thing? Is it really that person? The real reason may be just a perception. We know the nature of perceptions—they’re representative, in the same way, say, that a congressman or congresswoman represents a district. They’re supposed to represent the voters in that district, but to begin with, not all the voters voted for that person. Even for … 
  10. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … After all, perception plays a very important role in concentration. Everything up through the dimension of nothingness, the Buddha calls “perception attainments.” So what perception would be best right now? You’re getting the mind to settle in with a sense of awareness that fills the body. You can think of the breath coming in from outside or you can have a mental image … 
  11. Samsara
     … Once the mind has settled down, then you use the perception of inconstancy or impermanence, the perception of stress, the perception of not-self to pry away your attachments. In other words, notice the places where you tend to cling and analyze them to see that they really aren’t lasting, they’re really not as pleasurable as you thought they were. You don … 
  12. Fabrication
     … What are you working with? You’re working with mental fabrication, citta-sankhara, which covers feeling and perception: feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. And then perceptions are the labels the mind gives to things: “This is pleasant. This is painful. This is this and that is that.” When you’ve got the mind with the breath, you’ve got all … 
  13. Fabricating Equanimity
     … Even though you’re not yet fully in concentration, you’re trying to bring the mind to a state of solidity with that perception of earth. And as long as that perception is helpful, you hold onto it. If earth gets too solid, too constricting, remember that the Buddha also mentioned to make your mind like water, make it like wind, make it like … 
  14. The Radiant Mind
     … You talk to yourself about the breath and you use perceptions to help you stay with the breath. Ask yourself what kinds of perceptions help the mind to settle down with a feeling of ease in the breath. Think of the breath as a whole-body process. As the Buddha says, when the mind settles down and has a sense of pleasure or even … 
  15. Calm & at Ease
     … your perceptions and feelings. You try to develop intense feelings of pleasure along with intense feelings of rapture or refreshment. Then, when the mind has been energized and refreshed, you allow it to calm down. In other words, you find feelings and perceptions that are more refined and calming, just as you found a way of breathing that was more refined. Take the perception … 
  16. Proactive with Pain
     … First you want to see, well, what is this pain? There’s a physical sensation, but there’s also a whole series of perceptions around it and permeating it. The perceptions are what create a bridge between the physical pain and the sense of suffering in the mind. Sometimes we give the pain a shape—say, that it’s located in the body right … 
  17. Mindfulness the Seamstress
     … And you want to be conscious of the fact that you’re holding in mind a perception: the perception of earth. Then you engage in a little bit of analysis. If you’re trying to make your mind like earth, what are the things that come up and make it unlike earth? In other words, what things do spark a response, a reaction? Can … 
  18. Papañca
     … Just get interested in the breath, interested in different ways of breathing, different ways of adjusting the breath, looking at the role that perception plays in this as you try to find a perception that’s calming, that allows the comfortable breath energy to spread through the body, making you more and more sensitive to the whole body, all the way up to the … 
  19. Chronic Pain
     … The challenge is trying to figure out exactly what perceptions are pulling it in, and you’ll find that these will change from time to time. You may have figured out one perception today and then you try to correct that. Your approach may work today, but then tomorrow you’ve got another perception, so you have to keep probing around, keep asking questions … 
  20. Study to Practice
     … What are the perceptions that aggravate the anger? What perceptions might help put the anger aside? The same with the feelings: What kind of feelings are you focusing on? The Buddha gives lots of recommendations for how to deal with these three kinds of fabrication. He tells you even how to breathe: Breathe in a way that gives rise to rapture, breathe aware of … 
  21. The Governing Principle
     … Then you learn how to drop that perception because, after all, the perception of wilderness contains perceptions of dangers. So you drop the perception of wilderness and just think about earth. Everything that’s there is just earth—the earth in your body, the earth in trees around you, the land around you. Even if there were an animal that would come and eat … 
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