Search results for: "consciousness"

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2. Play AudioFor the Sake of the Deathless
    … And in doing this very consciously, you dig up a lot of things that you do unconsciously that might resist. But it’s only when you counteract them that they’ll show themselves. Then you can figure out your way around them. So it’s by paying very careful attention right here that you get to that goal that seems so far away. But … 
3. Play AudioDisenchantment & Dispassion
    … All the teachings—the teachings on the five aggregates, the six sense media, the properties of earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness; and his more poetic teachings, the images in the poetry, the images in the suttas: They’re all aimed at this direction—to induce that sense of dispassion, disenchantment. And through the dispassion, release. Not that you’re hoping to be … 
4. Play AudioEvaluation
    … In other words, you have to consciously figure out ways of sidestepping the thought, or banishing the thought, or ignoring the thought, replacing it with a better thought, relaxing around the formation of that thought. There are other times, he says, that you can simply watch. He doesn’t give instructions as to which technique to use at which time. It’s up to … 
5. Play AudioThe Hedgefox
    … Finally, there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things: the more passive side of the knowing that simply registers what’s there. So you’ve got all these things going on here right now. As you get to know the breath better, and get to know the process of being with the breath better, you begin to see that these things do … 
6. Play AudioThe Skills of a Hunter
    … And here again, this quality of continuity is something we have to learn and consciously develop. I read a very foolish comment one time by a British professor, saying that back in the time of the Buddha, people didn’t have the level of concentration that we have now, which was why the Buddha had to emphasize it so much. We have to read … 
7. Play AudioDispassion Is Freedom
    … When you’ve decided that even maintaining a sense of the form of the body becomes oppressive, and you’d rather just be there with infinite space, infinite consciousness, it all seems very wide open and free. But the Buddha says, there’s a slavery there even in those forms of passion. It’s a fetter that keeps us tied to coming back again … 
8. Play AudioMetta
    … We don’t want to harm anyone, so we have to consciously develop thoughts of goodwill, even for people who have harmed those whom we love or who have helped people we don’t like. We can’t let our likes or dislikes determine our actions, because it’s very easy for them to lead to a lot of unskillful actions. This is one … 
9. Play AudioNo-Tech Meditation
    … As the Buddha said, the highest Oneness—the non-duality of consciousness—is a fabricated state. Only when you’ve seen yourself in action, seen the process of fabrication, and seen the opening where you don’t have to fabricate things any more: That’s when you know for sure that it’s not fabricated because you’re so familiar with your own fabrications … 
10. Play AudioSkillful Thinking
     … If you kept thinking in that direction, where would it take you? Is that where you want to go? Or if the distraction is really insistent, tell yourself, “Okay the distraction can stay there in the background if it wants to, but I’m going to stay here with the breath in the foreground.” Consciously ignore it. Don’t get involved. It’s like … 
11. Play AudioAssumptions
     … You use your body, you use your feelings, you use your perceptions, your fabrications, your consciousness. You convert them into the path. As Ajaan Lee once said, “A wise person can get good use out of anything.” We’re told that the aggregates, if you cling to them, are the essence of what’s stressful, the essence of suffering. So what the Buddha has … 
12. Play AudioDeath World
     … The infinitude of consciousness is 40,000, and the dimension of nothingness is 60,000. That’s a long time. But if you haven’t gained any of the noble attainments, then when you fall from those places, you fall hard. You can go fall all the way down to hell, you can fall to be an animal, you can be a hungry ghost … 
13. Play AudioEquanimity & Power
     … ways that may not be skillful? We’re trying to bring some light into areas of the mind that tend to be subconscious, to bring them up into the light of consciousness so that we can see, “Oh, this is what I’m doing.” When we talk about breath energy, a lot of people get confused. They say, “What kind of breath energy could … 
14. Play AudioThe Right Place to Look
     … And as you can work through your own ignorance, you’re going to be able to see where you’re doing things semi-consciously that are actually harmful to yourself or other people. You can stop that harm, both for yourself and for everyone else. So when you’re working with the breath, you’re working right close to the source. This is where … 
15. Play AudioHow & Why We Meditate
     … The breath is one of the few bodily functions that you can actually change consciously, so try to take advantage of that fact, both for the settling down and for the being observant. If the breath feels good and you find it interesting to notice how the way you breathe has an impact on how the body feels, that helps you to stay in … 
16. Play AudioGoodwill Is Respect
     … This is why we consciously develop thoughts of goodwill. It’s not that goodwill is our innate nature. Goodwill comes easily to us in some cases, and ill will comes just as easily in others. That’s the typical human attitude. What we’re trying to develop are Brahma attitudes, and those are higher, more refined, more inclusive: goodwill for all, everybody without exception … 
17. Play AudioA Simple Path Through a Complex Map
     … All you have to do is to bring knowledge to one connection, say, between name and form and consciousness, or to feeling and craving, or contact and feeling, or any of the combinations. You bring knowledge to these things, and—because the cycle has so many feedback loops—you can get whole the cycle to stop. What kind of knowledge? Knowledge in terms of … 
18. Play AudioBody as Path
     … And of course there’s consciousness. They’re all here together. You’re taking all the aggregates and you’re using to make them a path. Once you’ve done it, then you try to maintain it. Keep the path going inside. Think of your body as a path. How the mind relates to the body is a path. So ask yourself: The state … 
19. Play AudioYour Main Foundation
     … When the Buddha talks about form, feeling, perception, fabrications, or consciousness, what is he talking about? You can see these things in action. Or feelings, mind states, and mental qualities: You can see them in action because you’ve worked through all the interference that the breath was creating. By staying here with the breath and making it really still, you’ve learned how … 
20. Play AudioCount Yourself Lucky
     … If you’re not consciously changing the breathing, then all the adjustments of the breathing become subconscious where you can’t see them. So take your desire for immediate happiness and focus it right here. We talk about the path having a goal, but it doesn’t save all of its good things for the end. As the Buddha said, the path is good … 
21. Play AudioThe 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 … 
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