Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 28
  2. Choosing Not to Suffer
     … You don’t have to relate the breath to anything else outside, just focus on how the breath feels in the present moment, noticing which ways of breathing feel good in the body, which ways of breathing don’t feel good, and how you can change them. You change them simply by thinking. Don’t try to put force or pressure on the breath … 
  3. Hunting & Foraging
    Breathe long and deep to see where you feel the energy move in the body as you breathe. Wherever it’s most blatant, wherever it’s easiest to follow, let your attention settle right there. That’s your focal point—or, as they call it in Pali, your support. You’re going to be watching the mind, but first you’ve got to give … 
  4. Perceptions for Training the Mind
     … As for the feelings, he talks about how to create feelings of pleasure and rapture through the breath. The perceptions come in the analogies that he gives, pictures you can hold in mind that can talk to your lizard brain, so that you can bring some knowledge and awareness even to the really, really basic mental functions that are going on right now. We … 
  5. An Equanimity You Can Feed On
     … You adjust the condition so that it feels good breathing in, feels good breathing out, it feels good just sitting here, inhabiting your body, inhabiting the form of the body. Allow yourself to gain an appreciation for this level of pleasure, this level of refreshment. As the Buddha says, you indulge in it, and it helps you to stabilize the mind. As the mind … 
  6. Doing Favors & Making Merit
     … When King Pasenadi came to see the Buddha and asked him, “Where should a gift be given?” the Buddha’s first response was, “Give where you feel inspired or you feel that it would be well used.” But then the king asked further, “Where, when a gift is given, does it give the best results?” The Buddha replied, “Now, that’s a different question … 
  7. Friends with the Breath, Friends with the Buddha
     … How does the breath feel right now? Is it long? Is it short? Heavy? Light? What kind of breathing feels good right now?—because the breath is nourishment for the body, and it’s most nourishing when it feels refreshing. The breath becomes even a better friend if you make friends with it. You do it in the same way that you make friends … 
  8. Arising & Passing Away
     … Where you feel the breathing? Where does it feel like the energy is coming into the body? Where does it feel like it’s going out? Do you squeeze it out too much when you breathe out? Do you make it too tight when you breathe in? Try to get as sensitive as possible to how this feels. The more sensitive you are, the … 
  9. Uncertainty
     … It should feel good coming in. If you’re not sure, hold your breath for a bit and then, when you can’t stand it any longer, breathe. It should feel good. Then say, “Well, that felt good. Then another breath just like that should feel good, or maybe something similar to that.” This way, you rearrange the conversation in the mind, because all … 
  10. An Auspicious Day
     … See what feels best for the body right now. And when you find a rhythm that feels good, stick with it until it doesn’t feel so good anymore. Then you can change. Take an interest in the breath, because after all, it’ll be your anchor in the present moment. Because ultimately you’re going to be watching the mind, and it’s … 
  11. A Poker Mind
     … You’ve got to maintain that sense of awareness-and-breath-and-pleasure until the pleasure starts feeling gross. Not gross in the sense of being disgusting, but just not subtle enough. You want something more subtle. Before the pleasure feels gross, you’ve got the rapture that starts feeling a bit too much. You let that die away. Then you let the pleasure … 
  12. Other People
     … Where does it feel soothing? Where does it feel good when you breathe in, breathe out? If you can’t really decide whether it feels good or not, hold your breath for a while. Then when you finally do breathe, it’s going to feel good. Well, notice the spot where it feels best, and make that the focal point of your awareness. Be … 
  13. Respect for Concentration
     … Try to get sensitive to how the breath feels. What does a long breath feel like? What does a short breath feel like? Which feels better? Experiment. You can try experimenting with deep or shallow breathing, fast or slow breathing, heavy or light. There are lots of different breaths to experiment with. Try to sensitize yourself to this part of your awareness. It’s … 
  14. Focus on Your Intention
     … Form deforms, feelings feel, perceptions perceive, fabrications fabricate, and consciousness cognizes—the point being that these are activities. The word “aggregate” has an unfortunate connotation. It sounds like gravel, little bits and pieces of rock. The aggregates probably got that name in English from a convention in early modern European philosophy which said that groups of things were either systems or aggregates. Systems were … 
  15. True, Beneficial, Timely
     … I asked him, “Can you feel your body? As you’re sitting here, can you feel it from the inside?” He said, “Oh yeah, no problem.” Well, that’s breath. Hold that perception in mind, that what you feel the body right now starts with breath energy. Then ask yourself, if this were breath energy, would it qualify as good or bad? Sometimes there … 
  16. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … So if you want to head them off before they become big, you have to be able to settle down here and feel well-established. You’re not going to be pushed off in any direction by anything. This requires an enlarged state of mind, so once the breath starts feeling comfortable, start thinking of spreading your awareness around the body and allowing that … 
  17. The Forerunner of All Things
     … Now, you don’t do that just by sitting around and asking yourself, “What do I really feel? What do I really think?” because the mind can lie to itself. You can say, “Yes, I really do feel this, I really do think this,” but are those feelings and thoughts something you want to go with? After all, if the mind is capable of … 
  18. Heart & Mind
     … Feelings here are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Here again, learning how to breathe skillfully in the midst of difficult situations can give you a foundation of well-being inside, so that you don’t feel so oppressed, so hemmed in by events. You realize that regardless of what’s happening outside, you can still inhabit the full space … 
  19. Friends
     … But when you learn to use them as a path, then if there’s a pleasant feeling, what’s the best use for that pleasant feeling? If there’s a painful feeling, what’s the best use for that painful feeling. It’s a way most of us don’t tend to think. All we can think of is: “If there’s a pleasant … 
  20. The Veils of Delusion
     … What we’re doing is uncoding it, getting back to the pure physicality of what it means, what it feels like, to be in a body. When you breathe in, what’s actually happening? We have all kinds of preconceived notions about what the breath is doing. But stop to take stock: What do you really feel as you breathe in? What do you … 
  21. Truth
     … It’s one of the reasons why he said that people who feel no shame in telling a lie are capable of any kind of evil. This doesn’t mean that everybody who lies is capable of all kinds of evil. There are people who will feel ashamed about the lies they tell, which shows that they know some boundaries, that they have a … 
  22. Load next page...