Search results for: "consciousness"

  1. Page 28
  2. The Heightened Mind
     … We can observe ourselves as we meditate and begin to see how we’re using form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness—all the aggregates—in this state of concentration. You can start analyzing it. Where’s the stress? In fact, one of the ways of improving your concentration is to step back a bit like this and ask yourself, “Where am I causing unnecessary … 
  3. Freedom Undefined
     … When you hold onto any of the other aggregates, you’re classified as a feeling-clinger, a perception-clinger, a mental-fabrication-, or consciousness-clinger. You create your identity by what you cling to. This is why the Buddha never answered questions about what a human being is, because a human being can be almost anything. So this noble eightfold path that we’re … 
  4. Duties
     … Or you’re simply holding on to the consciousness, your awareness of the six senses. There’s s a clinging to some of these things or at least one of these things at any one time whenever there’s stress. And you can cling in different ways. You can cling simply because you want some sensual pleasure out of these things, or you’re … 
  5. The Right Time at the Right Place
     … Right here in the state of concentration, you’ve got the form of the body, you’ve got feelings of pleasure, you’ve got the perception that holds you here, you’ve got the fabrications of directed thought and evaluation that are your internal analysis—your internal conversation on how to get the mind and the breath together well—and then there’s consciousness … 
  6. Technique & Attitudes
     … How is it working? What kind of results are you getting? The more you get absorbed in the breath, then the less you consciously have to think about developing attitudes of goodwill or gratitude or respect, because the breath in and of itself seems more absorbing. But if you’re not there yet, remember that these attitudes can help. Think in ways that induce … 
  7. Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes
    When we talk about the committee of the mind, or when Ajaan Lee talks about all the various consciousnesses that may be hovering around your body, or when the Buddha talks about your thoughts being not-self, the purpose is to get some distance from those thoughts. But it doesn’t mean you have to distrust them. It simply means that you want to … 
  8. Factors for Awakening
     … And then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. So you’ve got all five aggregates where you need them: where you can look at them clearly in a state of well-being. When you have a state of well-being like this, then subtler levels of tension or stress you may have missed before become more apparent. Those are the … 
  9. Between You and Your Eyes
     … at once if you want to get to know just one part of the body. Maybe a whole hour isn’t enough. A good place to start might be your hands. Consciously go through and relax every muscle you can imagine in your hand. Think of the bones inside the hand, relaxing around the bones all the way through the in-breath, all the … 
  10. Don’t Stop with Awareness Itself
     … Then finally, consciousness: You would turn around and ask, What’s aware of the space? There you would be with awareness itself. And he wouldn’t have you stop there. He’d have you reflect on that awareness. But first, he’d have you use it to see what else was coming up in the mind and to see that everything that arose in … 
  11. Your Secret Foundation
     … The potential for perception, your potential for fabrication, your potential for consciousness: These are all things coming from past actions and shaped by present intentions into what you actually experience. You can begin to see this in the breath. The breath is as close as you can get to focusing on the mind without actually focusing directly on the mind itself. It’s right … 
  12. New Feeding Habits for the Mind
     … It takes this mind—which is feeding on the body, feeding on feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness—and tells it that there are better things to feed on. If you feed on these things, you’re going to be really sorry because your food source is going to run out on you very quickly. It’s going to keep changing—and with that … 
  13. Directing & Not Directing the Mind
     … in by trying to get the mind to want to latch on to the object of mindfulness. If it can’t, you use other ways of thinking that get it there: consciously not thinking about this, not thinking about that. Anything comes up; you drop it. Anything comes up; you drop it. By letting go in this way, you land naturally on the breath … 
  14. The Mind in Good Shape
     … One is that you’re directing the mind to the breath and, two, you’re consciously not directing it to other things. In other words, once you find yourself wandering off to something else, you immediately drop it. You don’t have to tie up loose ends of the thought. If you find yourself wandering off, just drop it and come back. Tell yourself … 
  15. The Committee of the Mind
     … That’s why we talk about the committee of the mind, or why Ajaan Lee talks about the various consciousnesses in your body. So let’s just look at the committee. There are different voices in there with different agendas, and as you meditate, you’re trying to convert them all to this agenda of staying with the breath. One way you can do … 
  16. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
     … A lot of these decisions for the most part tend to be under the radar, down in the basement, out of the light of consciousness. But as you become more alert and sensitive, what used to be unconscious or subconscious gets brought into the light of day. You see that you do have choices, and your choices are informed by your understanding. This is … 
  17. A Happiness Based Inside
     … But you’ve got to be consciously making the comparisons and seeing the areas where you can focus on things outside in certain ways so that your center is not disturbed by other ways of focusing, i.e., involving greed, anger, delusion, and all the other unskillful mental qualities that knock your center off kilter. This requires discernment: comparing things, seeing connections, and seeing … 
  18. Take Nothing for Granted
     … As the Buddha said, we fabricate our experience for the sake of having form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness, and then we use those things for the sake of happiness. So we have to remember why we’re here. Keep that in the background, and then set your mind on doing what needs to be done to reach to that goal of happiness, of real … 
  19. A Much Better Place
     … those who can see the danger coming before it comes; and then there are those who have to be slapped in the face with a danger before they realize, “Yes, this is dangerous here!” Of course, it’s best for us to see ahead of time the danger of identifying, say, with forms, feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness, all the things that go into … 
  20. Inner Refuge
     … Whether we consciously spread thoughts of goodwill to other beings or not, the fact that we’re training our mind is a sign of goodwill for ourselves and that we wish well to other people: that we’re going to take responsibility for our minds, we’re going to learn how to develop reliable qualities inside. The benefits that come from that are not … 
  21. Secluded from Sensuality
     … Why is it that the mind can see all these things, admit all these facts, all these truths about the body, and yet still consciously ignore them? This is a tendency of the mind in general. When you want to go for something you know is unskillful, you block out any thoughts that would criticize what you’re going for and why. We can … 
  22. Load next page...