Search results for: "Feeling"

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  2. The Arrows of Emotion
    The Arrows of Emotion April 21, 2010 There’s a famous discourse when the Buddha talks about pain, how the wise person experiencing pain feels it as the pain that comes from being shot by one arrow. The person whose mind is not trained turns around and shoots himself with another arrow. But it’s not really just one arrow—there are lots of … 
  3. Take an Interest
     … Notice where you feel them, and if long breathing feels comfortable, keep it up. If it doesn’t feel comfortable, you can change. You can make a game of it, figuring out what kind of breathing feels best for the body right now. What does your body need? The breath is like free medicine. For the most part, we just throw it away, don … 
  4. Blessings
     … Be aware of where the breath comes in and where it goes out, or where you *feel *it coming in and going out, which may not be at the nose. Sometimes you feel the energy of the breath moving in different places in the body. Try to gain a sense, when you breathe in and breathe out, of exactly how you feel it. The … 
  5. Exploring Fabrication
     … Then you breathe in and out sensitive to mental fabrication, noticing the effect of feeling and perception on the mind: the feelings of rapture and pleasure you’ve been inducing, and also the perceptions by which you can stay focused on the breath. What affect do those have on the mind? Then you try to calm that affect. In other words, you move from … 
  6. The Noble Path to Happiness
     … Well, you can move to any other part of the body where it feels comfortable to stay focused, stay centered. Stay there, and make it feel like you really can settle in and feel at home. You might try focusing through the body in a systematic way to see where in the body it feels most interesting to stay. So these are four qualities … 
  7. Patience & Sensitivity
     … Then, how does it feel before you try to put it through its paces? Notice that. If it already feels good, then allow it to stay feeling good. If it feels tight or constricted, what can you do to loosen up some of those restrictions? We’ve talked about having a sense of urgency in the practice, but you also have to be patient … 
  8. Finding Balance
     … If you’re feeling lazy, try to breathe in a way that gives you more energy. If you’re feeling tense, and overworked, try to breathe in a way that’s more relaxing, more soothing. Right there you’ve got some directed thought and evaluation. You direct thoughts to the breath and then evaluate what you’ve done: Is the breath appropriate right now … 
  9. Thoughts, Wanted and Unwanted
     … When you breathe in, how do you feel the energy in that part of the body? Does it feel constricted? Does it feel like you’re pulling the breath in a direction that doesn’t feel good? How about imagining the breath going in another direction – the opposite direction. See what that does. Or think of the breath flowing right through the body, not … 
  10. To Gladden the Mind
     … There’s the body, there are feelings, and there’s the mind. With the body, of course, we’re mainly concerned with the breath. The mind is your awareness right here. And we’re trying to create a feeling of pleasure, as a kind of glue to keep the mind with the body. If, as you survey these things, you find that one of … 
  11. Exercising Discernment
     … And be alert to how the sensation of breathing feels. Where does it feel satisfying when you breathe in? Which part of the body feels refreshed by the breath? Can you let other parts of the body feel refreshed by the breath too? Watch. That’s where the ardency comes in. It’s not that we’re sitting here straining till beads of sweat … 
  12. The Energy to Be Generous
     … They breathe in ways that feel burdensome, heavy. It’s just a struggle sometimes to breathe. So one way you can have more energy for helping other people—or at the very least being good to other people in situations where they’re not good to you—is to learn how to breathe in a way that feels good and energizing. As for the … 
  13. Compunction & Awe
     … There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha talks about a lion coming out in the afternoon and roaring its lion’s roar, and the animals of the forest all feel saṁvega. They don’t just feel emotion. They feel terror, they feel awe, because the lion is so much more powerful than they are. I think “awe” is the best English … 
  14. Useful Thinking
     … As long as you stay aware of your hands, your feet, your head, every part of the body, and it all feels good, it all feels connected, you won’t want to shrink. If the breath doesn’t feel connected, ask yourself, where is that sense of conflict in the breathing energy? Can you dissolve that sense of conflict so it feels like all … 
  15. Do You Want to Stop Suffering?
     … So if you feel that things are a little bit gross inside, try to make your attention more subtle and think about subtle energies in the body, wherever you may feel them—anything that you may find refreshing, soothing. You’re the one who gets to choose what feels good right now. So you’re learning an important lesson about kamma, that kamma is … 
  16. Insight in Concentration
     … Once you feel less and less inclined to follow through with that original obsessive thinking, then you can turn around and stay with the breath. This way, you use your thought processes for the sake of stillness. Then you continue with the breath, exploring how the breath feels in the different parts of the body: how different rhythms of breathing feel, how much pressure … 
  17. How the Breath Helps You to Die Well
     … There are other places in the Canon where the Buddha says that the mind doesn’t really calm down until it’s had some rapture, a sense of energy, and feels full, refreshed, nourished. Then it can calm down. At the same time, because you’re dealing with the breath, to make it feel peaceful, comfortable, and at ease, you’re dealing with four … 
  18. Recollecting the Buddha
     … getting you familiar with these things, so that you’re not overcome by feelings, and so that your perceptions don’t pull you away to places that, if you had any sense at that point, you’d really not want to go. The problem is that when you get forced out of the body, you don’t feel you have much choice. You just … 
  19. Indulge in the Pleasure of Jhana
     … When the breath is heavy, there are some kinds of heavy breathing that can feel really nourishing and very satisfying. Other times, they feel gross. So what does your body need right now? When you find something that feels really good, stick with it until it doesn’t feel good anymore. That may be a long time. You may be afraid, “Are you going … 
  20. Taking Your Own Medicine
     … What would longer breathing feel like? Allow it to be a little bit longer for a while and see how that feels. Or how about shorter breathing, deeper breathing, more shallow breathing, heavier breathing? Sometimes if the breathing is too light, the mind begins to drift. So experiment to get a sense of what feels best for the body right now, because it’s … 
  21. Insight into Pain
     … We don’t share our pain—I don’t feel your pain, you don’t feel mine. When a politician says, “I feel your pain,” you wonder what he’s feeling. But each of us knows what pain is like, and each of us wants a solution to it. The Buddha says that the primary reaction to pain is twofold. One is bewilderment, not … 
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