Search results for: "consciousness"

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  2. Precarious Knowledge
     … It’s in feelings and perceptions and thought constructs and consciousness, all of which are based on very changeable factors. When I was doing that collection of similes by Ajaan Chah, I noticed he had several similes where talked about the issue of scholarly knowledge versus meditation knowledge, or the approach of, say, Buddhist scholars as opposed to the approach of meditators. Scholars, as … 
  3. Angry
     … As for feelings, the way you breathe, even though you may not consciously think of it, aggravates a sense of having something oppressive inside you that you’ve got to get out. Part of you will say, “Well, the only way of getting it out is either to express the anger or to bottle it up and get cancer.” So you just let it … 
  4. The Karma of Self & Not-Self
     … breath runs through the body and where you are in the body as you focus on the breath; fabrications would be the intentions that hold you here; and then there’s consciousness. So all five aggregates are here in the state of concentration. You realize that you’ve been holding on to them as your means for letting go of other things that are … 
  5. The Need for a Purpose
     … We have a purpose, which means, of course, that we have some expectations, that by fashioning a sense of form, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, and consciousness out of the raw material given to us by our past karma, we’re looking for something. We have a purpose in mind. This is the nature of our mind. It’s purposeful. When it has no purpose … 
  6. Papañca
     … And from there, the Buddha says, you get into conflict, because once there’s an “I am”—you create it out of your sense of attachment to your body, to your feelings, your perceptions, your thought-constructs, acts of consciousness—that “I am” has to feed. It needs a world in which to feed. The problem is, you run into other beings, and they … 
  7. Think Outside the Ruts
    Think Outside the Ruts March 26, 2022 There’s a strange passage in the Canon where the Buddha talks about how we take the potential for a form, feeling, perception, fabrication, or consciousness, and we fabricate it into an actual aggregate of form, feeling, etc., for the sake of having that aggregate. It’s expressed in a strange way in the Pali, but the … 
  8. Set Your Heart on the Breath
     … Sometimes it doesn’t, and you consciously have to think about what kind of breathing feels good. Would longer breathing feel good? Would shorter breathing feel good? Experiment and see. So you’ve got the mindfulness and the alertness: Those are the knowing side. Then there’s the ardency, which is the willing side—the heart side. Everything’s gathered here together at the … 
  9. Beyond Natural Suffering
     … form as a clinging aggregate, feeling, perception, fabrication as a clinging aggregate, consciousness as a clinging aggregate. The usefulness of the synopsis is that you realize that clinging to these five things: That’s suffering. The clinging is the problem. So when you have any experience of suffering, you have to look for the clinging. You look for what it is that you’re … 
  10. The Buddha’s Investment Strategy
     … Many, many beings all the way from beings in hell, beings up to the various levels of heaven, even Brahmas, in states of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception nor non-perception: They are all dying and being reborn, and moving around from level to level. Seeing all these movements, he was able to see that there was a general principle to them … 
  11. The Duty to Understand
     … clinging to form, clinging to feelings, clinging to the perceptions or mental labels, clinging to thought constructs, and clinging to acts of consciousness or cognizance. The clinging is something we have to comprehend. It’s important to keep in mind the duties that go with each of those noble truths, because all too often we get our duties mixed up. We try to let … 
  12. An Issue of Control
     … If the body or feelings or perception, fabrications, consciousness were self, then you could say, “I want it to be like this,” or “I want it to be like that.” But you can’t have total control over any of these. The Buddha’s constantly focusing on the issue that your sense of self is built around control. Some people say when the Buddha … 
  13. Well-armed Efforts
     … You consciously try to make skillful things arise and to prevent them from passing away. Because after all, there’s nothing in the six senses—things that we know through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind—that isn’t the result of a process of fabrication, the process by which the mind shapes things. Everything we experience through these senses is fabricated … 
  14. Unraveling the Present
     … Hold on to your object, whether it’s the breath or one of the more formless aspects, like the sense of space or the sense of consciousness, depending on where you are in your concentration practice. You want to maintain that, keep it going, because it’s your tool, your fulcrum point for prying loose a lot of other attachments. You look at the … 
  15. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … The sublime attitudes are attitudes you have to consciously develop. You have to work on them so that they get more and more dependable, so that they can inform your actions based on the realization that goodwill is in your own best interest. If your happiness depends on oppressing other people, they’re not going to stand for it. They’re going to do … 
  16. The Kamma of Self & Not-Self
     … Those terms just get put out of the way—either because you consciously put them out of the way or simply because they just don’t occur to you. The result is the same either way. You see that an action is unskillful and stressful, you let it go. Even if you see that it’s skillful, it’s stressful. You let it go … 
  17. Fear of Death
     … Otherwise, when you think about the drawbacks of the body, you might say, “Even with those drawbacks, how can I function without a body? How could I exist without a body? I’ll put up with whatever the drawbacks are.” But when you practice concentration and get the mind into the formless states—such as the infinitude of space or the infinitude of consciousness … 
  18. Seeing the Stillness
     … Learn how you can use them.” After all, what is the path made out of if not feelings and perceptions and thought-constructs and consciousness? Learn how to use these things. What is rupa jhana made out of? It’s based on form, the first khandha, and includes the other four khandhas as well. Learn how to use these things in a way that … 
  19. Goodwill Without Limits
     … Those passages where he talks about consciousness without surface: Both of them come in contexts showing how the Buddha knows more than Brahmas know. He’s attained something that Brahmas can’t fathom. So as we stretch ourselves to have a Brahma attitude, remember there’s more. Stretching ourselves to the Brahma level gets us closer to stretching ourselves even further and going beyond … 
  20. Up for the Challenge
     … First, you should try to comprehend suffering, which means seeing that suffering is in the act of clinging to form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness. You want to see yourself suffering in the act of clinging itself. Sometimes we’re told that we suffer because we cling to impermanent things. But it’s possible to cling even to permanent things and still suffer. You … 
  21. Generating Energy
     … parts of the body seem to be overworked, the ones that are doing all the work in the breathing, but don’t seem to be getting any refreshment from the breath. Consciously relax those parts and say: If the body is going to breathe in, other parts will have to take over, but these parts are going to stay relaxed, regardless. And you’ll … 
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