Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Rooted in Desire
     … What are the perceptions that shape the way you’re going about things? What are the assumptions? The assumption of “self” is a big one. The various perceptions about your relationship to the world: Those are also things you’ve got to learn how to question. And a good place to start is your relationship to your breath. How do you focus on the … 
  3. A Well-thatched Roof
     … Then you’re ready to investigate it to see what perceptions are making you use the pain to stab the mind. You can replace them with different perceptions—like the one of the pain being just little pulses, not a solid block, and the pulses are going away. They’re not coming at you; they’re going away from you. They arise only to … 
  4. Respect for Concentration
     … We’re taking the khandhas — these aggregates of body, feeling, perception, thought-fabrications, and consciousness — and instead of identifying with them, we use them as tools. And as part of the process of mastering them as tools, there will have to be a sense of identification. You identify with the state of concentration, whatever sense of the body is present in the concentration, whatever … 
  5. Making an Effort
     … And you get sensitive to the perceptions that help you stay with the breath, as well as the perceptions that pull you away. Then there are the feelings that come with different ways of perceiving the breath or evaluating the breath. In other words, as you meditate, you get more and more familiar with these processes of fabrication, so that when the time comes … 
  6. Generating Energy
     … So you have to play with your perceptions here, to see which perceptions of what’s going on in the body can actually be helpful. There are parts of the body that you may be suppressing, that could actually be a source of energy. Ajaan Lee talks of the breath that goes up the spine, and the breath that goes up the centerline in … 
  7. When it’s Hard to Settle Down
    When it’s Hard to Settle Down January 17, 2017 When the mind has trouble settling down with the breath, you want to check to see whether the problem is with the mind or with the breath—or with your perceptions of the mind or of the breath. The first problem, the mind: Sometimes you have lots of issues that are unresolved, and simply … 
  8. Escape from Inter-eating
     … You see it as a process, and you begin to see, “Why would the mind slap that particular perception on that stirring? What is it hoping to get out of it?” Sometimes when it slaps a perception on, it just drops it. It’s not interested in it any further. Sometimes it gets fascinated and takes it further. Why? These are the things you … 
  9. On the Path of the Breath
     … feelings and perceptions. You’ve already noticed that changing the perception of how you breathe will have an effect on the breathing process and the feelings that arise from the breathing process. It also has an effect on the mind. It calms things down. So you can continue exploring exactly which perceptions help to calm the mind down even further. What you’re doing … 
  10. Work on Your Mind
     … When you breathe in, where do you think the breath is coming in? And what is the breath? Is the breath the air, or is the breath the movement of energy in the body? Which perception is more helpful? Usually, it’s the perception that we’re dealing with energy in the body, because then you can move that energy around. With the air … 
  11. Getting the Most Out of Now
     … your feelings and your perceptions. Feelings here are feeling-tones: the quality of pleasure or pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain that you feel and that you’re already dealing with as you deal with the breath and talk about the breath to yourself. Then there are perceptions. These are the images you hold in mind. And one main image is an image of … 
  12. You Can’t Clone Awakening
     … Because all you’re doing is just indulging in your imagination, indulging in perceptions and fabrications. There is this tendency. We read one of these passages, say, about the awakened one who experiences just the sight, just the sound, without assuming any person seeing the sight or anything behind the sight, any object to be seen. We think, “Well, if I just get myself … 
  13. Scramble the Image
     … Try to hold that perception in mind wherever you’re focused. As for any little patterns of tension that may come up, just see if you can breathe through them. Think of the breath as a solvent that dissolves them away. Then keep watch. See what kind of breathing helps with this kind of focus. Breathing too heavily can be unpleasant; breathing too lightly … 
  14. Speaking Truth to Defilement
     … These perceptions are like agreements. When Thai took over the word sañña, which is the Pali word for perception, one of the meanings that they ended up giving to it was an agreement, a promise, a contract. And this is what’s going on in the mind. We have these images that we send to different parts of the mind, and the different parts … 
  15. Doing, Maintaining, Using
     … You’ve learned that in this situation you have to add more pleasure, in that situation you have to change your perceptions, in this situation you have to change the way you think about these things. Well, these are all different aggregates: feeling, perception, thought constructs. And as you learn how to use them in different ways to deal with different situations, they begin … 
  16. You’re Doing Something Wrong
     … In terms of dependent co-arising, the first things you’re doing wrong are the way you breathe, the way you talk to yourself—the directed thought and evaluation—and the perceptions and feelings you’re holding in mind: either specific perceptions and feelings that you’re focusing on, or the way you’re focusing. That’s where you’re doing something wrong. Which … 
  17. Passion for Dispassion
     … We enjoy feeling and perception, and we enjoy fabricating our thoughts. We enjoy consciousness at the senses. The idea that we could find happiness by not being passionate for these things, not clinging to these things, goes against the grain, because we’ve been clinging for who knows how long? So there’s a lot in the message of the Buddha that goes against … 
  18. Calm & Insight
     … Then, there are mental fabrications, which are perceptions and feelings. We try to divide these things up in these ways so that you can see them as individual actions that you do, individual choices you make. The present moment is not just a given. It’s not a monolith. There are lots of activities going on right now. The Buddha’s pointing to the … 
  19. Stick to Your Duties
     … As you try to comprehend the suffering that comes from these things—and there is suffering—you begin to see that it’s focused on perceptions, thought constructs—all of the five aggregates. The aggregates themselves are not the problem. The problem is, as the Buddha says, the desire and passion you feel for them. So you want to figure out: Why is there … 
  20. Values
     … Then there’s mental fabrication—perceptions and feelings. Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are images you hold in mind, and they’re related to your sense of values: “This means that, that means this; this is worthwhile, that’s not worthwhile.” Sometimes you actually see a visual image in the mind of yourself being deprived of … 
  21. Don’t Focus on Jhana, Focus on the Breath
     … Which part of the body is doing the pulling? Is it doing too much pulling? Is one part of the body being forced to do too much of the work? What kind of perception of the breath do you have? Think of it coming in from all directions and just hold that perception in mind. For the time being, you don’t have to … 
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