Search results for: "Feelings"

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  2. When Things Seem Dark
     … They want us to want this and want that, to have negative feelings about this, and positive feelings about that. And if you have a neutral feeling, you’re not playing along with the game. So, being raised in a culture like this, we have to unlearn a lot of the habits that were inculcated in us. In the Buddha’s time and in … 
  3. Feeding on Open Wounds
     … You sit here just breathing, totally immersed in the body, your sense of the body as you feel it from within. You breathe in, breathe out. Think of the breath in ways that minimize any tension that would develop when you breathe in, breathe out. If you find yourself tense in the shoulders, it usually comes from the fact that you feel you have … 
  4. Shaping the Present
    Bring your attention to the breath and notice where you feel it as you breathe in and breathe out. Do you like the way it feels? If you do, keep on breathing that way. If you don’t, you can change. This is one of the most important principles in the practice, one that gets overlooked or ignored or even denied: that you have … 
  5. A Post for the Mind
     … So try to find a way to breathe that makes you feel really full, even as you breathe out. Get a sense of the breath energy. Where does it feel depleted? Where does it feel lacking? Can you tell? Are you sensitive to this? Try to sensitize yourself to this area of your awareness, because it’s where there’s a lot of hunger … 
  6. Start by Relaxing Your Hands
     … You want something that not only feels good but also engages the mind. It’s interesting to notice how the breathing energy can affect your mood, how it can affect your general sense of the body. Even when you’re feeling a little bit sick, if you breathe in the right way, the body can feel a lot stronger, a lot healthier. So the … 
  7. Dependent Co-arising Right Now
     … directed thought and evaluation, and there are perceptions that hold identify the breath, and then the feelings that come as you stay with the breath or don’t stay with the breath: feelings of pleasure or feelings of dis-ease. But you can convert them to more feelings of pleasure if you use the right perceptions. So here’s an immediate way of dealing … 
  8. No Running Away
     … If things feel too heavy, too dense, that’s the earth element. The earth element is balanced out by the wind or breath element. If things get too hot, you’ve got the water element to cool things off. If you feel dizzy and light-headed, the earth element can help get you grounded. You want to learn how to get in touch with … 
  9. Breath Energies
     … Even before you can directly feel it, you can allow yourself to imagine it. Tell yourself, “If there were a cocoon of energy around the body, does this feel like a good cocoon?” Notice whatever you can feel. Think of energy coming in the chakras around the chest, the neck, the middle of the forehead. How does that feel? Just hold that perception in … 
  10. Allowing the Breath to Spread
    Allowing the Breath to Spread November 3, 2006 Find a spot in the body where the breath feels comfortable, and allow it to stay comfortable. And notice the word “allow.” We’re not making the breath comfortable. We’re letting it be comfortable. So you don’t have to tense up around it, you don’t have to do a lot to it, just … 
  11. Pain & Distraction
     … by putting the mind in a position where it doesn’t have to feel hunger, where it doesn’t feel a lack. It’s got its own sense of center. It’s got its own home. It feels secure and safe and well-nourished here. Once you develop that, then whatever you face, whether it’s in meditation, in your daily life, or as … 
  12. Mind in & of Itself
     … The breath is okay, the feelings in the body are okay, they might not be perfect everywhere but at least you can find something that feels good. But the mind is carrying lots of attitudes, lots of problems from the day, and you’ve got to work on it. In other words, what you’re doing is surveying the first three of the frames … 
  13. At the End of the Day
     … In the Buddha’s analysis of feelings in the steps of breath meditation, he starts out by saying that you try to develop a way to breathe that gives rise to feelings of rapture. So ask yourself, “What kind of breathing right now would allow the body to feel really full of breath energy inside?” Then you breathe in a way to give rise … 
  14. Keep the Mind from Wandering
     … Then the mind can calm down more easily, feel more refreshed, more energized. Once you know those spots, then you can go there anytime, so that you can tap into that sense of ease, the sense of fullness that comes when the breath energy potentials are all activated throughout the body, in a way that feels refreshing, in a way that feels really absorbing … 
  15. Breath Meditation: The Fourth Tetrad
     … Take the tetrads dealing with the body, with feelings, and with mind states: It’s not the case that you first work with the body and then, when that’s all taken care of, you work with feelings, and then, when they’re taken care of, you work with mind states. You’ve got to deal with all three simultaneously from the very beginning … 
  16. Getting into the Body
     … You feel at home here. You feel grounded here. You can really inhabit the body. It may sound like you’re identifying with the body, and that’s exactly what’s happening. The whole purpose of concentration is not only to give you an alternative to your attachments in the world, it’s also to provide a very steady attachment here so that you … 
  17. The Conditions for Goodwill
     … Hatred can be very easy to feel. Anger can be very easy to feel. Greed, aversion, jealousy: All of these things are just as natural as the good side of the mind. And the mind is something that can change very quickly. There are passages where the Buddha asks the monks, “Have you seen a moving picture show?” You look at the translation and … 
  18. Refuge
     … Get sensitive to what feels really good right now, because that sense of feeling good is what’s going to help you stay. Take some interest in this breath energy that’s keeping you alive. When you’re breathing, what’s happening? Where do you sense the breathing? Breathing is actually a whole-body process, but you tend to be aware of it more … 
  19. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … certain feelings you want and then your perception of what would be a good way to get those feelings and then all the activity that you go into in order to achieve the feelings you want. So if you find yourself addicted to something, try to divide the addiction into these things: What’s the form, what are the feelings, what are the perceptions … 
  20. Bring the Right Attitude
     … Then, when there’s that sense of calm and ease and fullness, allow that to spread, so that your heart feels full, the lungs feel full, the whole body feels full, all the nerves in your body feel full. You’re not starving. You’re not lacking in anything. That’s the quality you’re trying to work on in the meditation. So we … 
  21. Sweat the Small Stuff
     … The biggest abstraction is this sense of “I am”: “I am a good person; I am a bad person.” If you feel that you’re a bad person, you’ve got a lot of work to do to find the root of that badness. Most of us go swinging back and forth, feeling that we’re perfectly fine, then we run across something that … 
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