Search results for: "Perception"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- The Dhamma Points Inside… It’s more a type of thinking, based on a type of perception, using certain types of terms. They start out with the perception, “I am the thinker.” With that perception, you create a sense of who you are as a being. ** **A being has to feed, so you need your territory, and most beings want to expand their territory as far as they …
- Selfing & Not-selfing… Discernment, right view, is a matter of perceptions and thought fabrications. Right resolve—a matter of fabrications and perceptions. All the elements of the path—all the factors of the path—are composed of aggregates. So you learn how to develop skillful ones, let go of the unskillful things that would pull you away from the path. So you exert that extent of control …
- Even Shame Can Be Skillful… And then also the perceptions, the labels you put on things—good, bad, this, that, breath, not breath, body, whatever. As you focus on the breath, you begin to realize you’ve got all these elements right here. You’re employing them in the meditation. You’re getting hands-on practice in learning how to shape them. So shape the feeling of the breath …
- Wake Up from Addiction… sensations in the body, feelings of pleasure or pain, perceptions, i.e., the images you hold in mind. Take perceptions, for example: What are the images you hold in mind—not so much about the object you’re lusting for, but about lust itself? Why does it seem attractive? What’s the glamour? What’s the appeal? Can you switch those images? Or look …
- Dangers Outside & In… You look at what he calls mental fabrication, which includes perceptions and feelings, and you try to calm those perceptions down; you calm those feelings down. He doesn’t give you much to go on, but this is an area where the ajaans have lots to say. Ajaan Lee will talk about perceiving the breath energies in the body flowing through the pain. Ajaan …
- Strength Training… Sometimes seeing that you can’t really totally control them, so why claim them as yours? That’s another way.” But the Buddha lists other perceptions as well, and your sense of when to apply those perceptions is going to come more and more naturally as you work on strengthening the mind. So you’ve got the strength of conviction to start out with …
- To Know the Noble Truths… form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness. That’s something less familiar. You can say, “How can I know about suffering if it’s something I’m not familiar with?” Well, the Buddha says the clinging is the real problem, and he says we cling in four ways. When you listen to the types of clinging, you’ll recognize them as things you really …
- The Humble Way to Awakening… This is why the Buddha has us divide things into the aggregates, because the comings and goings of perceptions, the comings and goings of thought fabrications are going to have an impact on the pain. You see that the perception, the label you place on the pain, acts like a bridge. Certain perceptions come and they make the anguish flare up. When you can …
- A Centered but Broad Awareness… Especially your perceptions around the pain: You might try other alternative, more skillful perceptions. One is that the pain is just there. It’s not doing anything to you. It has no intention to hurt you. And two, the pain is extremely variable. Even though we may have a sense that it’s a solid block of discomfort, if you look at it, you …
- King Asoka’s Vow… I remember reading one insight teacher saying you have see that all perceptions are inconstant, stressful and not-self *except *for the perceptions of inconstancy, stressful and not-self. Those are special, put aside, not anything you want to abandon. But, hey—they are perceptions. Even though they’re right, there comes a point where you have to let go of right. It requires …
- Radical Questioning… Does it involve any of those four kinds of clinging? Or in terms of three perceptions, there’s the perception of inconstancy. Are you perceiving something as constant and permanent when it really isn’t Are you perceiving pleasure in something that’s really painful? Are you perceiving a sense of self in something that really isn’t worth it? Those are very radical …
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