Search results for: "Perception"
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- 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 …
- Sense Pleasures & Sensuality… It’s simply that the leper had distorted perceptions. As the Buddha said, it’s the same way once you’ve seen the deathless: You see that your previous perceptions of sensuality were distorted. You realize that even the pleasures of the senses are painful because you’ve found something so much better. So, when you’re dealing with sensual pleasures, it’s a …
- Large-hearted Goodness… So these are some perceptions to hold in mind to maintain your well-being. We’ve talked about the power of perception in shaping your experience. As the Buddha said, if you can keep the image of the saw in mind—that even if people were sawing your limbs off you should have goodwill for them—then if someone says something nasty to you …
- Looking for Essence in the Wilderness… So, you drop that perception and you simply go to the perception of the elements, and then from the elements you go through space, and then through awareness itself, and up through the different levels of formless concentration. In each case you realize that the disturbance that was there in the previous state is no longer there. Finally, through this process of progressively emptying …
- Respect for Concentration… You use your perceptions—all the names and labels you have for things; the images you have in your mind to stand for things. Try and create a useful perception of the breath. Create a perception of yourself as a capable person—someone who’s capable of meditating. Other people can do this. Why can’t you? Then there’s fabrication, when you’re …
- The Logic of Not-self… form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness, all of which are impermanent. Then there’s the conclusion, “Therefore, you don’t have a self.” It’s worth noting that the Buddha himself never used this argument. It started later in the commentaries. After all, he noted that many different versions of self were taught in his time, and not all of them were permanent …
- Surveying the World… It’s a hard word to translate, but basically it’s the kind of thinking that starts with the perception, “I am the thinker.” With that perception, you’ve taken on an identity, and once you’ve taken on an identity as a being, you have to feed. Where are you going to feed? You’re going to feed in the world. And guess …
- The Lessons of Equanimity… What are the perceptions that keep that mental pain going? Can you drop those perceptions? In other words, the approach you take to the pain is not one of fear or running away. It’s more of curiosity, trying to figure it out: Why does this pain have such an influence on the mind and how can you free the mind from that influence …
- Patience & Tenacity… The lesson here, of course, is that your perception of the pain has a lot to do with how much it’s going to weigh down the mind. So change your perception. If you notice that there are periods when the pain seems to be bothering the mind more than at other times, okay, what happened? What perception went through your mind that made …
- Mastering Causality… You begin to get more sensitive to what the mind is doing, particularly in terms of its perceptions and thought-fabrications, and how these relate to your feelings. Perceptions are the labels you put on things. For example, you may experience the body as something solid breathing in and breathing out. Well, you can change that perception. See everything you sense in the body …
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