Search results for: "consciousness"
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- The Karma of Pleasure… It’s known by a consciousness that doesn’t come out of the five aggregates, and isn’t known by means of the sense media. That’s something really special. But the only way to find that is, first, to develop this ability to create a sense of ease and well-being within the body through the breath, a sense of ease and well …
- A Safe Harbor… As we practice with the breath, we learn how to shape these elements more consciously so that we can begin to rely not only on our thoughts, but also on our emotions. These sublime attitudes also provide safety in the sense that they expand our attitudes. The mind gets expanded. The barriers we used to place on our goodwill, around certain people we just …
- Passion for Dispassion… 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 our expectations. The question is: Are we willing to change our …
- The Power of Choice… And see that the raw materials from which you’re creating this sense of self—form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness—are all inconstant. It’s like sand sifting through your fingers: You try to grab on to a fistful of sand, and even before you’ve fully closed your fist, the sand is already running out through your fingers. So at this point your …
- Staying Normal… It’s an unestablished normalcy, they call it unestablished consciousness. That’s the ultimate true normalcy of mind: ultimate release, ultimate freedom, free from grief, lamentation, despair, free from conceit, aging, illness, any effect of aging, illness, death, or separation. That’s the potential of the mind. That’s the mind at normalcy. So if we see our minds are out of kilter, we …
- The Basic Medicine… our lack of skill in managing our thoughts, our lack of skill in relating to feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, and consciousness. And so what we’re doing is learning new skills to relate to what’s going on in the mind, along with a new sensitivity that comes with these skills. The skill is not just staying with the breath but also finding ways …
- The Power of Intention… Then very consciously breathe in and relax that tension, all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out—and then through the next and the next and the next. Get good at that. Then you realize you’ve got a skill that you can apply to other patterns of tension in the body, the way you tend to tense up …
- Perceptions & Potentials… The whole point of the path is that you can take your sense of the form of the body, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness, and you can turn them into something else. They don’t have to be a weight on the mind. They can be a path. You’re making something different out of them. Now, the suffering comes from wanting the potentials …
- Safe Haven… It’s an example of the benefits that come when you consciously try to develop that attitude, so that you don’t feel embarrassed about feeling goodwill for yourself. You see that everything we do in one way or another is for happiness, so we might as well learn how to do it skillfully, in a way that really does lead to happiness for …
- In Earnest… Every plant that grows in the field of your karma comes from the seed of consciousness and is watered by your clinging and craving. It’s feeding off of that water. And it’s feeding off of the soil of your actions. As for fire, it feeds, too. It feeds off of its fuel and it clings to its fuel at the same time …
- Friends with Pain… This gives you a really good object lesson in how much your awareness, your consciousness, your perception of the present moment is a construct, something you’ve put together. And you have this habit of putting together in an unskillful way. That’s why the pain gets to the mind. The more you understand the pain, the more you can relate to it in …
- Use Your Defilements… Then there’s the consciousness that’s aware of all these things. You use it to pay attention right here, pay attention to the right places. So this is where you’re going to learn about the aggregates, and also the extent to which you are shaping them in the present moment. This way, you don’t fall for that “insight,” quote-unquote, that …
- A Concentration Diet… Food for the mind includes things like contact at the senses, consciousness at the senses, and intentions. Our mind feeds off of these things. This is why when people go into sensory deprivation tanks, the mind starts getting really weird. It’s starved for food. And just as food outside can be either healthy or unhealthy, there’s also healthy and unhealthy food for …
- Approaching the four noble truths… Because there are no aggregates in that state of consciousness, you’re not going to identify with the aggregates anymore, saying that they’re “me” or “mine.” There still will be a lingering sense of self around them, but if someone were to ask you, “Are they really you?” the answer is no. You saw that what you’ve learned came through your own …
- Right View: Feeding Instructions… Then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. These are the basic functions by which we identify ourselves. These are also the functions we use in order to feed in the world. The word “clinging” has a connection to the word for “feeding” as well. So suffering is basically an issue of how we go around feeding. We have a feeling …
- Visakha Puja… There has to come a point where you get disenchanted with the way you identify with your body, the way you identify with your feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, even your sensory consciousness, seeing that these things are inconstant. You can’t really depend on them. They’re stressful. They can’t provide the true happiness you want. And they’re not-self: They’re …
- Breath Energy… have to be anything particularly outstanding or especially rapturous or pleasant, simply that the body feels present, and there’s no tightness. If you want, you can start with your hands. Consciously relax the muscles of your hands. Then slowly work your way up your arms: the muscles around the wrist, the muscles in the forearm, the muscles around the elbow, the upper arm …
- Victory… If you can see that one side of the body is holding more tension than the other, consciously relax that side. See if you can keep it relaxed all the way through the in breath, all the way through the out. Then move on to the next area that you can compare. It’s through making comparisons like this that you get more sensitive …
- Sources of Lasting Happiness… But if you very consciously breathe in a very different way, it cuts the circle. That’s something you can explore. You can find ways of breathing that give rise to a sense of fullness in the body. “Fullness” here doesn’t mean that your stomach is full, simply that all the cells in the body, all the different parts of the body, feel …
- Squeezing Goodness Out of the Aggregates… If you cling to them in the right way, they can actually become part of the path—these activities the mind does in terms of feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness. This is how we make the path. And we look after it. That’s another aspect of Ajaan Lee’s teachings on not-self. He noted that some people just give up and say …
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