Search results for: "Feelings"

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  2. Joy in Getting It Right
     … But when you look into the list of feelings the Buddha talks about, there are feelings of the flesh and feelings not of the flesh. Feelings of the flesh happen pretty much willy-nilly. But feelings not of the flesh are caused by your desire to practice. A pleasure not of the flesh is the pleasure of concentration. It’s not going to happen … 
  3. Serenity
     … If you’re feeling tired, you may need some energizing breath: long in, short out seems to help that way—or whatever way of breathing you find that gives more energy to the body. If you’re feeling tense, try to breathe in a way that’s more relaxing: short in, long out can help—or whatever way you find helps to calm the … 
  4. Figuring Out Concentration
     … But still, where do you feel the breath? Do you feel it just at the nose? If you focus just on the nose, you’re not with the whole body of the breath itself. So, notice where you feel it. Notice where you don’t feel it. Then, as you get more familiar with the breath, you’ll get like Jivaka, when he was … 
  5. Friends with Pain
     … How does the body feel? How does the mind feel? Take a quick survey of the body, from the top down to the soles of your feet to see if you’re feeling any tension, if you’re feeling any tightness, if are there any pains. If you notice any tightness or pain, one of the things you have to do to help get … 
  6. Empathetic Joy
     … If you can’t be happy for other people’s happiness, you’ll have trouble feeling right about your own. We hear again and again stories of people who gain a sense of ease and well-being, pleasure in the concentration and they don’t feel they deserve it. They shrink away from it. That’s because they have trouble being happy with other … 
  7. A Home for the Mind
     … And if deep breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Just pose the question in your mind: What kind of breathing would feel good right now? You may go around in different parts of your body and ask your arm: What kind of breathing would feel good for you? Your chest. Your abdomen. Your head. Your legs, your feet: Ask … 
  8. New Feeding Habits
     … So where do you feel that flow? Does it exist only where you feel it right now? You might think of it spreading around, and as you spread it around, make sure it feels good. Then talk to yourself about this. Talk to yourself about what kind of breathing might be better and, if it’s already good, how best to maintain it. Once … 
  9. Pain & Patience
     … There’s a feeling tone and there’s your awareness. Is the feeling tone the same thing as the awareness? Awareness is aware; feeling tones are not aware—they’re just something there. Can you see this distinction? Now, this requires that you get the mind really quiet, so that it can see these things. There’s a part of the mind that keeps … 
  10. What You’re Choosing to Do Right Now
     … Even with the feelings in the body: There are some feelings that you focus on and other feelings you ignore. Then there’s the whole idea of breath energy going through the body—one of the properties that make up the way you sense your body from within. There’s the water property—Ajaan Fuang would identify that as coolness. Earth is the sense … 
  11. Being Right
     … If you simply go along with the ways of the world just to get along, you don’t really feel connected. Even if it’s for the sake of feeling connected and having friends, it’s the kind of friendship where you feel even more lonely when you’re surrounded by people. You know in your heart of hearts that you’re suffering and … 
  12. Right View: Feeding Instructions
     … Then you’ve got feeling and perception. Feeling means feeling tone, like pleasure and pain, or neutral feelings of neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are the labels you place on things, saying this is this and that is that. Then there’s fabrication – the way the mind puts together ideas out of its perceptions, comments on things, asks questions about things, and gives answers … 
  13. Withstanding Pleasure & Pain
     … You give where you feel inspired, where you feel it will lead to good effect. At the same time, in doing so, you learn how not to harm yourself and how not to harm others. In other words, you don’t get engaged in breaking any of the precepts, and you don’t get other people to break the precepts, either. Those are the … 
  14. Appreciation
    Pali has a word for the feeling you have when you see people are happy and you’re happy along with them. It’s mudita, which can be translated as appreciation or empathetic joy. It’s one of the four brahmaviharas. And of the four, it’s the one that’s discussed the least, but it’s as important as the other three. It … 
  15. Hobo Mind
     … The important thing is that you stay grounded in the sense of the body and try to find an area where it feels comfortable, where you feel at ease. If you tend do have headaches, you might want to focus further down in the body below the neck. Then see what happens when you stay there. Try to make it a game. If you … 
  16. Circumspection
     … But as Ajaan Fuang said to me when I was first studying with him, it’s simply how you feel the body right now, the sensations of having a body, sensations you already have. Think of that as breath. Hold that perception in mind: “Breath” describes the feelings you’ve already got. You don’t have to create new feelings. Ask yourself: “If that … 
  17. Enlarge Your Mind
     … As the Buddha says, becoming is based on clinging, clinging is based on craving, craving is based on feelings. You want to chase it back to those feelings. What is the actual sensation that provoked you into creating that state of becoming to begin with? If you can track it down, you’ll find it’s a lot more ephemeral then you originally thought … 
  18. Generating Power
     … And try to be as alert as possible to how the breathing feels. Try to make it feel refreshing. This way the work becomes something you can easily keep on doing, because you feel refreshed in doing your work. Sitting here, it feels good breathing in, feels good breathing out. Ordinarily large areas of the body are starved for breathing energy, so give them … 
  19. Mindfulness, the Gatekeeper
     … This is where you move your frame of reference to feelings. Again, you’re sensitive to the pleasure and the rapture, and then you begin to notice: How do these things have an effect on your mind?—the pleasure and rapture together with your perceptions of those feelings. Ideally, you want to get the mind in a state where it feels calm and at … 
  20. Mind Reading
     … He talks about being sensitive to mental fabrication, which are feelings and perceptions: both the question of what kind of perceptions can you use to cut through your hindrances, and then, once the mind has settled down, what perceptions can you use to bring the mind into deeper and deeper levels of concentration? You’re seeing how feelings and perceptions really do have an … 
  21. Looking Inward
     … The more often you do it, the more you notice how to make it more comfortable, how to make it more gratifying; if you’re feeling sleepy, how to breathe in a way that wakes you up; if you’re feeling tired, how to breathe in a way that gives you energy. If you’re feeling tense, how do you breathe in a way … 
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