Search results for: "Form"

  1. Page 34
  2. Learn from the Ants
     … tend to change over time, still the basic problem is the same: Suffering is still clinging to the aggregates, and the aggregates are basically the same now as they were then: form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and consciousness. Once you read the definitions, you realize that these are things you do, and you’re doing them all the time. How the mind functions, how … 
  3. The Purity of Your Intentions
     … You see how intentions are formed, the stages by which a little inkling comes into the mind, turns into something bigger, and then seems to be something real. It can pull you away if you’re not careful. The inkling develops hooks if you’re not careful. So you have to be quick. You’re learning about the body; you’re learning about the … 
  4. Energy & Efficiency
     … One time, she developed a form of cancer that required radiation, but she was allergic to the anesthesia. So she told the doctors, “Look, I’m a meditator. I can handle pain. Let me just use my power of concentration.” So they tried it, and she got through, but it took all her energy, and left her feeling drained. But she was able to … 
  5. Truth in Action
     … Even the highest form of non-duality, the Buddha said—the non-duality of consciousness—is still fabricated. It’s still something that’s put together. And you want to see that as an activity. That’s how you get to go beyond it. So it’s not the case that we work at being very careful about what we’re doing up to … 
  6. Fear of Others
     … If anything that’s subject to harm leaves you open to danger, leaves you open to suffering, why identify with it? If you can think in this way, you find yourself shedding all kinds of unskillful forms of pride, including the pride that masks as extreme shame. A lot of unskillful things hide around these things that we’re afraid of, these things where … 
  7. One Foot in the Present
     … This is called, rūpa-bhava, or a sense of the form of the body. It helps pull you out of those other worlds. So try to stay in touch with the breath, the feeling of the process of breathing, the breath energy as it flows through all the breath channels in the body. The more fully you’re present to the breath throughout the … 
  8. Owners of Our Actions
    One of Ajaan Suwat’s favorite teachings was that there are many things in Buddhism that are not-self. Form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness: These are all not-self. But then the Buddha has us reflect, “We’re the owners of our actions.” Kamma is not not-self. What we do is our responsibility. What we do is our refuge. Given the situation now … 
  9. Endurance
     … You have to see which forms of stress are things that you simply have to put up with in life, and which ones you can change. If you can’t put up with the effects of inconstancy, stress, and not self, you’ll never get to focus on what the real problems are—which is not the fact that those things that are inconstant … 
  10. Preparing for Death
     … It’s a pleasure of form. It’s a higher level of pleasure. It doesn’t have all the drawbacks of sensuality. It has a few drawbacks: It is, after all, something fabricated. But it’s fabricated with skill, fabricated with knowledge. It’s the kind of pleasure that doesn’t require that you deny the harm that you may be caused in the … 
  11. Stop & Think
     … Of course, the irony there is that to get into the formless jhanas, you first have to go through form, i.e., through the body. You’ve got the processes of bodily fabrication, i.e., the breath, and your mental fabrication, and your verbal fabrication. You have to get these all smoothed out so that you can see the mind clearly. We have to … 
  12. One Hand Clapping
     … It’s almost as if, as a thought begins to form in the mind, we think it’s a little present. We want to see what’s in the thought. We open it up, and sometimes there’s something entertaining there. Sometimes there’s something interesting, something practical. Sometimes the little box of the present is like Pandora’s box. You open it up … 
  13. Discernment in Concentration
     … You’ve got the breath, which is form. You’ve got the pleasure that comes with being with the breath: That’s feeling. There’s the perception that holds you with the breath, the image of the breath that you have in mind that helps you stay with the breath: That’s perception. You’re thinking about the breath and adjusting the breath, evaluating … 
  14. The Languages of the Mind
     … In this way, the habit we have of forming concepts—what the Buddha calls directed thought and evaluation, which are verbal saṅkhāras—instead of being the problem, actually become part of the solution. When you find the mind wandering off, chattering about other things, just realize that those other things are not the issue right now. It’s not that you’ll never be … 
  15. In Terms of the Four Noble Truths
     … One way this works is when the mind is really concentrated and then you leave concentration, it’s useful to ask yourself, “Where is the stress coming in? As soon as I leave concentration, what additional stress is there?” That’s one way of developing dispassion for those forms of stress outside of the concentration: attachment to the body, to feelings, perceptions, ideas, even … 
  16. Common Ground
     … The form of the body, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, these we have in common. And the ways we cling: We cling through sensuality, through our habits and practices, through views about the world, and through ideas of who we are. And although the views and the ideas of who we are, and our habits and practices, and the particularity of our ideas of … 
  17. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … We cling to form, we cling to feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, which means we feed on them, hoping to get some satisfaction out of them. As the Buddha points out, that’s why we’re suffering. So he wants us to gain a sense of having had enough of this kind of feeding. It’s through having had enough that we gain release … 
  18. Testing Karma
     … It helps keep you from getting waylaid by lesser forms of happiness. But whether it’s true or not, you’ve got to put it to the test. So that’s what we’re doing here right now. We’re putting the Buddha’s teachings to the test. Always try to be clear about what you know and what you don’t know yet … 
  19. Sucked into the Tube
     … See how they’re formed. To begin with, there’s usually just a little stirring in the mind and the body. Then at some point, you apply a perception. You apply a label to it, saying, “This is this, and that’s that.” It’s as if you have a little code for yourself. You recognize the code’s signals and often you create … 
  20. Will Meditation Make You Grim & Dull?
     … It’s less an aspect of idle chatter or the other forms of wrong speech. It actually becomes a type of right speech. After all, genuine humor, genuine wit, is a sign of intelligence. You see the ironies of life. And because you feel more secure inside, you’re not threatened by them. So you can see them more clearly. One of the things … 
  21. Ekaggata
     … You’re going to need both if you want your concentration to form a good foundation for insight. Finding the right balance here is an important first step in using your insight, using your alertness, to make your concentration just right.
  22. Load next page...