Search results for: "Fabrication"

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  2. To Gladden the Mind
     … You’re not confined to whatever the body is already doing, because the breath is called the bodily fabrication, which means that it contains an intentional element. You can let the breath go on automatic pilot, but there’s something in the mind that monitors it. So you want to take advantage of that fact. At the same time, the mind is something that … 
  3. The Core of Experience
     … And the things you’ve got—form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness, what the Buddha calls the five aggregates—are things that if you simply cling to them, are going to cause problems, going to cause suffering. In fact, the clinging will be suffering. But you can turn them into a path, which switches their role as part of the first noble truth, about … 
  4. The Mind’s Eating Disorders
     … Then there are fabrications: all the activities you have to go through in order to get that food, starting with the search, and then, when you find it, what you have to do to fix it so that you can actually feed on it. And then consciousness, of course, is the awareness of all these things. And it’s interesting that we feed not … 
  5. Protection for the Holidays
     … As the Buddha said, there’s an element of fabrication in terms of which feelings you’re going to focus on, and which ones you’re going to ignore. When you focus on certain potentials, you actually turn them into full-fledged feelings. So how are you going to fabricate something skillful out of the pleasures of being home? xx That’s what the … 
  6. Food for Endurance
     … By the way we talk to ourselves, which the Buddha calls verbal fabrication, we can totally change our mood. And then in terms of *mental fabrication—*the perceptions and feeling we focus on—we’re totally free to perceive a situation in lots of different ways, all of which are true. Then we can ask ourselves: “Which of these ways is the most conducive … 
  7. True for What Purpose?
     … As the Buddha said, you could focus on how pleasant feelings and perceptions can be, or how much fun it is to engage in thought fabrication. As he admitted, these things do have their pleasures, but focusing on them in that way just gives rise to more passion, aversion, and delusion. Instead, you could focus on their drawbacks: that no matter how well you … 
  8. Mindstorms
     … This is why we have to get the mind really, really quiet — both so that we can get closer and closer to the part of the mind that simply observes, and to get clearer about where these fabrications are coming from. When you can see that second part in operation, it offers no surprises. And when you get to the point where fabrications offer … 
  9. Great Expectations
     … Whereas the Buddha said you’re not your feelings. “Feelings” here, in terms of emotions, come under sankharas, fabrications, in the five aggregates. He very clearly saw that there’s a greater happiness to be found by letting go of these fabrications. It’s possible to get beyond your feelings. So when he says to kill your anger, he’s not telling you to … 
  10. Against the Grain
     … Then there are all the fabrications, mental fabrications and intentions that go into trying to find food and figuring out how to fix it. And then there’s the awareness of all these things. Those are the aggregates. And then we cling to them. And clinging, of course, is another word for sustenance. We take sustenance off this double level of feeding: the actual … 
  11. Question Your Actions
     … Then, of course, there’s fabrication: What do you say to yourself, how do you talk to yourself about these things? Can you talk about them in a new way? So you take things apart like this. This is the Buddha’s reason for talking about the aggregates—form, feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness—because they help you take your suffering apart. You’re just … 
  12. Samvega Transformed
     … He was able to fabricate a path of practice, the noble eightfold path, that led to the threshold of the unfabricated deathless. And then, abandoning the path, he was able to enter into the deathless. He realized that that sense of the world closing in—with every opportunity for happiness already being laid claim to, the terror that he felt, the dismay—was something … 
  13. Oneness is a Water Snake
     … But it’s fabricated. We’re not doing this to get you there and just leave you there. We’re getting the mind ready to do something else, which is to let things fall apart in a natural way. Part of the falling away simply comes from the fact that, as you’re working with the mind in getting it to settle down, you … 
  14. Keep Your Options Open
     … As you get more sensitive to what the mind is doing to create this state of concentration, you begin to see that it really is fabricated, it really is put together. Then there will come a point where you’re ready to see the drawbacks of the fact that it is fabricated. And the mind will develop naturally at that point. It develops because … 
  15. To Make Suffering Crumble
     … All of that counts as fabrication. Then there’s awareness or consciousness of these things. If you find that you have trouble settling down, you might ask yourself, “Which of those five things is the problem? Is the problem with the breath? Is it with the feelings in the body around the breath? How about my perceptions? Can I change my mental image of … 
  16. The Reasonable Path
     … He tells you to follow this line of action, which is something fabricated, but it can take you to something unfabricated. Logically, it may seem strange, that something fabricated can lead to something unfabricated, but the Buddha said causality works that way. And it turns out that modern studies in complex causality, chaos theory, chemical states that are far from equilibrium, work in this … 
  17. Honest & Observant
     … As you do that, you begin to see some of the forms of fabrication the Buddha talks about. You need to talk to yourself to be generous. You need to have a perception that it’s something worthwhile. The same with virtue: You need to talk yourself into being virtuous. You need to see that it’s worthwhile. As you develop perceptions around your … 
  18. The Raft of Concepts
     … Then you can start looking at the process of intention in a deeper way, to see exactly how intention happens, how much it shapes your present experience, how you fabricate your breath, how you fabricate thoughts, how you fabricate feelings and perceptions. You want to look into that. That’s how discernment is developed. You’re not going to maintain this kind of focus … 
  19. Questioning Your Conviction
     … May they not be thus’?” The same with perceptions, thought-fabrications, consciousness: In each case, the five brethren said No. **So which is it? Can you do things, or can you not do things with these aggregates? Well, you can do some things. And it’s the **some things **that are important. It’s in that area of **some things that you can actually … 
  20. The Sublime Attitudes in Context
     … But at the other end of the path, when you’ve fully developed these attitudes, the fact that they are constructed and fabricated is something you have to understand as well. Even equanimity, which is the most peaceful of them all, has its limitations. It’s something you do. It’s something fabricated. So in and of itself, it can’t be your true … 
  21. Mindful of the Buddha’s Shoulds
     … It’s very subtle, but it comes and it goes because it’s all fabricated. You have to keep putting it together. So you have to start asking questions about these fabrications. Here again, you’re talking to yourself, but you’re asking questions. And you’re asking questions in line with the four noble truths and their duties again: Where is the clinging … 
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