Search results for: "Feelings"
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- On the Surface of Things… And then, what’s the feeling, the feeling tone? Body and feelings: two different aggregates that we’ve glommed together. Can you see them as separate things—separate notes in the bird song? The same goes for perceptions, thought constructs, acts of consciousness: They’re all happening right here. Our problem is that we tend to be conspiracy theorists. We want to know: What …
- Mindfulness Immersed in the Breath… Notice how it feels. Where you feel the sensations of the breath, where you feel the energy coming in, going out of the body, may not be in the places you expect. This is why breath meditation is not simply a rote exercise. It’s a type of exploration: sensitizing yourself to how the breathing process actually feels in the body. Alertness also means …
- Urgency & Contentment… The more you can feel at home with the breath—with a sense of ease, a sense of comfort, feeling secure with the breath—the easier it is to stay with the breath for long periods of time. And the longer you stay with it, the more you see. But if you find yourself just lolling around the house, watching the TV, raiding the …
- Radical Questioning… It doesn’t have to be a metaphysical view about yourself, but just your general feeling of who you are, what kind of person you are, and what kind of feelings and ideas such a person should have. Well, if the feelings burn, if they cause trouble, cause suffering, you might want to question the underlying assumptions. The Buddha doesn’t have us accept …
- Factors for Awakening… When feelings come up, relate them to the breath. How does the breath affect the feelings? How do the feelings affect the way you breathe? For instance, if there’s a pain in your body, do you tend to breathe in a way that walls off the pain so that it doesn’t spread? We often have a sense of the breath spreading but …
- Self-Correct… When you breathe in, where do you feel it? Focus your attention there. And be alert to the fact that this may not be where you ordinarily might think you should be feeling the breath. We know the air comes in through the nose, goes down through the throat, into the lungs. But when the Buddha talks about breath, he’s talking about the …
- The Dead Snake Around Your Neck… Try to breathe in a way that feels good and nourishing: restful if you’re feeling tense, energizing if you’re feeling tired. Then talk to yourself. That’s what verbal fabrication is. Talk to yourself about how the breath is doing, what you might do to make it better and, when it’s pleasant, what you might do to let that sensation of …
- Fear… Can you find wealth, security inside? Can you find strength inside? Because one of the things we’re facing right now is the fact that when people feel threatened, when they feel in a position of weakness, they start do all kinds of evil. And they try everything they can to justify their evil to themselves. That’s usually where most evil comes from …
- The Kindness of Body Contemplation… How does the breath feel right now? Where do you feel the breath? Where does the breath flow smoothly? Where does it not flow smoothly? If it’s not flowing smoothly, where are the patterns of tension in the body that get in the way? How can you dissolve them? These are things you can explore right here, right now. But it’s all …
- Good & Independent… Try to be with the breath in a way that feels really good, remembering that the breath is not just the air making contact at the nose. It’s the energy that flows through the body that allows the air to come in, the air to go out. Ask yourself: Where do you feel that energy? How does it feel? Does it feel good …
- Meditators at Work… Let the breath, as it’s going out, stop where it feels natural, where it feels good. Don’t squeeze it out any more than that. The same as when the breath comes in: Watch how this feels right now. This is our work, but it’s also a kind of play. You get to play around with the breath energies, play around with …
- Friendship Leading to Seclusion… Because you need friends to encourage you, “Yes, you can do this.” If you find yourself feeling lonely, they can talk you into realizing that you’ve got a good opportunity here to really get to know yourself. If you’re feeling discouraged, they give you encouragement. When you’re getting careless, your loyal friends protect you from your own heedlessness. In other words …
- Strengthening Discernment… But that’s not the only place where you feel the breath. In fact, if that’s your perception of what the breath is, it’s important to realize that you can create a lot of tightness, a sense of constriction, lots of uncomfortable feelings in the body, as you try to focus everything on that one spot. Stop to think: When the Buddha …
- Why We Train the Mind… feelings and perceptions. “Feeling” here doesn’t mean emotion. It means the feeling tone that you focus on with regard to that issue—pleasant, painful, or neither. Perceptions are the mental labels or images that surround an issue—for example, the way you perceive the breath and how it relates to a particular unskillful emotion. If anger comes up, ask yourself: “How am I …
- Feeding on the Breath… And as long as the fullness feels good, keep it up. When it begins to feel oppressive, you can think of ways of dissipating it. One is to focus in on the fact that right there where that sense of fullness is, there’s also a subtler level of energy. If you focus on that subtler level, it’s as if the sense of …
- Talking Among Your Selves… How does it feel right now? I noticed that when Ajaan Fuang was teaching his students, he would have them describe how they were feeling the breath. Then he would use their vocabulary to talk to them. There was one guy who had had trouble getting the mind to settle down with the breath, but then one day he was meditating while sitting on …
- Endurance… What kind of breathing would feel good right now—really good? Down through the torso, down through the legs, down through the arms, all over the body: Which spot in the body seems to be most sensitive to the breath coming in going out? Focus your attention there. And see what kind of breathing feels really good there. If the mind wanders off, bring …
- Analyzing Anger… Third is mental fabrication – perceptions and feelings. Perceptions are labels: the images you hold in mind, the names you give to things, the meanings you give to things. Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. It’s all very simple. But he wants you to see these things because, as he points out elsewhere, when we engage in these activities …
- Introduction to the Breath… Now, if you notice the mind slipping off, then when you bring it back to the breath, try to make the breath more comfortable, because often the reason we slip away is because the breath doesn’t feel right. It feels tight or constricted or forced. So be very careful to notice: Is the breath getting too long? Are you squeezing it out too …
- Guarded… Find a spot where you feel at home inside, let your attention settle there and learn how to protect it. One of the ways in which we feel invaded or threatened by other people is when we feel their energy moving into our energy field. And one way to prevent that is, once you’ve got some good energy going in your selected spot …
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