Search results for: "Perception"
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- Appropriate Attention… And when we contemplate it in terms of the three perceptions, the purpose of those perceptions, of course, is to make you see that the things you’ve been clinging to are not worth it; the things you’ve been craving are not worth it. In that sense, the whole set—inconstancy, stress, not-self—is meant to make you see that things are …
- The Uses of Fear… feelings and perceptions. Your perceptions are the labels you apply to things. In the case of the breathing process, this has to do with how you perceive what’s going on when you breathe. When you visualize the breathing process to yourself, what is that visualization like? Is it helpful or does it actually cause harm? If you think of the body as a …
- Two Kinds of Middle… In other words, the pleasure becomes a basis for understanding a lot of the mind’s strange perceptions, replacing them with new perceptions, trying out new perceptions to see how they fit. This is how you get off your normal continuum. Ask a different question. Look at things from a different way. Get outside the box. Pleasure is something you can actually use as …
- Our Variegated Minds… Mental is feeling and perception. These are the things we’re trying to train here as we concentrate on the breath. Take the breath as your object; That’s bodily fabrication. You direct your thoughts repeatedly to the breath and you evaluate the breathing, so that it becomes more comfortable. In other words, you bring knowledge and awareness in terms of the four noble …
- Contentment… Then finally there’s mental fabrication, which is feeling and perception. You’ve got the physical feelings that arise with regard to the breath and the mental feelings of happiness or sadness or equanimity that come along with the breathing. Then there’s perception, which labels things. Your main labeling job here right now is labeling the type of breath and labeling the type …
- Where the Mind & Body Meet… It’s something other, but it is to be found by fully inhabiting your body, right here, right now, and getting very clear about the perceptions in the body and the intellect, what it’s doing. And the perceptions and the intellect and the body they all meet right here at the breath. So every time your thoughts go casting out for something else …
- Mindful of Your Potentials… So as we’re meditating, on the one hand, we’re paring down our mental activity, so that we can be just aware of the breath, just aware of the perception of the breath, the perception of the body. As for any other mental chatter, let it go, let it go. There will come times in the meditation when you do have to pose …
- Making Yourself Worthy of Trust… Hold that perception in mind. And remind yourself also that the breath was there first—see what that perception does. You may ask yourself, “Can I trust these perceptions?” As long as they make the breath comfortable, they’re fine. Then give the mind some time to settle in. This will become the foundation for insight. And as with any foundation, you want to …
- Investing Your Intention… feelings and perceptions. The path consists of comprehending these things. You’ve got them all gathered together here. You’re directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating the breath. You’re also noticing the feelings and perceptions related to the breath. You perceive the breath in a particular way, and it gives rise to feelings in the body. It’s all right here …
- A Better Place to Feed… And then three, mental fabrication, your perceptions and feelings. Perceptions are the words and images you hold in mind that identify things. Feelings are feeling tones—pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. All these factors are things we put together in order to create a state of concentration right here, right now. You want to remember that, because otherwise you go back to your …
- The Four Jhanas… Just watch how the process feels and hold that perception in mind: that the whole body is a field of breath energy and the in-breath is simply charging up the breath energy already there. Then when things feel too charged, you allow the breath to go out. When it’s going to start coming in again, that’s its business. You’re just …
- Dispassion… We still like these things because of distorted perceptions. But when you get your perceptions right, you let go with a sense of freedom and release, not with a sense of depression or deprivation. This is one of the big misunderstandings about dispassion. There was a study done a while back about lay people in Sri Lanka who had the reputation for being really …
- The Right Medicine… As it turns out, the disturbance is not extraneous to the concentration, it’s built into that level of concentration, it’s built into the perception that keeps you on that level: How you perceive the breath, how you perceive your focus of the mind in relation to the breath, can really determine what level of concentration you hit. For example, if you see …
- Concentration: A Balancing Act… Look into the perceptions you’re using to visualize the breath to yourself. You can play with those perceptions; you can play with the breath. See what happens. That way, in exploring, you’re present here with the body and the breath in a way that’s not going to put you to sleep. If your problem is the other side—the mind is …
- To Know the Buddha… As they say in Pali, rūpa ruppati, which means form deforms; feelings feel; perceptions perceive; fabrications fabricate; consciousness cognizes. They’re not things. When we talk about them as aggregates, it sounds as if they’re piles of gravel, but they’re actually activities. And the activity itself is suffering, stress. We do these things for the sake of happiness—we cling to them …
- Fear of Death… You can get comfortable with that perception, not having to have a perception of “body” at all. It can give you an inkling that it is possible for the mind to survive without the body. It’s not proof, but at least you get more comfortable with the idea of not having to depend on the body, and of being able to let the …
- Intelligent about Change… That’s when you have to develop discernment around the three perceptions, to see where these things are inconstant, and the fact that they’re inconstant means that they’re stressful. You can’t really find a lasting happiness there. And if something is inconstant and stressful, is it worth calling your self? Is it worth identifying with? Is it worth pursuing as your …
- Stay Centered… That’s just an example to point out how, often, when we’re attached to something, it’s not so much the thing that we’re attached to; we’re attached to the perception about it. If you miss that, then you can see all the drawbacks of that thing but still hold on to the perception. So there’s a lot to parse …
- Curious About the Process… There are perceptions, feelings, acts of attention, acts of intention, and contact among these things. These are all used in getting the mind to settle down. You have a perception of the breath—in this case, thinking of the breath as a whole-body process. You can think of it flowing along the nerves, flowing along the blood vessels. You can think of each …
- Training Heart & Mind… The things that fabricate your mind are your perceptions and your feelings of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. You’re holding on to the perception of breath. Every aspect of the body can be perceived as a kind of breath energy. There’s a breath side to all the parts of your body. There’s got to be an energy in there …
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