Search results for: "Perception"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Potentials for Awakening… Okay, what kind of perceptions would be calming for you right now? Perceptions with regard to the breath, with regard to the mind—give them a try. You think of the whole body breathing in without effort. It’s very calming. Think of your mind being willing to stay and not get bored or antsy. Whenever there’s any sense of “I’ve got …
- Observe Your Concentration… A question came up recently, “When the Buddha was on his quest, he was able to recognize that even in the attainments that he learned from his first teachers—the dimension of nothingness, the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception—were not the deathless. How was he able to see that these things were not the deathless? Was it because he’d become …
- The Choice Not to Suffer… When the Buddha talks about events in the mind, he focuses on the cluster of intention, attention, perception, and feeling. So try to analyze your thoughts in those terms. Learn to look for the perceptions, the mental labels. How are you labeling the issue? That’s the perception. What do you want out of the issue? That’s the intention. What are you paying …
- The Skill of Stillness… Identify with the sense of being centered—happy to be centered—with the perception that everything inside is connected. The breath is going to calm down when you hold that perception in mind, so hold on to it steadily. This is the general pattern of the concentration: First you have to do your cleaning up work around the body, and then you get the …
- Clinging to Karmic Diarrhea… If it’s the breath, what kind of breathing do you like? Where do you like to focus on the breath? What kind of perception of the breath helps you settle down? This is something you have to evaluate for yourself. If not the breath, then what other topic do you find engaging? It’s important that you find something you like and that …
- The Reality of Your Thoughts… through physical fabrication, i.e., the breath; verbal fabrication, the thoughts and evaluations we make of a particular situation; and then mental fabrications, which are feelings and perceptions. The feelings here are feeling-tones: pleasure, pain, and neither-pleasure-nor-pain. As for perceptions, those are the labels we apply to things, the labels we apply to people; and it’s these labels that …
- The Solvent for Sticky Narratives… You happen to breathe in a certain way, talk to yourself in a certain way, certain perceptions come up, and all of a sudden you’re back in that old thought world. Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can breathe in a different way, think in a different way, hold different perceptions in mind. Take the narrative apart. Create something …
- Take Nothing for Granted… As the Buddha said, we fabricate our experience for the sake of having form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness, and then we use those things for the sake of happiness. So we have to remember why we’re here. Keep that in the background, and then set your mind on doing what needs to be done to reach to that goal of happiness, of real …
- The Mind’s Eating Disorders… There’s perception, your perception of what kind of hunger you’re suffering from. Is this a hunger for something salty? For something sweet? And then you look out and try to perceive what kind of foods out there would satisfy your hunger, trying to figure out what, to begin with, is edible and what’s not. Then there are fabrications: all the activities …
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