Search results for: "Feelings"

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  2. Painful Feelings, Hurtful Words
     … So look at this territory that you’ve claimed as yours, such as a relationship when you feel that someone has said something unpleasant in the relationship: You feel that the territory of your relationship has been violated. But the whole part about being in relationships with other people is that there’s a lot that’s not under your control, and even though … 
  3. The World Is Swept Away
     … Where do you feel the energy moving in the body? That’s the breath we’re talking about. Ask yourself if it feels good. If you’re not sure, you can experiment with different kinds of breathing. Longer, shorter. Heavier, lighter. Faster, slower. Deeper, more shallow. See what feels good for right now: energizing if you’re feeling tired; soothing if you’re feeling … 
  4. The Long-Distance Meditator
     … On the days when you feel like practicing, you practice; on the days when you don’t feel like practicing, you practice. When things are going well, you practice; when things are not going well, you practice. That stick-to-itiveness requires all of the qualities that the Buddha said go into a good determination, starting with discernment. Most of us are like sprinters … 
  5. Unraveling the Present
     … Then there are mental fabrications, feeling and perception, and those are right at the breath as well. There’s the feeling of pleasure or pain, or the neutral feelings that come with the breath. And then perception: Those are the labels you put on things when you say, “Okay, that feels good. That doesn’t feel good.” All these things are right here. The … 
  6. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … What usually happens is that the mind is with the breath, but there’s a part that gets bored, that wants something new to think about, that wants a little entertainment, and even while you’re with the breath, it starts feeling around for someplace else to go. So you’ve got to watch for that. This quality of watchfulness is probably one of … 
  7. Goodwill as Restraint
     … It comes out in times of weakness, times when you’re feeling threatened. It comes out in times of fear. You’ve got to learn how to defend yourself from unskillful behavior that would come at any of those times, so that even when you’re feeling weak and threatened and fearful, you hold onto the principle, “I want genuine happiness”—which may require … 
  8. Concentration Work
     … If you want to come away feeling strong, you have to be willing to exercise. Here, the work or exercise is directed thought and evaluation around the breath. Establish a beachhead in the body, an area of the body where you feel at ease and confident. Then learn how to expand from there, listening to the needs of the body. Does it need deep … 
  9. Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing
    Try to stay focused on the breath, wherever you feel it most vividly. If you don’t know where it’s most vivid, take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Let it calm down until it feels just right—not too heavy to be comfortable, but not so light that you can’t follow it. And don’t put too … 
  10. Time & Place
     … He says, “Maybe this monk was thinking about the fact that all feelings are painful, all feelings are dukkha. Since actions result in feeling, all actions would result in pain.” The Buddha says, “Here’s another fool. When you’re talking about karma, you talk about the three kinds of feeling: pleasant, painful, neither pleasant nor painful.” That’s because when you’re talking … 
  11. A Seeker’s Habits
     … The concentrated mind is a good place to start seeing deeper into the processes of the mind.” So these feelings of ease, sometimes feelings of rapture—these become tools as well. And even insight into the four noble truths: That ultimately is a tool, a way of looking at things that helps you break free from attachments. So this is very much a “doing … 
  12. The Humane Quality of the Path
     … You feel confined. You feel alienated. So learning how to develop this comfortable sensation in the body and learning how to spread it throughout the body, and learning to be aware throughout the body, puts the mind in a much more comfortable position, one that’s much less confined. Then you work to develop that. Other issues may come up in the mind, but … 
  13. To Comprehend Suffering
     … In the beginning, it takes a little bit of adjustment, but ultimately when you feel just perfectly balanced with the body, the way you focus on the body feels just right. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay right there. If the body needs to breathe, it’ll breathe. If it doesn’t, it won’t. That degree of stillness allows the … 
  14. Three More Recollections
     … He said, “Give where you feel inspired, where you feel it will be well-used.” We have a rule—it comes under Nissaggiya Pācittiya 30—that when a monk is asked “Where should this gift be given?” you don’t tell the donor where to give it. You just say, again, “Give where you feel inspired to give, where you feel it will be … 
  15. Get Out of Yourself
     … You’re supposed to sit next to someone else and hear them breathe? How are you going to feel their feelings or be aware of their mind-states? But when you remember that mindfulness is a faculty of the memory, something you keep in mind, then you can see what the Buddha’s getting at. You focus on issues in your own feelings, issues … 
  16. The Knife of Discernment
     … After watching it for a while, you’ll find that certain ways of breathing give rise to a feeling tone that feels good, feels healing. Try to maintain that feeling tone. This may require adjusting the breath now and then, because the needs of the body, as the mind begins to settle down, begin to change. The breath can grow more and more still … 
  17. Make the Most of What You’ve Got
     … What kind of breathing feels good for the body right now? Does your body need long breathing or short breathing, heavy or light, fast or slow, deep or shallow? Experiment for a while to get in touch with what the body needs, and then provide it with what it needs. As long as that kind of breathing feels good, keep it up. If it … 
  18. A Pleasure Without Stories
     … How you feel your breath, nobody else can know. How much you suffer over your stories, you can tell other people, but they don’t actually feel it directly. And the relief you feel when you’ve been able to pull yourself out is something you know, but it’s not a story you can really tell to anybody. So we’re looking for … 
  19. Samvega Transformed
     … It was the feeling he had felt when he was young and realized that he, too, was subject to aging, illness, and death. He’d probably known it, but it didn’t really hit home until one point when he realized that all the happiness he would search for, if it was subject to aging, illness, and death, would leave him with nothing. He … 
  20. The Cool Fire of Jhana
     … Ultimately there’s a sense that it really does feel good to be with the breath. It really does feel good just to sit here breathing in, breathing out, and you’re able to create a sense of fullness, making sure that you don’t squeeze the breath out or force it too much in. That way, the body feels balanced. There’s no … 
  21. The Breath Soufflé
     … Notice what that does to your sense of what’s a comfortable way of breathing, because sometimes a way of breathing that feels comfortable when you’re focused on one spot doesn’t feel so comfortable when you’re aware of the body as a whole. Think of the breathing as a whole-body process. There are lots of different ways of approaching this … 
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