Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Constant, Easeful, Self
     … Now, it may seem strange that he put these at the beginning of the meditation because these perceptions, these contemplations, are contemplations of discernment. The implication, though, is that even as you’re practicing concentration, you’ve got to apply some discernment to what you’re doing; to understand what you’re doing and to understand how to get past distractions to your practice … 
  3. All Fabrications Are Stressful
     … Everything else—even the deva worlds, the Brahmā worlds—has to be filtered through form, feeling, perception, thought constructs, consciousness. And the simple fact that they’re fabricated in this way—whatever the experience is—means that they’re going to be stressful. You can’t take them as a place where you can really rest. That’s one level of stress, one level … 
  4. A Sense of Yourself
     … You’re just looking at, “What are the talents, what are the skills I have at hand, so that I can actually master this path? And what are the things that are getting in the way?” Those are the things that you apply the perception of not-self to. And it’s easier to apply that perception and have it work when you have … 
  5. What Are You Doing in the Present?
     … A little stirring of energy in the body and the mind, and then you slap a perception on it, put a label on it: This is a thought about x, it’s a thought about the future, a thought about the past, this person, that person. You should ask yourself, where did you get this line up of perceptions you slap on things? Where … 
  6. Attention & Intention
     … So to get to work on our duties, we start looking at the things we hold on to, the things we cling to, the things we crave, in light of the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. It’s a choice we make. Here again, there’s an intention involved. As the Buddha said, fabricated things do offer their pleasures. Sights, sounds … 
  7. A Snare of Death Laid Out
     … It means the mind’s fascination with planning them, all the embroidery we create around them, all the perceptions and feelings and thought constructs—verbal and mental fabrications. Often that’s where our craving is focused. Often, when you desire a person, it’s not the person you desire. You desire your perceptions and thoughts of the person. So you want to get the … 
  8. Karma in the Present
     … Now, to do this requires perceptions, which is one type of mental fabrication. The other is feeling: You’re creating feelings of ease with the breath, and it’s all done by holding in mind a perception of the breath, preferably the breath as a full-body process. The whole nervous system is involved. In this way, there’s a greater sense of ease … 
  9. The Image of the Raft
     … You hold in mind your image of how the breath runs through the body and you try to choose a perception that allows the breath energy to flow freely so that the sense of ease you get from the breathing can flow throughout the whole body— that’s perception. You talk to yourself about which ways of breathing are skillful, which ways of breathing … 
  10. Artillery All Around
     … Then there are the feelings and perceptions you also bring: That’s mental fabrication. We’re doing this all the time. Every experience we have is taken from some raw materials from the past, which we then fabricate into a present experience. It’s like baking a cake. You don’t just have a ready-made cake appear out of nowhere. You’ve got … 
  11. Feeding Off of Others
     … And when we’re feeding off of somebody else, are we really feeding off of them, or are we feeding off of our ideas of them? When you desire somebody, the Buddha says, in effect, “When you talk to yourself about desiring someone else, is the desire focused on their body, on your feelings about the person, on your perceptions about the person, on … 
  12. But Not Sick in Mind
     … If you’re attached to your body, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, or consciousness, then as soon as these things change, you’re going to suffer. As long as you see that they’re yours—or that they’re you, or in you, or that you’re in them—you’re going to suffer because they’re sure to change. What you’ve got to … 
  13. Equanimity & Action
     … When the Buddha analyzes actions for the sake of assigning offences, there’s the issue of intention and motivation, the issue of perception, the object, the effort and the result. Sometimes it’s useful to look at your mistakes in the meditation in line with that framework. They may not be offences but you can ask yourself: What is your intention? The intention sometimes … 
  14. Fear & Conviction
     … He mentioned to me one time that his brain was sending him very weird perceptions. But he’d trained his mind and so he could recognize them as weird perceptions. Then he went on to say, “But that thing I got from my meditation: That hasn’t changed.” That thing is our place of safety. Even though he couldn’t give long Dhamma talks … 
  15. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … feelings and perceptions. Again, this applies both to the breath and to situations outside. Applied to the breath, it means looking at the way you breathe, understanding the breath in a way that enables the breath to be nourishing throughout the whole body, so that you can give rise to feelings of ease, rapture, serenity throughout the whole body. Think of the breath as … 
  16. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … You might be focused on feelings around these things, perceptions around these things, thoughts, acts of evaluation, even craving for these things—you can crave the craving. So when you think you crave one thing, ask yourself: Is it really that thing? Is that where your craving is located? Maybe it’s in the perception you have about this thing, an association you have … 
  17. The Fires of Sensuality
     … He doesn’t want to go near the fire anymore, because now his perceptions are right: The fire is hot and burning. The message is that, as long as we’re unawakened, we’re suffering from distorted perceptions. And it doesn’t help that the body needs food in order to survive, and that certain things taste good while other things don’t taste … 
  18. Building Concentration
     … how your perceptions play a role in the way you’re experiencing the body, which kinds of perceptions are useful, which ones are not. That’s how you learn about origination—cause and effect. As Ajaan Lee once said, if you know causes but without knowing the effects, that’s not discernment. If you know effects without knowing the causes, that’s not discernment … 
  19. Unparadoxical Happiness
     … He found teachers who taught him concentration, all the way to the state of nothingness and the state of neither perception nor non-perception, yet he realized that that wasn’t what he wanted. But when he realized that he could use that kind of happiness as part of the path, that’s when he finally discovered a happiness that’s not constrained by … 
  20. Pain Is a Noble Truth
     … I read a very strange article the other day, someone saying that perception is the least problematic of the different ways we identify with ourselves or our sense of self. Perceptions are neutral. They’re not neutral at all. Perceptions come from our lizard brain and they carry a lot of impact. A lot of them stay underground. What you want to do is … 
  21. Facing Pain Straight On
     … But if you glom those sensations together with your perception of the body, they’re going to seem a lot more solid, and a lot more oppressive. So can you separate those perceptions? As you can see, the issue is in the way you perceive things, the labels you put on things, the mental image you hold in your mind. As the Buddha said … 
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