Search results for: "Perception"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Like a River Full of Water… What does the mind do that takes the pain of the body and makes it an issue in the mind? What perception of the pain does it have? How does that perception create a bridge into the mind? Can you drop that perception? What happens when you do? Try to develop the qualities of mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment, so that you can see …
- Toward Release… In steps seven and eight, he tells you to breathe sensitive to mental fabrication—feelings and perceptions—and then to calm mental fabrication. Now, seeing things in terms of fabrication is one of the basic principles of insight and discernment: getting sensitive to how the actions of the breath fabricate your sense of the body, and how the actions of feelings and perceptions fabricate …
- Food Insecurity… Look at how you’re developing comfortable feelings through the way you associate with the breath, and at the perceptions you use to keep yourself with the breath. If these things are done in ignorance, they’re going to lead to suffering. If they’re done in knowledge, they’re going to lead to the end of suffering. You want to be confident in …
- Because the Mind Is Purposeful… And then mental fabrication—perceptions, the labels you put on things, and then feelings: feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. As you’re working with the breath, getting the mind to settle down, you’re getting hands-on experience with all three of these kinds of fabrication: the perceptions for instance, that you have of the breath as a whole-body …
- Dissolving Distress… Mental fabrication deals with your perceptions and your feelings, which shape the state of your mind. As you’re trying to stay with the breath, keeping it in mind, you realize you have to use certain perceptions, that you’re trying to generate certain feelings, and that both the perceptions and the feelings have an impact on the mind. At the same time, the …
- Defabricating Anger… bodily fabrication, the in-and-out breath; verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself; and then mental fabrication, the perceptions you hold in mind — the images or labels you place on things giving them meaning — along with feelings, feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re trying to bring some knowledge to …
- Think… These are perceptions. You use these perceptions on the path, but when you get to nibbana, you’ve got to let go of all perceptions.” As he was delivering this answer, he kept saying, phicaranaa si, which in Thai basically means Think! Use your brains. It’s a theme throughout the forest tradition. Of course, it’s a theme in the Buddha’s teachings …
- Realities Right Here… feelings, perceptions, contact. Learn to see them on those terms, because that’s what you directly experience in the mind. When you get into a feeling or a thought world, you don’t see them in those terms. But when you can step back a little bit and can observe your mind, you begin to realize that’s actually what’s going on. So …
- Metacognition… If you’re totally lost in a particular thought world—your perception of things, your understanding of who you are—the world you perceive is going to be colored by that thought world. It’s like being in a bubble. Some bubbles are pink, some bubbles are blue, and as long as you’re in the bubble, everything you see, even outside the bubble …
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