Search results for: "Feelings"

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  2. Dethinking Thinking
     … The Buddha’s analysis of the aggregates, remember that? “For the sake of feeling-ness, for the sake of perception-hood, you fabricate a feeling, you fabricate a perception.” In other words, there’s a raw material there from your past kamma, and you turn it into actual feelings, actual perceptions, for the sake of having feelings and perceptions you can use. There’s … 
  3. The Karma of Pain
     … There are also some feelings and perceptions—pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings. You can work with the breath to create more pleasant feelings. If there’s a pleasant feeling, say, in the middle of the chest, try to breathe in a way that keeps that pleasant feeling going all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, without any breaks in … 
  4. The Chess Game
    The chant on goodwill with which we end the chant every evening starts out, “May I be happy.” It’s so simple and so basic, and yet we have so many conflicted feelings about that desire. Sometimes we even feel guilty for having that desire, but when you think about it, that’s the main aim of people through life: to find happiness, and … 
  5. Generosity & Gratitude
     … It feels really good when you find yourself in a position where you can give when you don’t have to. That’s something to be honored. And it’s okay to feel good about yourself in that way—not in the sense of trying to compare yourself as being better than other people, but simply that you feel good in and of yourself … 
  6. Strength of Conviction
     … Ask yourself if there are any parts that feel starved, any parts that feel like they’re not getting enough breath, or the breath is being squeezed out of them. What way could you breathe so that they would feel full, refreshed, energized—all of them, all at once? This way, good breath fills the body, and your awareness fills the body as well … 
  7. The Path of Questions
     … For instance, when you’re focusing on the breath, you ask a simple question: “What kind of breathing feels good right now?” And then you explore. You’re free to experiment with the breath, to find out if long breathing feels good, if short breathing feels good, deep breathing, shallow... There’s an element of investigation already even in the simple practice of concentration … 
  8. Thoughts with Fangs
     … When you feel that you’re better than other people, you tend to get complacent. When you feel you’re worse than other people, you tend to get depressed. It’s one of those perceptions of papanca: proliferation or complication. There’s contact at the senses, and from contact there arises feeling. It’s an interesting passage in one of the suttas, where the … 
  9. Reading Your Meditation
     … When you breathe in, does the breath energy seem to go down your spine or is it coming up your spine? Which feels better? If one way doesn’t feel comfortable, just think that it’s possible for the energy to go the other direction. You don’t have to push it, you don’t have to force it, just allow that thought to … 
  10. Just Events
    Psychologists say that depersonalization is an unhealthy thing—when you can’t relate to your own emotions, you feel separated from your body, separated from your emotions. But from the Buddha’s point of view, there’s unhealthy depersonalization and healthy depersonalization. Unhealthy is when you do something and refuse to acknowledge the fact that you did it, that it was your choice. Healthy … 
  11. No One Size Fits All
     … focusing on the impact of the breath on the body, learning how to allow that impact to calm down; focusing on the feelings that the breath creates—feelings of pleasure, feelings of rapture, refreshment—and allowing those to calm down; noticing how you perceive the breath energy in the body, working with different perceptions that allow the breath to calm-down; using the breath … 
  12. The Raft
     … That’s a part of the body, part of “form.” Then there are feelings: the feelings of pleasure you try to create by the way that you look at the breath. There are perceptions—saññā—the images you have in the mind about how the breath comes into the body, where it comes in, where it goes out, where you would like it to … 
  13. The Duty to Be Positive
     … Don’t feel embarrassed about it. Some people feel embarrassed about extending goodwill to themselves or thinking about their past generosity because they feel it’s self-indulgent or not real. It’s real. We admit that there are things we’ve done in the past that are not so good, but for the sake of putting an end to suffering you don’t … 
  14. Interconnectedness
     … How does it really feel to breathe? Where do you notice the sensation that lets you know, “Now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out”? Where do you feel those sensations? How do they feel? Do they feel good? Do they feel okay but not especially good? Do they actually feel uncomfortable? If they feel uncomfortable, try different ways of … 
  15. Our Variegated Minds
     … They’re not just feelings of goodwill or feelings of compassion or empathetic joy or equanimity. They’re attitudes. For any of these attitudes to really be a brahmavihara—a dwelling place, a sublime attitude, a dwelling place for Brahma—you have to be able to tap into them at any time, in any situation, wherever appropriate. That takes some training. Again we’ve … 
  16. The Language of the Heart (1)
     … It’s something that you feel exclusively yourself; no one else can feel your pain for you. But as it turns out, the solution to the problem of how you relate to the pain so that you don’t suffer: That solution lies within your awareness as well—the inner area of awareness, the private area of awareness. And so communication across that barrier … 
  17. Give of Yourself
     … You don’t draw out inferences, like inferring from the fact that all feelings are fabricated that all feelings have to be regarded as stressful, painful. He says that when you’re talking about karma, that’s not the inference you should draw. You should talk about the three types of feelings that result from karma: pleasant, painful, neither pleasant nor painful, because they … 
  18. Becoming
     … What do you notice when it comes in; what do you notice when it goes out? What way of coming in feels best for the body; what way of letting it go out feels best for the body? The breath is called the fabricator of the body, or bodily fabrication — kaya-sankhara — both because the way you breathe has a huge impact on the … 
  19. Fabrication Theory
     … You might think to yourself, “long breathing” for a while, see how that feels. And then “shorter breathing,” see how that feels. Then adjust it till you get it just right: not too long, not too short, not too deep, not too shallow, not too heavy, not too light. Find the rhythm and texture of breathing that feels best right now. What you’re … 
  20. A Good-Natured Attitude
     … If you feel threatened by other people’s misbehavior, it’s hard to have any healthy goodwill or compassion for them. It’s hard to be good-natured about your goodwill and good-natured about your compassion. You have to ask yourself, “Why am I feeling threatened?” It’s usually because you don’t have enough resources inside. So you learn how to develop … 
  21. Interested in the Breath
     … If deep breathing doesn’t feel comfortable, you can change. Either pose the question in your mind, “What kind of breathing would feel best right now?” and see how the body responds, or you can consciously change the way you breathe. Make it shorter, more shallow, heavier, lighter; in long, out short; or in short, out long. There are lots of ways you can … 
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