Search results for: "Feelings"
- Page 44
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Making Yourself Worthy of Trust… For the time being, though, the main question is, “What way feels really good?” Once you’ve got a breath rhythm that feels good, how do you maintain it? “Maintaining it” means, on the one hand, as long as this rhythm feels good, you maintain it. When it doesn’t feel good anymore, you can change—because the needs of the body will change …
- The Problem of Suffering… Nobody’s forcing you to breathe in any particular way, so you might as well breathe in a way that feels good. If you want the mind to settle down and to train it in the direction the Buddha points you to, there’s a sense of ease and refreshment. So you can start right away by making the breath easy, refreshing. It feels …
- The Boundaries of Mindfulness… What kind of breath feels good? What kind of breath does the mind like? What kind of breath feels energizing? What kind of breath feels calming? What does the body need right now? Does it need energizing breath, or does it need calming breath? And how do you think about the breath in a way that allows it to spread around the body? Think …
- The Lessons of Equanimity… Are you staying well with the breath? Does the breath feel good? How might it feel better? This way you bring the body and the mind together with the glue of a comfortable feeling inside. Once there is a comfortable feeling, you can think of it spreading to the different parts of the body, because after all, your awareness is not just in one …
- Dimensions of Right Effort… Then, when we learn how to modulate them and adjust them so that we can breathe in way that feels really good, that feels refreshing to the body, that’s the right use of desire. You want the body to feel good inside: to strengthen it when it feels weak; to relax it when it feels tense; to wake it up when you feel …
- Questioning Your Way to Certainty… What way of breathing feels good? What way of breathing doesn’t feel good? Pose that question in your mind and then experiment with different kinds of breathing. You’ll start noticing that certain rhythms of breathing or certain ways of conceiving the breath feel better than others. Then you ask yourself, “How can I maintain those ways of breathing? And how I you …
- Concentration Develops Right View… very precise, seeing the different factors in the mind that go into getting the mind focused on a certain perception, on a certain feeling, and then in trying to maintain that perception, to repeat it again and again and again, and to repeat that feeling again and again. A lot of the factors around that process are the factors of “name” in name-and …
- Into the Light of Consciousness… Mental is perceptions and feelings, perceptions are the labels you apply to things that give them meaning, identify what they are. Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. We encounter these forms of these fabrications very directly as we meditate. But the three fabrications are also interpreted in another way in some passages in the Canon, where bodily fabrication is …
- Teachings to Rahula… Does the mind fit with the breath? Do they feel good together? Does the breath feel good with the body? How do you know? Well, stick with one kind of breathing for a while and see what impact it has on your sense of the body—by working on things as you feel them from within. This is an area of our awareness that …
- Empathetic Joy… That generosity of spirit is a good aid to the meditation, so that when you stay with the breath and it feels comfortable, you don’t feel guilty about the fact that it’s comfortable. You don’t feel ill at ease around the comfort. Some people feel they don’t deserve happiness. Well, the issue of deserving and not deserving happiness never comes …
- Right Resolve… So focus on the breath in a way that feels comfortable. Focusing on the breath is called directed thought. Learning how to make it comfortable is called evaluation. These are the two factors that help build concentration. The third factor is singleness: that you really focus on the breath and try to stay with the breath and nothing else. These are the three things …
- Load next page...
