Search results for: "Form"
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- Investigative Work… Then you go back to the breath. **You begin to realize that when a thought forms, there’s going to be a stirring in the energy of the breath, like a little knot. You learn how to zap it before it turns into either a thought or a breath sensation. There’s a point where you’re choosing: “Is this going to be a …
- Just Events… s solid. It’s as solid as the earth and doesn’t identify with any of the things that come up. In the Buddha’s terms, with any of the aggregates: form, feelings, perceptions, or thought-fabrications, if you can see the act of consciousness as something separate from these things, and see the consciousness itself as something you can step back from—not …
- The Four Precepts… His purpose was to point out that the precepts form a very important part of the meditation. Remember, the word “meditation” in Pali, bhavana, means developing the mind. And you don’t develop the mind solely when you sit here with your eyes closed, not doing anything. You also have to develop it while you’re doing things—while you’re acting, while you …
- Befriending the Breath… vihāra-dhamma, a quality that forms a home for the mind, a place where you feel that you can stay comfortably. It’s like having a true friend who will never let you down. In Thai they talk about your eating friends, the ones that you have a good time with, and then the friends who are willing to die for you, who will …
- To Go Where You’ve Never Gone Before… After all, they have all the forms of clinging: There’s sensuality clinging. They have a sense of the pleasures they want to find in life. Even views: They have to have a sense of how the world works in order to find their pleasures. Scientists did an experiment years back with some pigeons, where they put some pigeons in a box, and there …
- True & Beneficial… What do you make the raft of? You make the raft out of the twigs and branches on this side of the river, which the Buddha identifies as form, feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness of the senses—in other words, the things that you ordinarily cling to that cause suffering, but now you’re going to cling to them strategically as you make this …
- The Noble Pursuit of Happiness… That’s one of the reasons why we have that chant at the beginning of every meditation to remind ourselves that all four of these form our motivation. And these are the implications of that motivation: that we want to be aboveboard about our desire for happiness, or true well-being—a happiness that lasts, a happiness that doesn’t turn on us, a …
- Controlling… You can choose to be aware of all kinds of things, so what do you want to choose to be aware of? Name and form: How are the elements going in the body? You find that if you think of them—you focus say on the solidity of earth, the warmth of fire, the coolness of water, or the energy of the breath—you …
- Pain & Patience… in the body that weighs on the mind, the weight on the mind comes from your own clinging. And you’re clinging to five different activities—any one of the aggregates: form—the way you create the sense of your body, inhabit the sense of your body; feeling—feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain; perceptions, the labels you put on things …
- Precept Meditation… In this way you can see how the precepts are a form of meditation in daily life. They take your actions as your objects of meditation and they force you to develop many of the mental skills and attitudes you need in formal meditation: mindfulness, alertness, ingenuity, strategic discernment, and a scrupulous attention to detail. The precepts also teach you the power of your …
- One Thing Clear Through… If people can’t appreciate their parents, what are they going to appreciate? Gratitude is essential to every form of goodness. And it carries you all the way through. This is why we’re generous; this is why we practice the precepts, why we’re harmless. We meditate to train the mind so that it’s harmless. Not only harmless, but also more energetic …
- What We Have in Common… It’s one of those forms of generosity that allows us to live together so that our differences don’t scrape up against one another. And as for whatever special talents we may have to offer to the group, to offer to the practice, they’re all welcome because we’re all headed in the same direction.
- The Duty to Be Positive… And one of the factors that’s important in this case is the motivation that forms a part of right effort. You need energy to follow all the other duties you’ve got to do, and if you waste your energy by pulling yourself down, you’re neglecting your duties with the noble path. That’s why recollection of your generosity and recollection of …
- Intelligent Effort… The bubbles that form on a river by raindrops. A mirage. A plantain tree where you try to find the core, but there’s no core. A magic show. These are the aggregates. They’re all very ephemeral. There’s no substance in any of these aggregates that we use to create our sense of who we are and the world we live in …
- The Bureaucracy of the Defilements… A thought forms and you can see it in the beginning stages. In the past, as you were just up there in the head office, you would hear about things only after the functionaries below you had sent things up through the channels, and, of course, when they sent things up, they tended to put their little spin on it. But now you can …
- You’re Already Dead… In other words, he was able to find true happiness through his own efforts, developing qualities in his mind that you have in a potential form in your mind. Virtue: being restrained in your actions, not harming yourself, not harming anybody else, Having a sense of shame and compunction: Shame here doesn’t mean that you’re ashamed of yourself, you’re just ashamed …
- Contentment… All this comes under evaluation, which is all verbal, because you’ll be actually thinking, “How about this? How about that?” The mind will form words as it judges things. Then finally there’s mental fabrication, which is feeling and perception. You’ve got the physical feelings that arise with regard to the breath and the mental feelings of happiness or sadness or equanimity …
- Seclusion Through Mindfulness… You’re looking for a better form of happiness. Of course, when you get into the present moment, you have to be very careful about whatever states coming up in the present moment that you might identify with. You learn to keep a skeptical eye even here. This is what it means to be secluded. But, as the Buddha says, there is a sense …
- Serial Clinging Is Still Clinging… But with the other forms of clinging, the Buddha gives you skillful ways of clinging for the purpose of the path, realizing that you’ll have to let go at some point. Ajaan Maha Boowa gives a nice analogy. He says it’s like climbing a ladder to the roof of a house. You hold on to one rung with one hand, and then …
- Using What You’ve Got… Breath is form; feelings are, of course, feelings of pleasure and pain. The perception of breath is a perception. Your directed thought and evaluation are sankharas or fabrications. And then you’re conscious of all this. What better place to settle down so that you can learn about the five khandhas? You’ve got all of them present here. You’ve got them all …
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