Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Right Here, Right Now
     … feelings and perceptions. Perceptions are the labels you put on things. Feelings are the feelings of pleasure, pain, neither-pleasure-nor-pain that you feel both in body and in mind. Well, those are right here as well. So what else do you need? You’ve got all the raw materials. It’s just that the mental qualities you need to bring to them … 
  3. The Third Frame of Reference
     … Among the mental fabricators are feeling and perceptions. This points to the fact that feeling can have an impact on the mind. If you can produce a sense of ease, a sense of wellbeing, a sense of fullness in the body, that can have a nice soothing or energizing effect on the mind. There are topics or perceptions you can think about that are … 
  4. Trust in Heedfulness
     … Rather, it’s learning how to sort out inside you which perceptions and which thought constructs are actually more trustworthy than others. And you can test them, if you get really clear on what you’re doing and what the results of your actions are—in other words, if you’re really alert. Those instructions that the Buddha gave to Rahula—even though he … 
  5. Where Your Mind Gravitates
     … Why? You realize that it has a lot to do with the perceptions you build up around it. As the Buddha said, when you want to understand craving, you have to understand where its real location is. There’s that passage where he asks: A sight that you haven’t seen, a place you haven’t seen: Do you have any lust or desire … 
  6. Feeding on the Breath
     … We’ve got the feeling that comes when we stay with the breath, the feeling of ease, as the mind settles down with the breath, along with the perception of breath that we hold in mind, the mental picture that we have of where the breath flows. Then there’s fabrication in the way we adjust the breath, learn about the breath, explore the … 
  7. Experimental Intelligence
     … So one way of learning how to let go of clinging is to see things in light of those three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. You don’t stop with just seeing things in terms of those perceptions. At the same time, you have to learn the right time and place to apply them: when they actually serve the purpose of leading … 
  8. The Strength of Conviction
     … how it focuses on things, how its attitude can change an experience from pleasant to painful, from painful back to pleasant—all depending on your perception, all depending on the feeling, all those elements of fabrication or the elements of name in name-and-form. What you see as important, what you see as unimportant: This can really change how you experience the body … 
  9. Using Right Resolve Rightly
     … There will be a perception going on in the mind, “This is breath, breath, breath,” or “Still,” or “Here, here, here,” or whatever keeps you here. But it’s a very simple perception. There’s no discursive thinking going on at all. The mind really does get a sense of rest and energy from that. And from the second jhana, of course, it can … 
  10. The Light of the World
     … It’s from that question that the Buddha set forth three perceptions that are useful to know as you’re checking on anything to see if it really counts as a worthwhile happiness. One, is it constant or inconstant? If it’s inconstant, of course, it’s not going to be long-term. Two, is it easeful or stressful? If it’s stressful, then … 
  11. The Fourth Noble Truth
     … There’s not much thinking around that sense of oneness, aside from simply the perception that holds you there. But for the fifth factor, the Buddha gives images of a person sitting, looking at someone lying down; or of a person standing up, looking at a person sitting. In other words, your focal point shifts slightly to the mind observing your mind as it … 
  12. When You’re Discouraged
     … That’s partly a false perception, but also it’s a perception driven by pride. Meditation sometimes requires the humility that “There’s a lot here to learn and I’m not there yet.” So you nurture the desire to do what you can as best you can and find satisfaction in the little steps of progress you make. Not the kind of rock … 
  13. Lessons from the Breath
     … You understand that when you think, when you have feelings and perceptions, if you do that with ignorance, it’s going to cause suffering. But if you do it with knowledge, it goes in the other direction and helps form a basis for your other intentions as well. When you’re going to act—when you’re going to say things, do things, or … 
  14. Merit: Goodness of the Heart
     … the form of your body as you feel it from within; your feelings; your perceptions; your fabrications, the way you put thoughts together; and your consciousness. All of these things are activities. Even the way you keep reaffirming to yourself where your body is right now: That’s an activity, your sense of form, i.e., how you feel the body from within. The … 
  15. Pull Yourself Up by Your Fetters
     … The dimensions of the infinitude of space, the infinitude of consciousness, the dimension of nothingness, the dimension of neither perception or non-perception are levels of concentration you can get into because you enjoy them. There’s delight there—passion, desire, delight. Granted, these are fetters. Think of them as chains. Some chains you can actually use to pull yourself up. Say you’re … 
  16. Breath Meditation: The Fourth Tetrad
     … As Ajaan Lee would recommend, try to develop concentration in spite of the perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. In other words, you’re trying to make this state of mind as constant as possible, as easeful as possible, and as much under your control as possible. That puts you in a better position to fight off a lot of your grosser obstacles … 
  17. The Tools of the Path
     … Of course, there are perceptions and thought constructs, consciousness of these things—it’s all there. You have to learn how to use these aggregates to get rid of unskillful thoughts. This is going to be a lesson for concentration, because once the mind gets into concentration, you don’t just stay there. The whole point of getting into concentration is that, in the … 
  18. Discernment Through Ardency & Evaluation
     … See what’s connected to what and then decide, “Okay, is it satisfactory?” When he came up with the teaching on what they call the three characteristics or the three perceptions, those were tools for evaluation in this process. In other words, if something seemed pleasant or good, he asked himself, “Okay, is it constant?” If there’s any inconstancy in here, it can … 
  19. Just One Person
     … You’re doing your perceptions, your thought fabrications, your consciousness. You’ve even been doing your sense of the body. This is why the Buddha said that all of the aggregates depend on the fourth one—fabrications. That’s what takes the potentials coming from your past actions and turns them into your present experiences. So you’re playing a huge role right here … 
  20. The Thinking Cure
     … As the Buddha said, every state of concentration depends on a perception, a mental label you create, a little message you can carry from one moment to the next, one that you can remember, that you can be mindful of. Here that message is: “breath.” So what is your concept of the breath? How do you relate to it? We talk about forcing the … 
  21. Willing & Observing
     … The sensation of breathing at the nose becomes weaker, less perceptible. The rise and fall of the abdomen gets weaker and less perceptible, and suddenly find yourself hanging in space. If you haven’t already worked on developing a sense of the body as a whole, it’s very easy to lose your focus, lose your foundation. So you want to develop both sides … 
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