Search results for: "Fabrication"
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- The Pursuit of Happiness & Goodness… It’s something that’s fabricated; it’s put together. But as you pursue it, you get more and more sensitive to precisely that fact, and that’s what enables you to go beyond it, which is why this is part of the path. In all the elements of the path, all the factors of the path, the Buddha has you develop qualities that …
- To Suffer Is an Active Verb… We’ve got potentials coming in from the past for form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness. And then, for the sake of having aggregates to use, we fashion them—we put them together—into actual aggregates. The Pali in this particular sutta is rather strange: It says that we do this for the sake of feelingness, for the sake of formness, for the sake …
- Facing Pain… The big problem is the series of perceptions and fabrications you create around the pain. The things you tell yourself about the pain, the mental images you have of the pain: You can change them, reminding yourself that the pain is not identical with the sensations of the body. They may seem to be in the same place but they’re of a different …
- Disenchantment & Dispassion… The experience of the khandhas is shaped by fabrication, sankhara. You’re aware of the six senses because you direct your attention there. Sometimes you direct your attention to the eye, sometimes the ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind. Wherever your attention is directed, that starts beginning to proliferate. So this is the problem, that because of our desire we create suffering. And that …
- A Mind Like Earth… Ask yourself, “Did I maintain the causes properly?” Because this is a fabricated path, the state of ease you get here is not nibbāna. It’s a step on the path, but it’s something you have to keep looking after. So make sure you focus your desires on doing the causes, and your patience on the results that you get. As long as …
- Looking Off to the Side… The breath is a bodily fabrication, which means that there’s an intentional element in the breath. To get to know it, you don’t pretend that you’re going to sit here and watch the breath simply as it is without your interfering with it. Actually, simply making up your mind to watch the breath that way interferes with it to some extent …
- The Desire for Truth… It, too, is fabricated. It, too, has some stress—although the Buddha doesn’t call it suffering or stress in this context. He calls it a disturbance. You look for the disturbances in your concentration. You see where you’re causing them in the way you perceive things. Then you refine your perceptions. In this way, you take that principle he taught to Rahula …
- Assumptions… You use your body, you use your feelings, you use your perceptions, your fabrications, your consciousness. You convert them into the path. As Ajaan Lee once said, “A wise person can get good use out of anything.” We’re told that the aggregates, if you cling to them, are the essence of what’s stressful, the essence of suffering. So what the Buddha has …
- Concentration Isn’t Dumb… All of these forms of fabrication are going on in your mind all the time. Even though you’re getting the mind into concentration, they’re still going on, simply that you’re changing their focus. Focus on this: How do you change your breath so that it’s more enjoyable? How do you change your inner conversation so that it’s more willing …
- The Brightness of Life… There’s a big maelstrom of clouds that swirls around ignorance, and then the fabrications we make based on the ignorance. And the way we look at things, the way we deal with things, our intentions: For most of us, that’s all in the dark. As we meditate, we’re trying to bring some light to that, by the way we reflect on …
- Useful Vocabulary… How is a perception, say, distinct from a fabrication? How are they related to feelings? You can’t see relationships until you actually see that there are two things to be related. Otherwise, it’s just a blob. Making these distinctions is useful because you want to know precisely where your cravings are. That’s what all these words are for, so that you …
- Lift Up Your Mind… You can’t get the mind into jhana without at least some insight into how the mind fabricates things. Then as the mind settles down, it can see things more clearly—allowing you to settle down more deeply, more profoundly, and see things more clearly again. That kind of pleasure, that kind of rapture, actually goes someplace; that kind of ease goes someplace. But …
- Goodwill Is Respect… Use all the different forms of fabrication—bodily, verbal, and mental—to foster a really heartfelt attitude of goodwill. You learn how to breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being in the body. You allow the breath. Notice that: You allow it. You can’t make yourself breathe comfortably. Sometimes, the harder you try to make it comfortable …
- Take Care of Your Tools… Because the things you need to understand—the five aggregates, the processes of fabrication—are all happening right here. It’s just a matter of getting more sensitive to them right here. And how are you going to do that? By taking very good care of your concentration right here. If you look after your tools, your tools will look after you.
- Body as Path… Directed thought and evaluation are the fabrications. And of course there’s consciousness. They’re all here together. You’re taking all the aggregates and you’re using to make them a path. Once you’ve done it, then you try to maintain it. Keep the path going inside. Think of your body as a path. How the mind relates to the body is …
- Commit & Reflect… In that case, the Buddha said you have to exert a fabrication. Look at the way you breathe, look at the way you talk to yourself, look at the images you hold in mind, the feelings you focus on. How can you work with these things to undercut the mind’s desire to go with those unskillful habits? In other words, you really do …
- Sober Up… You have to “exert a fabrication,” as he says. You have to look at the way you’re breathing, you have to look at the way you’re talking to yourself, you have to look at the perceptions you hold in mind and the feelings you focus on. You have to see where they’ve been kidnapped by your defilements, and where you’ve …
- Balanced Concentration… And this is why we have to take time to watch it, to be patient, to see what’s going on, and then to ask questions about what the mind is doing to fabricate this pain, how it’s dressing it up, how it’s dressing it down. It’s all a matter of stillness and insight working together, being brought into balance. So …
- The Light of the World… It’s something fabricated, so there is some inconstancy there. There is some stress. That’s why the Buddha said that it’s not the ultimate. It’s not going to be your ultimate welfare and happiness, so you keep on working, keeping the Buddha’s awakening in mind to remind yourself that it is possible to find something better. This is one of …
- Delight in the Path… Appreciate it, because it’s the best fabricated thing there is.
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