Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Three Intoxications
     … The perceptions we have of the pain actually make the pain worse and make it a burden on the mind. If there’s a pain in the knee, we have the perception that the pain and the knee are the same thing. Or our sensation of the knee and our sensation of the pain are the same thing. Actually, they are two different kinds … 
  3. The Arrows of Emotion
     … Your internal speech, your feelings, and your perceptions are flashing in the mind. We stitch these things together and we forget what the raw materials are. We just look for the finished product. We have a real talent for just keeping on stitching and stitching and stitching. And what is the stitching? The Buddha says the stitching is craving. This is all happening all … 
  4. Pay Attention to Some Things
     … You feel feelings, you perceive perceptions, you put thoughts together, you’re conscious of things, and all this is based on your sense of the body. We hold on to these activities. And out of these activities, we create the things we consciously cling to: We cling to sensuality, our fascination with sensual fantasies. We cling to our views about the world, who’s … 
  5. The Skill of Happiness
     … Mental action gets boiled down to your perceptions—in other words, the labels you apply to things. Like right now, you have an image of the breath in your mind. You can ask yourself, “What kind of image would be helpful right now?” Especially, what kind of image of the breath would help make the breath more comfortable? You can think of the breath … 
  6. The Energy to Be Generous
     … Then there are feelings and perceptions. These are mental fabrications. Try to cultivate feelings of well-being in the body. Learn to have an attitude of gratitude for the people who have been helping you, so that you can show that the help they gave you was well-given, wisely given. You’re going to make good use of it. And then the perceptions … 
  7. Ven. Ananda’s Awakening
     … The mind will begin to settle down with a sense of ease with that perception—whatever the perception is that allows you to stay with the breath and that allows the breath to spread comfortably through the body. So we’re here with the desire for awakening, but we learn how to channel that desire into our efforts to stay with the breath, to … 
  8. Goodwill Is Respect
     … There are thoughts about the breath, perceptions about the breath. There’s a sutta where the Buddha talks about how Ven. Sariputta—his foremost student in discernment—could see all kinds of mental activities going on even as the mind settled into very deep stages of absorption. So there are things to observe here. You want to see how you’re putting this state … 
  9. Food for Endurance
     … And then in terms of *mental fabrication—*the perceptions and feeling we focus on—we’re totally free to perceive a situation in lots of different ways, all of which are true. Then we can ask ourselves: “Which of these ways is the most conducive to keeping the mind happy, keeping the mind acting in skillful ways?” Choose that perception; choose those feelings. Then … 
  10. Discernment Requires Concentration
     … form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness. You see these things most clearly as you’re getting the mind to settle down and stay right here. So have some respect for concentration. It’s not just a matter of being dull and dead or unmoving. You’re actively trying to understand how to keep the mind still. And in that stillness, you begin to see things … 
  11. Recollecting the Buddha
     … Breath is, of course, the bodily fabrication kaya-sankhara, but his instructions also tell you to be sensitive to citta-sankhara or mental fabrication, which are your perceptions and feelings. And the instructions themselves are things you tell yourself: That’s vaci-sankhara, verbal fabrication. These are precisely the things you really have to watch out for as you die: what the mind tells … 
  12. A Goal Without Limits
     … It’s based on a perception, the perception infinite consciousness, and it’s maintained by acts of attention and intention. So when the Buddha says that there’s no name or form in anidassana consciousness, he’s talking about nibbāna, because that’s where there’s no experience of name and form. Consciousness without surface is a type of consciousness but it’s not … 
  13. Perfect Breathing Isn’t the Goal
     … You try to create that well-being by focusing on the breath, by adjusting the way you breathe, by adjusting your perceptions of the breath, and adjusting the ways you talk to yourself about the breath. You can try different rhythms of breathing. You can try different images in the mind of how the breath comes into the body, how it goes out, and … 
  14. At Home in Jhana
     … And you’ve got feelings and labels or perceptions, which are mental fabrications. So instead of fabricating worlds outside, thought worlds that can go who knows where, you fix up what you’ve got here. It’s as if you have a little shack that you haven’t been paying attention to, but you can fix it up. You can turn it into a … 
  15. Taming the Elephant
     … So, I said, “You’ve got to change your perceptions. Remind yourself that you’re surrounded by air. You can breathe whenever you want.” If you learn how to adjust your expectations, adjust your ideas about what you want out of the body, you find that the body can provide you with a sense of well-being that you wouldn’t have expected: a … 
  16. Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!
     … He did say that you have to test things for yourself, but you also have to take into consideration the counsel of the wise—because after all, your perceptions can really be skewed, especially around the area of sensuality. There’s that great passage where he talks about the leper. The leper sits there and takes a stick, heats it in the fire and … 
  17. Four Roles to Play
     … This is where you bring in another aspect of fabrication, which is perceptions, the images you hold in mind that identify things and give them meaning. What image of the breath is most conducive to settling down? If you think of the breath simply as the air coming in and out through the nose, it’s hard to think of that having any impact … 
  18. It’s Good to Talk to Yourself
     … Then even when the questions and answers settle down, there are still perceptions—the images you hold in your mind—and those carry you all the way through many of the even very refined levels of concentration. So the trick is not so much stopping your thinking, but learning how to think properly in a way that helps you settle down. What are you … 
  19. You Can Do Better
     … When you get stuck on concentration, and there’s a lazy part of the mind that says, “Well, this is good enough, I might as well just hang out here,” right view is there to tell you, “No, there’s something better.” This is why those perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self work. They’re basically saying, “This is not worth hanging on … 
  20. Against the Grain
     … There’s the feeling of hunger that drives us to feed, and the feeling of satisfaction that comes after we’ve fed; the perception of what kind of hunger we have and our perception of what kind of food would feed that hunger. Then there are all the fabrications, mental fabrications and intentions that go into trying to find food and figuring out how … 
  21. Where the Brightness Is
     … Such as the perception that says, “There’s a pain right there and it has this shape and it’s taken over this part of the body”: Well, has it really? Is it one big solid thing, or is there lots of little tiny sensations that come and go, come and go, come and go? And how are those sensations affected by the way … 
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