Search results for: "Feeling Tone"
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- Stepping Out of Yourself… We’re talking about emotions, not just the feeling tones that they call *vedana *in the technical Buddhist terminology. Your emotions are sankharas, fabrications—thoughts that get into the body. They feel especially real because they have a bodily presence. One of the reasons we work with the breath is to burst through some of the constraints that our emotions place on the body …
- Things Aren’t as They Should Be… As with every form of meditation where there’s a phrase that you repeat, there comes a point where, if you really want the mind to settle down, you have to drop the phrase and just be with the feeling tone. What you’re doing right now can make a difference if you understand, if you have a set of skills to handle whatever …
- Beyond Nature… Then there’s purely mental fabrication, which is feeling and perception, “perception” here meaning the labels you apply to things, while “feeling” means the different feeling-tones of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. Normally, the way we put these things together causes stress and suffering. If you do this with ignorance, you suffer. If you can learn how to do it with …
- Tuning-in to the Breath… a physical sensation, a feeling tone, of brightness, clarity, filling the whole body, and you’re just sitting there in the middle of it. There’s no need to rush through these stages, no need to go jumping through hoops. In fact, it’s best if you not try to rush. Just find one sensation you can tune-in to. Stay right there and …
- Square One… Feelings are feeling tones: pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are the labels you put on things that identify what they are, what they mean, how important they are. As with a red light: You can identify that the light is red, you can tell that it means “stop,” and you can tell yourself, “This is important. I have to pay attention to …
- Clinging-Aggregates in Context… We cling to the aggregate of form, which is the body; and to the aggregate of feeling, which covers feeling tones of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. We cling to perceptions: the labels we put on things. We cling to fabrications, the way the mind puts thoughts together intentionally, and we cling to consciousness. And in clinging to these things, we make …
- Working Through the Breath… The feelings here are feeling tones, such as pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. The perceptions are the labels we apply to things. As you’re directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating how comfortable it is, you’re going to be using certain perceptions to stay with the breath. You’ll also be finding that different ways of perceiving the breath …
- Determined on Awakening… the perceptions you hold in mind, the images, the words with which you assign identities to things and give meanings to things; and then your feelings—feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. When you do those things in ignorance, you’re going to suffer. The Buddha’s teachings can be seen as recommendations on how to do those things with knowledge …
- The Big Picture… you make comments, ask questions. Pay attention to that, too. Keep it focused on the breath. And there’s mental fabrication, perceptions—the labels you put on things—and then feelings: feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Pay careful attention to that. These are the things you use to take the raw material provided by your past karma and turn it …
- Working with Fabrication… Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are the labels we apply to things—the words or images we hold in mind. When you compare perception with directed thought and evaluation, a perception is like an individual word, whereas the directed thought and evaluation deals in whole sentences. These have a huge impact on how we experience things …
- Why We Train the Mind… It means the feeling tone that you focus on with regard to that issue—pleasant, painful, or neither. Perceptions are the mental labels or images that surround an issue—for example, the way you perceive the breath and how it relates to a particular unskillful emotion. If anger comes up, ask yourself: “How am I breathing in response to that anger?” You can weaken …
- A Better Place to Feed… Feelings are feeling tones—pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. All these factors are things we put together in order to create a state of concentration right here, right now. You want to remember that, because otherwise you go back to your old ignorant ways, which is why meditation requires your powers of mindfulness. Remember that you want to stay here. You can’t …
- Endurance with a Purpose… The feelings, of course, are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. What you want to do is to use these fabrications to find the potentials in the present moment for creating a pleasurable place for the mind to stay. So when we breathe, we try to breathe in a comfortable way. We think of the breath not as the air …
- Faith in the Practice… It’s not a middle way between pain and pleasure—in other words a neutral feeling tone. It’s the realization that you can use pain and pleasure as means rather than as ends. For example, there’s the pain of knowing that “There’s work to be done.” But then there’s the confidence that comes: “Well, I can do it.” The pain …
- Guardian Meditations… Feelings here are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. That’s mental fabrication. You’re doing this all the time, whether you’re sitting here meditating or not. But the Buddha’s meditation instructions give you ideas for how you might do all three of these things skillfully. Take, for instance, his instructions on breath meditation. They’re focused mainly …
- Looking at Your Life… The concept may be foreign to a lot of us, this idea of breath energy flowing in the body, but just think of it as the basic feeling tone of the body. When you feel your hands from inside, what do you feel? That feeling: That’s breath right there—the sense of where your arms are, your torso, your head, your legs. You …
- Fabricating Around Pain… As for feelings, those are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Those are also mental fabrications. These are the things that make us suffer, if we do them in ignorance. So what we’re trying to do as we meditate is learn how to do them with knowledge. That will turn them into part of the path. In a good state …
- Looking after Yourself with Ease… Feelings here are feeling tones of pleasure and pain; neither pleasure nor pain. And perceptions are the images or words you use to identify things. You see the flame of a candle and you think “candle flame.” You see the Buddha image and something inside you says “Buddha image.” Those are perceptions. These are the things by which we shape our lives—and the …
- Free Not to Suffer… Feelings are feeling-tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Those are mental fabrications. So, when something unskillful comes up in the mind and simply looking at it doesn’t make it go away, you have to ask yourself how you’re fabricating it, and how to exert more skillful fabrications against the fabrications that fashion that unskillful mind state: How are you …
- Feelings of Pain… Feelings are feeling- tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are the labels you use to identify things. Then the fourth step is to calm mental fabrication. In other words, find a way to breathe that calms the feelings and calms the perceptions. The ajaans in Thailand have ways of explaining these steps. Ajaan Lee has some good ways of explaining …
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