Search results for: "Perception"
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- Changing the Pleasure Equation… Whatever the perception is that induces it, that’s what we’re looking for. But it really hits home only if it’s some area where you’ve been feeding. You can look at the inconstancy of trees, and it just goes right past you. You can say, “Ah, yes. Human history is inconstant. All kinds of things are inconstant.” Well, that’s just …
- Imagine… For instance, you hold different perceptions in mind about where the breath can flow, which direction it should flow, and where it starts. Sometimes it’s useful to think of the breath energy coming in from outside. Other times it’s more useful to think of it coming from inside. Where in the body would it start? Where is the first impulse for the …
- Heart & Mind… feelings and perceptions. Feelings here are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Here again, learning how to breathe skillfully in the midst of difficult situations can give you a foundation of well-being inside, so that you don’t feel so oppressed, so hemmed in by events. You realize that regardless of what’s happening outside, you can still inhabit …
- Delight & Beyond Delight… But the fact that the way you focus on it will change it, the perceptions you have about it will change how you feel it, and there are different ways of breathing that can get help alleviate different diseases, different pains in the body—that is fascinating. It gives you a sense that the Buddha was right when he said, “All things have the …
- Freedom Undefined… When you hold onto any of the other aggregates, you’re classified as a feeling-clinger, a perception-clinger, a mental-fabrication-, or consciousness-clinger. You create your identity by what you cling to. This is why the Buddha never answered questions about what a human being is, because a human being can be almost anything. So this noble eightfold path that we’re …
- Duties… It might be form or feeling or perception—i.e., the labels you put on things—the thoughts you fabricate about things. Or you’re simply holding on to the consciousness, your awareness of the six senses. There’s s a clinging to some of these things or at least one of these things at any one time whenever there’s stress. And you …
- Equanimity… In other words, you use the way you breathe, you use the way you think about things, evaluate things, you use your perceptions and feelings to deal with those problems: to figure out where they’re coming from and what you can do to undercut them so that eventually they don’t come back. So you need to use your discernment together with your …
- New Feeding Habits for the Mind… Its habit of latching on to feelings, or perceptions, or thought constructs, awareness of this or that: it doesn’t have to latch on to those things. It latches on because it doesn’t yet have the strength to stand alone, doesn’t have any better place to go. It’s dependent on these things, wants to feed on these things, to see what …
- Reflect on Your Actions… How are you relating to the body? What’s your perception of the body? Where are you in the body? Could you be someplace else? Could you hold a different perception in mind? What about the breath? How are you perceiving it and how does it feel? When you adjust the breath, what do you do? Are you putting pressure on it to adjust …
- Secluded from Sensuality… In other words, your perceptions around lust, your perceptions around your relationship to the other person, your role in getting involved. Sometimes it’s your thought constructs, the stories you’re telling yourself, or the feelings that come up. Where is the appeal centered? You think about all the damage that can be done if you give in to these mind states—all the …
- There’s Work to Be Done… You can just be with the perception of “breath, breath, breath”: breath coming in, breath going out, and that’s it. That’s all you need. And you can stay here. But to get to that point, you’ve got to do the work. Otherwise, if you just stay with the breath, after a while you begin to lose focus. If you don’t …
- Discernment All Along… Think about that and see what that perception does to how you feel the breath—how it opens things up. And you needn’t focus too much on the surface of the body. Think of yourself sitting here in a big breath cocoon that’s in the body, but also extends a little ways out from the body. See how that perception helps the …
- Protest Your Virtue & Right View… Mental fabrication has to do with the feelings and perceptions, the images you hold in mind. He uses these technical terms like fabrication, sankhara, even when he’s talking about something simple like breath or feelings and perceptions, because he wants you to see how these go into creating the illusions in the mind. The gears and wheels behind the illusion are the things …
- Be Precise … You begin to realize that the way you focus on the breath, the image you hold in mind of the breath, and the perception of the breath are all going to have an effect on how the breath feels—whether it’s going to be a good place to stay or not a good place to stay. But those are things you can change …
- Neither Here nor There… Do you really desire that person? Is that the location of your craving? Or is the craving located in your perception of the person? Or in your thoughts about the person? Or in the way you evaluate the person? The appearance of the person? Your role with regard to that person? If you’re going to understand your craving, you have to know where …
- Training Wheels… Then the perception of space falls away, and you’re left with the awareness. Your perception of the oneness of the awareness falls away and you’re left with nothingness. And so you move up by allowing these things to separate out. Once you’ve seen them separate out in this way, you don’t feel so overwhelmed, say, by pain when it comes …
- Limitless Thoughts… If you identify with your feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, consciousness, you’re limited by those things as well. So as we’re meditating, we’re trying to strip away the limitations we place on ourselves, for those limitations are much more confining than the ones that other people place on us. We counteract these limits with limitless thoughts, starting with thoughts of good will …
- Breaking the Arrows… The Thai ajaans talk about the perceptions we have that this body is mine or the pain is in my leg or the pain is aimed at me—all these misconceptions we have about the pain: These perceptions, these labels we apply to pain are the bridge between the body and the mind. As you meditate, you’re learning how to break the arrows …
- Worlds to Watch Out For… So think of the whole body as breath and see what that perception does. We’re learning about the power of the mind’s choices, the perceptions it holds, the things it focuses on, because we want to see the how much our choices actually shape the way we experience things. A lot of things out there we can chalk up to what other …
- Working from the Inside… Mental fabrications are the feelings and perceptions. The perception here would be the mental image you hold of the breath. You can try playing with that. And you give rise to feelings of well-being. If you don’t, you have feelings of dis-ease. Try to turn those areas of dis-ease into ease: That’s what the ardency and the evaluation are …
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