Search results for: "Feelings"
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- Furnishing Your Home for the Mind… what you feel from within, how you feel the body from within, how you feel your mind from within. So fill this space with good energy, because this can be the foundation for all the other good things you do in life.
- You’re Doing Something Wrong… In terms of dependent co-arising, the first things you’re doing wrong are the way you breathe, the way you talk to yourself—the directed thought and evaluation—and the perceptions and feelings you’re holding in mind: either specific perceptions and feelings that you’re focusing on, or the way you’re focusing. That’s where you’re doing something wrong. Which …
- Ending Suffering… If the breath doesn’t feel comfortable, well, you can change. No one is going to put you behind bars for changing your breath. Often we feel that as a meditator we have to simply watch what’s going on without participating in it at all. But that leaves you totally helpless, totally exposed. You can change the way you breathe; you can change …
- Heedful, Ardent, & Resolute… Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, and notice where you feel the breathing process in the body. Try to focus your attention there and keep it there. And to make it more interesting, try to notice what type of breathing feels good. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Short in long out …
- Mindfulness: Get with the Program… A feeling comes up and you associate it with an event, something somebody did. Or a mind-state comes up and it’s got an object. Instead of focusing on the mind-state, you tend to focus on the object. But when you’re with the body in and of itself, then it’s a lot easier to see feelings in and of themselves …
- A Post for the Heart… It’s good to have this attitude that “If I don’t understand, I’ll step back, question my assumptions, and feel secure in the stepping back.” All too often, we make a mess of situations because we feel, “Well, this has to be that way,” or “This should be this way.” And our sense of needing things to be that way gets in …
- The Message of Mindfulness… Right concentration provides the food and nourishment that gives your mindfulness and efforts the strength they need to watch pain, or to watch stress—physical or mental—and not feel threatened by it, not feel overwhelmed by it. The food gives you strength. This is why you have to keep reminding yourself to stay with the breath, stay with the breath. And not just …
- Organizing Your Inner Committee… There may be a dull feeling, a feeling of lack of energy, and the lazy voice has latched on to that. Try to pry them apart. The physical sensation is one thing; the voice is something else. It’s providing an interpretation, a spin. And just as you have to learn how to look for spin when you’re reading newspapers and magazines, you …
- A Noble Warrior’s Path… So you focus on the form of the body; you focus on the breath, as you feel it. Breathe in a way that gives rise to feelings of well-being and ease. Hold a perception of the breath in mind and try to adjust the perception so that it allows you to breathe in a way that’s really comfortable. You have to question …
- On an Even Keel… The four jhanas are defined by their feeling tone. You want to develop pleasure, you want to develop rapture, but you have to learn how to do it in such a way that you don’t destroy your concentration. So you stay with the breath, and you stay with the breath in such a way that you give rise to feelings of pleasure. Part …
- Large Perspective, Small Focus… physical fabrication, i.e., the breath; verbal fabrication, directed thought and evaluation; mental fabrication, which are perceptions and feelings—perceptions are the labels or images you apply to things, and feelings are feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. You realize, when you’re getting the mind into concentration, that you’re working directly with these forms of fabrication, getting hands-on …
- Two Things to Keep in Mind… either the body in and of itself, or feelings in and of themselves, mind states in and of themselves, or mental qualities in and of themselves. Often he recommends starting with the body because that’s the easiest of these frameworks to keep track of. But feelings will come up in the body and your mind states are going to be experienced right here …
- Inner Civil War… It’s amazing how once the mind gets into a state like that and the unskillful state has taken over, it can claim, “Okay, you’re committed, you can’t leave,” and you feel intimidated by its claim. You know that it’s someone who’s really not fair, someone who’s really not honest, so why are you so committed to it? Actually …
- Stress… When they talk about dukkha-vedana, they’re not talking about unsatisfactory feelings. They’re talking about painful feelings, unpleasant feelings. And there’s a sense that the mind is being weighed down by these things. That’s because you’re looking for an ultimate happiness, which is why things that are inconstant, stressful, and not-self are unsatisfactory. They don’t come up …
- Good Fences All Around You… We establish ourselves in one of the frames of reference—the body in and of itself, or feelings, mind states in and of themselves—although primarily though the body. Focus on the breath. Any thought that doesn’t relate to the breath, just drop it. Realize that it’s a thought that’s run up against the fence, and you don’t want to …
- Above & Beyond Suffering… When the breath comes in, where does it feel like it’s coming in? Forget what you’ve learned about its coming through the nose. If you were totally uninformed about in and outs of the the breath, where would you say that the feeling of breath come in? Where does it go out? How does it come in? Is there one part of …
- Loss… And even though he’s king, when he’s ill he can’t ask his courtiers to share out the pain of his illness so he that feels less pain. He has to feel it all alone. No matter how much he amasses in terms of wealth, he can’t take it with him. And yet he’s still a slave to craving. Tell …
- Body as Sensuality, Body as Form… Now we’re trying to lift the mind up by relating to the body as we feel it from within: the body as we sense it, the pleasures of form—the breath element filling the body, flowing smoothly; our awareness filling the body, feeling unrestricted. Relating to the body in this way is useful. It gives the mind a place to settle down where …
- How to Think about Death… Those are all very different from just nice pleasant feelings. After all, what do you have that’s of real value, that you can take with you? You’ve got the qualities of the mind. The pleasures you can’t take, but you can take the qualities of mind that are developed through feeling and perception. So you want to fabricate those feelings and …
- Guilt & Shame… The important thing is that you learn how to examine feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, to see where they’re useful and where they’re not. Buddhism doesn’t have much use for guilt. This may have to do with the fact that it also doesn’t talk much about justice. There was that Onion article years back that quoted a threat from …
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