Search results for: "Feelings"

  1. Page 60
  2. Heedful, Attentive, Mindful
     … At the same time, you become sensitive to how the feelings you create through the breath have an impact on the mind. The Buddha talks about four frames of reference for establishing mindfulness: There’s the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, mind in and of itself, mental qualities in and of themselves—which makes it sound as if there … 
  3. Expanding Your Awareness
     … A common reaction as you try to get responsible for these things is that you feel you can’t look here, you can’t listen to that, and all of a sudden you feel very confined. This is why it’s useful to develop these expanded mind states. First, so you don’t have that feeling of being confined, and second, so that these … 
  4. Fear of Letting Go
     … We think that we’re going to find happiness by cultivating these mind states as we hold on to things, hold on to the desire for revenge if we feel we’ve been wronged, hold on to the desire for more sensual pleasures if we feel that we haven’t had enough—but again, the revenge itself, the pleasures, they leave you. What you … 
  5. Five Steps to Insight
     … But you still feel the impact of those hormones in your body. Something inside you tells you, “Well, I must still be angry.” So you pick it up again. There’s that voice in the mind that says, “Your feelings are your real… the real expressions of how you think about things.” Sometimes people even say that your body has its wisdom. But actually … 
  6. Stay with the Breath
     … Or if the in-breath doesn’t feel satisfying, you might want to try a little bit longer. See how the rhythm of the breath affects your sense of the body. And see how your conception of the breath affects your sensation of the body. If you feel that you have pull the breath in, you really have to fight to pull it in … 
  7. Trust Your Desire for Happiness
     … If you feel compassionate of others only if you believe that we really are all one, that’s a very selfish form of compassion. You talk about feeling other people’s pain, but it’s more that we can create pain within ourselves when we see other people in pain. We don’t really feel their pain. Ajaan Suwat once made a comment when … 
  8. Not-selfing Your Selves
     … But the fact that we see the identity as a useful strategy, a useful tool, means that we’re going to hold onto it regardless, no matter how many times people point out the fact that form is inconstant, feelings, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness, are all inconstant. Still, we feel, “Well, at least they’re constant enough for us to use.” And the effort that … 
  9. Goodwill Starts with Gratitude
     … People who feel gratitude for others tend to be kinder to others. So add that to your practice of goodwill when you spread thoughts of goodwill to east, west, north, south, to people you like, people you don’t like. Make a special category for the people you should feel grateful for. Just go down the list, think of all the people for whom … 
  10. Shifting Your Paradigm
     … What does it feel like? When you breathe in, what does it feel like? When you breathe out, what does it feel like? Where do you notice the sensations that correspond to the in-breath and the out-breath? Are they tense? If they are, then relax them. Go systematically through the body, relaxing every little piece of tension you can notice. If you … 
  11. Selecting from the Teachings
     … For the mind to come down like this, you’ve got to provide it with a place of comfort, a place where it feels at ease. Otherwise, it’s going to go flying off again, scattered all over the place. So focus on the breath, because, to begin with, that’s the element through which you experience the whole rest of your body. We … 
  12. The Brightness of Life
     … There’s the feeling of pain that comes with hunger, and the feeling of pleasure that comes when we’ve been able to satisfy the hunger. There’s our perception of what kind of hunger we have and also what kind of objects out there we can feed on that would satisfy that hunger. And there’s fabrication: our plans for how to find … 
  13. Hitting a Wall
     … The suffering you feel, the pain you feel, is something no one else can feel. It’s the part of your experience that even scientists looking at your brain can’t access. We’re talking about experience as you feel it from the inside. And each of us has very particular sufferings, very particular ways of suffering, particular issues that weigh down the mind … 
  14. Skillful Judgment
     … And also that your actions have consequences, so you want to focus more on the actions than on your sense of self or your sense of what you feel like doing. We have this tendency to believe that our feelings are our true selves: the part that hasn’t been socialized. But our feelings are fabrications just like anything else. You can learn how … 
  15. In the Mood
     … You take a couple of long, deep, in-and-out breaths, and it feels good. You can just feel the stress and the strain melting away. The patterns of tension you’ve been holding in your body begin to dissolve. There’s a sense of nourishment that comes from that. So you just drink it in. If, after a while, long breathing doesn’t … 
  16. Rightly Directed
     … As for the length of the breath, just notice what feels good. You can try longer breathing to start out with. And if long breathing feels good keep it up. If not, you can change. The important thing is that the breath is steady, your awareness is steady. There will be a sense of comfort that comes from this. Try to maintain that sense … 
  17. What Are You Doing Right Now?
     … What way of breathing would feel most nourishing right now? What way of breathing would feel most satisfying right now? If you’re feeling tired, you can ask yourself what way of breathing would be most energizing. If you’re feeling tense, what way of breathing would be most relaxing? Simply pose those questions to the mind, and watch what the body does. One … 
  18. A Pervasive Well-being
     … The mind feels at ease when it’s there, feels strengthened, energized, because it’s not confined. It’s not carrying much of anything around. It’s just carrying its own efforts to keep it there. That’s all it’s really carrying at that point. So when we talk about singleness in the course of the meditation, it’s not that you’re … 
  19. Relaxing into the Body
     … When the Buddha talks about the different elements of the body—the breath element, the water, the fire element, the earth element—he’s talking about how things feel from the inside. And in English, we have a very poor vocabulary for describing those feelings. This is where the concept of the elements come in useful. The fact that you’re sitting here in … 
  20. Here Be Tigers
     … We’re here to understand our minds, but first we need something close to the mind to focus on, to gather all the thoughts and all the feelings and perceptions in the mind into one place. The breath is good because it’s always there, and you don’t have to create it. It’s not like a meditation word that you have to … 
  21. Investing Your Intention
     … You’re also noticing the feelings and perceptions related to the breath. You perceive the breath in a particular way, and it gives rise to feelings in the body. It’s all right here, all the basic building blocks that make up your present awareness. As you watch them, you begin to see how you can take them apart, see how they’re related … 
  22. Load next page...