Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. Slings and Arrows of Ordinary Fortunes
     … Holding that perception in mind helps you deal with a lot of things. And it’s not just the power of concentration but also the power of discernment that allows you to be with things but not bring them in to make yourself suffer. You can be with the awareness; you can be with the bones. You can be with something, anything in your … 
  3. The Right Touch
     … What is the right touch in terms of the pressure of your concentration—in terms of how much you want to actively move the breath energy around—and to what extent do you want to simply *think *that the breath can go, and let the power of the perception do all the work? In other words, don’t put any pressure on the breath … 
  4. Four Determinations
     … So, you have to learn how to be with the state of mind where there’s just a perception holding you in place. That’s an example of what you can look for. As for calm helping with your discernment, the more still the mind is, the subtler things you’re going to see. So, these four qualities—discernment, truth, relinquishment, calm—all work … 
  5. Planting a Tree
     … You begin to see how much even something as simple as the breath can be affected by your perceptions. And if you can create a sense of well-being in the breath, that gives you a solid place to stand as you face the onslaughts of the world. So there’s a lot of good that can come from playing this game. Just make … 
  6. Getting into the Body
     … The Buddha says that if you really want to see your attachment to form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications, and consciousness, this is the place to see it: in a concentrated mind. As you fully inhabit the body, you can see what it’s like to identify with the body. Ordinarily, our sense of identification is very erratic. It’s like the reflections of sunlight off … 
  7. A Culture of Restraint
     … They’ve done study after study to show how selective our process of perception is. It happens on many levels. Some of it’s conscious, some of it’s not, but the upshot is that even before you sit down to close your eyes, you’re already in a process of developing. The question is, is it developing the same thing the meditation is … 
  8. The Heightened Mind
     … If a picture appears in the mind, blot it out with the perception of light—anything to remind yourself that these things are little states of becoming that you could enter into, but if you waste your meditation entering into those states, you lose the perspective, you lose the opportunity, that comes when the mind is more expansive. We sit here filling the body … 
  9. Sweat the Small Stuff
     … To see the deathless you have to be very precise in your powers of perception. After all, the deathless is always there. Why are we not seeing it? Because we’re not sensitive enough. How do we become more sensitive? By focusing on the little things: those little movements of the mind that head off in a skillful or unskillful direction. How do you … 
  10. Nimble with Your Questions
     … The purpose was to dig up a lot of unspoken assumptions and at least see how they were skewing his perception of things. And those were just a few example questions that he would offer. He encouraged people to ask their own questions about this simple act of sitting. Or the simple act of being with the breath—the simple act of focusing on … 
  11. Worldly Dhammas
     … If you can maintain this type of perception, it really frees you from a lot of unskillful behavior and a lot of unnecessary ups and downs. So do your best to learn how to tune in to this level and stay tuned in. It’s good that you can pull out every now and then, but if you can stay tuned in here all … 
  12. Unattractiveness
     … When that perception of space was clear, when the sense of the body and the borders of the body had dissolved away, then he’d have you focus directly on your awareness. Make that the object of your meditation. And you realized, at the very least, that you could hold on to this when the time comes for you to leave the body. He … 
  13. Undefeated Goodwill
     … And the mind was able to rest with a particular perception. That ability to rest and not be disturbed: That’s where the mind’s peace is, that’s where its happiness is. So again, if you really have goodwill for yourself, you meditate. This shows the connection that the Buddha often talks about between right resolve and right concentration. As he says, when … 
  14. A Safe Place
     … Little perceptions, little bits and snatches of thoughts—enough to keep those defilements alive, but not enough to let them to come up to the surface. They’re there in the background, and they create a sense of dis-ease. This is where free-floating anxiety comes from. There’s a disconnect in the mind. It’s not that the anxiety has no focus … 
  15. Remarkable Qualities
     … The whole purpose of this is to improve your powers of observation, your powers of perception, your powers of judgment, your powers of evaluation, because ultimately you want to turn them on to the mind, to evaluate what’s going on in the mind. But the mind is a lot subtler than the breath. So first you exercise your powers of observation with the … 
  16. Unattractive
     … Mental being perceptions—the images and words you use to give meaning to things, identify them. And then feelings—feelings of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Those are all easiest to see as you’re focused on the breath. You’re bringing knowledge to an area where usually there’s a lot of ignorance. And it’s an area that’s very important … 
  17. An Hour of Bliss
     … If you find any sense of tension or tightness building up in the body, think of the breath energy flowing right through it, to help take apart that perception of a solid block. As you practice, you begin to see more and more that how you think about things, how you perceive them, how you label them, how you understand them, makes a huge … 
  18. Organizing Your Inner Committee
     … That perception helps you pull away from some of the more unskillful voices inside you. Even though they’re very loud in the mind and a very insistent, you don’t have to identify with them. When you say you’re not in the mood to meditate, which part is not in the mood? Which part is in the mood? Why is the part … 
  19. Be Observant
     … little tiny ideas, perceptions, feelings. If your vision isn’t all-around, they can start growing. So come to the meditation telling yourself that you’re here to observe. You’re here to watch, which means when the meditation goes well, you watch it. When it doesn’t go well, you watch it—not to be equanimous about it, but simply to learn. At … 
  20. Look at Yourself
     … You get to know these things really well—what’s a perception, what’s a feeling—by using them to get the mind into concentration. You get hands-on experience with these different kinds of fabrication, so that when the time comes to analyze them for the purpose of dispassion, you know what they are. They’re not just concepts. They’re things you … 
  21. The Buddha’s Encouragement
     … You’ve got the form of the body, the feeling of pleasure that you’re trying to develop, the perceptions that hold you here, the intentions, the thought fabrications that keep you here, and your awareness. All the aggregates are right here. They’re all doing their thing. And of course, we want to learn about the aggregates, so this is a good place … 
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