Search results for: "Perception"

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  2. On an Even Keel
     … But keep that perception of breath in mind. Otherwise, you zone out. If you can’t make the breath comfortable, well, again, remember: Make the mind like earth. Tell yourself, “If I can’t make it comfortable, just see what the breath does on its own.” You can tell yourself, “If it’s going to breathe in, it’s going to breathe in on … 
  3. No One Size Fits All
     … teaches you how to see things in terms of fabrication. The breath is bodily fabrication, in that it creates your sense of the body right now. Then there’s mental fabrication: perceptions and feelings. In both cases, the Buddha says, once you see that process of fabrication, you learn how to calm it. In that way, you’re doing both insight and tranquility at … 
  4. The Bright Tunnel
     … There’s form affected by clinging, feeling affected by clinging, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, all of which are affected by clinging. The clinging is what turns them into suffering. The clinging is what tries to wring a happiness out of them that they simply don’t have to offer. Having to run around clinging to things all the time puts the mind in a … 
  5. A Small, Steady Flame
     … And that energy is actually our most direct perception of the body. We tend to overlook it and focus on other things, but our primary sensation is right here. It’s breath. As we meditate, we’re learning to get back in touch with that primary sensation so that eventually we can use it as a mirror for the mind. Because, as I said … 
  6. Pitching Your Tent in the Present
     … In the beginning, it’s the only things that would pull you off the path to which you apply those three perceptions, to remind yourself of why you don’t want to go out there. As you stake out your territory here in the present moment, stake out the place where you’re going to stay, the place whose potentials you’re going to … 
  7. Self-doubts
     … If it’s not curious, if it just wants to give up, then you ask yourself, “Well why? What’s going to be accomplished by giving up?” Learn to engage in some mental fabrication—using some new perceptions that are true. You’re not making these things up, but just learn how to perceive things in such a way that you give yourself energy … 
  8. Fear of Death
     … Then there’s feeling and perception: mental fabrication. We fabricate our feelings as well, partly through the way we breathe, partly through the way we label things, how we relate to the way we label things. When feelings come in, they do have a certain amount of raw data, but by the time they usually come to consciousness, there’s already been some processing … 
  9. Rhythms of the Mind
     … In other words, you let go of your directed thought and evaluation, and you’re just there, using one perception, just breath. You’ve reached the point where the body feels comfortable enough to stay settled down. You can’t think of any way of improving how the breath is flowing through the body. So don’t try to think of those things. Just … 
  10. Your Sketches vs. the Buddha’s
     … After all, with the three perceptions, saying how things are inconstant, stressful, and not-self: Things they do have their pleasant side. You can focus on certain aspects of them and see that they follow certain patterns of behavior that are constant. But if you focus on that, what happens? You get attached to these things, whereas if you look at them as being … 
  11. In the Driver’s Seat
     … You can change the perceptions you have around the pain. You can ask yourself where the clinging is—because after all, the suffering is in the clinging. Are you clinging to a particular idea of sensual pleasure you’d like to have right now? Are you clinging to the idea of yourself as being the owner of the pain or the victim of the … 
  12. A Refuge from Aging, Illness, & Death
     … So when you think about those three perceptions—inconstancy, stress, and not-self—always think about what lies behind them: aging, illness, and death. Learn to think of these things as normal. There’s that other chant we often recite: “I’m subject to aging, subject to illness, subject to death. I haven’t gone beyond these things.” In the Thai translation, “I am … 
  13. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … As you make the tiny steps and you get really perceptive about what you’re doing, you’re going to take bigger steps and then bigger steps. But right now you may have to focus on tiny steps. So even though the stillness of your concentration may not be all that solid, learn from what you’ve got. Don’t try to learn from … 
  14. Nurturing Patient Endurance
     … How do you breathe in a way so that spot stays open and unrestricted right there, both in the in-breath, and with the out-, and also in-between? And what perception allows you to maintain that feeling of fullness, ease, well-being? Use your ingenuity. It’s one of the qualities the Buddha said you have to develop as you work on the … 
  15. Your Inner Ally
     … So the breath can flow in lots of different directions, and your perception, your mental image of the breath flowing, will have a huge effect on how the energy moves. So right now you want to take advantage of that. So the breath is your ally here. Remember, you always want to be on friendly terms with your breath. And what does it mean … 
  16. Determined to Be Undefeated by Death
     … Try to calm the mind, calm the breath, calm the perceptions you’re holding in mind right now, and the mind will settle down because you’re determined, and you’re determined in the right way. Now as I often say, when you meditate, you’re preparing how to grow ill, how to age, and how to die without suffering. And that will require … 
  17. Seriously Happy
     … He says that the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness—the things out of which we create our sense of self—have their pleasures and their pains. He says that it’s because of their pleasures that we get stuck on them. It’s because of their pains that we look for a way out. So when you find yourself missing a particular … 
  18. The End of Uncertainty
     … When there are feelings, be alert to what you’re doing in the feeling, in the perception, in the thought fabrication, in the consciousness. Each of these things contains an element of fabrication, an element of present intention. Do you ever notice that? Do you see it happening? If you can’t yet see it happening, look at what you can see that you … 
  19. The Sublime Attitudes
     … Form, feeling, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness: These are not self. But we are the owners of our actions. “Think about that,” he said. In other words, don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that you’re making the decisions right now, all the time. Once a decision has been made, it’s been put into a … 
  20. Training the Whole Mind
     … After all, the big issue is how you relate to yourself, how you relate to the body, how you relate to feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. That’s the area where you’re causing yourself suffering, so that’s the area where you’ve got to gain sensitivity and insight. Nobody else can get into your head and straighten these things out for … 
  21. Humility & Confidence
     … When you come to the breath, how does the breath actually feel in the body? The perceptions you have of the breath: How do they color the way you experience the breath? Ajaan Lee gives lots of examples of how to think of the breath: different types of breath energy in the body, different levels of breath energy in the body, breath energy going … 
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