Search results for: "Feelings"
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- 1. The Entertaining Breath… Things feel wide open. The body as a whole is breathing in unison. It feels really good. This is how our focusing on the breath can lead to a sense of fullness in the body, a sense of pleasure, sense of well-being and ease, all of which are factors of the path. Right concentration has among its factors the ease from concentration, the …
- When Ill Will Is in Fashion… Just be there with a feeling of rapture. Goodwill is a very pleasant feeling to have—the sense that you have no animosity with anybody in the world. There’s no desire to see anybody suffer. That lifts the quality of your heart, makes it more expansive. And this expansive heart is what you’re after. It’s a good place to be, a …
- The Basic Pattern… You get the feeling that his son, Rahula, probably lied during the day. When the Buddha comes to see him that evening, Rahula sees him in the distance and sets out some water for washing the feet. As the Buddha washes his feet with the water, he leaves a little bit of water in the dipper. He shows the little bit of water to …
- The Skills of Truth & Calm… Then you’ve got perceptions and feelings. You’re trying to create a feeling of ease, well-being. And you’ve got certain perceptions about how the body relates to the mind, the mind relates to the body. Where is your mind right now in relation to the body? And there are perceptions about the breath. When the breath comes in, what’s actually …
- Potentials for Good… Right now the body has a mixture of pleasant feelings and painful feelings. Focus on the pleasant ones. Notice where you can feel a sense of pleasure as you breathe in. When you breathe in, which part of the body seems to be feeding most off of the breath, gaining the most energy? Focus there. As for the parts of the body that can …
- Dharma Medicine… Are you clinging to a particular sense of the form of the body? Are you clinging to a particular feeling? Now, “clinging,” here, may mean holding on to it not so much because you like it, but because you’re entangled in it. Sometimes you cling to painful feelings because you want to change them. Then there’s perception. How do you perceive the …
- When Attacked by Distractions… He never talks about things as being empty, aside from being empty of self in a way that it’s meant to make you feel dispassionate for whatever it is. It’s not really yours, so why are you holding on to it? That old idea that things are intrinsically empty or intrinsically interconnected or whatever because they’re based on causes is not …
- Your Goodness is Your Protection… Now, not harming doesn’t mean not hurting their feelings. This is an important distinction to make. If you let other people’s feelings run your life, you’re going to start doing some things that really have nothing to do with the Dhamma at all. Harming other people means basically getting them to see things in such a way that they start breaking …
- Asalha Puja… We’re trying to develop right concentration, taking themes of right mindfulness in terms of the body, feelings, or mind states, focusing on these in and of themselves, not worried about the world outside—just focusing on what it’s like to have a body, what it’s like to have feelings, and mind states. When you look at these things directly, you begin …
- Perception… Another teaching from the ajaans is that when you focus on the five aggregates—form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness—you can start out with any one of the five and it will give you insight into all the rest. For instance, you can focus on the body, analyze your attachment to the body, and it will start spreading around to feelings and perceptions …
- Energy… If the meditation isn’t going well, we say, "Well, maybe tonight’s just not going to work, let’s give up.” Or if the meditation is going well, the breath feels comfortable, everything feels nice, you just drift off into a nice little never-never land. Either way, the pain and the pleasure overcome the mind, overcome your energy. This, as the Buddha …
- Occupy Your Space… Sometimes when you breathe in its feels like the energy is being pulled up. Other times it feels like it’s settling down. You may notice that if you sit here, pulling, pulling, pulling up for a whole hour, you’re going to get a headache. If you do nothing but down, down, down for the whole hour, you get sluggish. So think of …
- Invest in the Breath… Notice how the breathing feels in the stomach; how it feels in the chest; how it feels in the head. Then you go to the subtler breathing: down the back, in the arms and the legs. Try to settle back into the breath. Be surrounded by the breath. This’ll keep you anchored here in the present moment so that you can see what …
- Energy Channels… Ask yourself, “Can you feel your right elbow? Can you feel the neck on the right side? Then what connection do you feel between them?” It may be that your mental map has gotten out of kilter, your shoulder is mis-located, i.e., either way back or way up, or way down or way forward, not where you might expect it to be …
- Right Learning… Again, if you pay attention to the beggar, even enough to drive the beggar away, you start feeling guilty, and the beggar can start preying on your feelings of guilt. But if you pretend that he’s not there, after a while he goes away. The important thing is what you’re doing right now. You’re not responsible right now for everything that …
- The Return of Chickens from Hell… So try to bring the mind to the breath in a way that feels good. Notice where you feel the breathing and whether it’s comfortable. If it’s not comfortable, you can try changing it in different ways until you find something you like. Then try to stick with it. Try to maintain that sense of well-being all the way through the …
- Ironies… trying figure out what kind of breathing feels good. We may think it’s strange to be analyzing in the meditation, when we’re often taught that meditation means not analyzing, but that’s not the case. You have to evaluate. You have to provide the mind with a comfortable place to stay. Otherwise, it’s not going to stay. It’s going to …
- Tranquility & Insight… You’ve got the feeling of pleasure around the breath: That’s feeling. You’ve got the perception of the breath that holds you with it; the thought-fabrications that help adjust the breath and make it just right; and the consciousness that’s aware of all these things. So you’ve got all five aggregates right here. You want to see to what …
- Tranquility & Insight in Tandem… Then there are feelings and perceptions: feelings of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain, and the perceptions, the images you use to send messages in the mind. Those are mental fabrications. The difference between evaluating and directing thought, on the one hand, and perceptions on the other hand, is that the evaluation tends to be in sentences, whereas the perceptions are just words or …
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