Search results for: "Form"

  1. Page 66
  2. Heedful, Ardent, & Resolute
     … As the Buddha said, wisdom begins with the question, “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The wisdom there lies in realizing that some forms of happiness are more long-term than others and those are the ones that are worth going for. And that they’ll depend on your actions. Heedfulness assumes dangers but it also … 
  3. The Practice of Right View
     … Because after you’ve dealt with the blatant forms of stress and let go of the causes, you begin to realize that the only thing left is the path doing its work. The only stress still in the mind is the stress of the path, because there’s a subtle level of stress that keeps concentration going, that keeps discernment active. In other words … 
  4. The Graduated Discourse
     … So it’s not that he’s denying the fact of the pleasures, but as he says, it’s because of the pleasures of form, feeling, perceptions, fabrication, and consciousness that we’re stuck on them—that’s the problem. But still, he wants people to have a sense that, yes, he does appreciate that there are pleasures in life. Then, when he gets … 
  5. The True Cause of Suffering
     … The Buddha gained his awakening by using qualities that you already have in a potential form. And you start actually looking at what’s going on in the mind. Instead of branding your mind as innately good or innately bad, just look at what comes up in terms of its effect. If you think certain thoughts, where are they going to lead you? A … 
  6. Victory over Death
     … The things we take to be really solid in the world, when you look at them carefully, are just instances of form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness. And when you look carefully at these aggregates, seeing how ephemeral they are, you begin to realize: How could you construct anything really reliable out of them? The one reliable thing you can construct out of … 
  7. The Noble Truths Come First
     … It’s always important to remember that the four noble truths form the framework for right view, in other words, the right understanding about what we’re doing. This is a point that a lot of people miss. For most people, the three characteristics are right view. That’s the framework, and then the four noble truths get interpreted inside that framework. In other … 
  8. Breath Meditation: The Second Tetrad
     … You evaluate: “If this perception is too gross, I want to have a more subtle one.” The perception of having a form of the body is grosser than the perception of perceiving the body as just a mist of sensations. The perception of the space between that mist is a more subtle perception still. The perception of the awareness of that space: that’s … 
  9. The World Does Not Endure
     … the teachings, basically, about aging, illness, death, which form the basis for the teachings the Buddha gave on inconstancy, stress, and not-self. As he basically said, “If something is inconstant, it’s going to be stressful. If it’s stressful, is it really worth holding on to as you or yours?” Now, if there were nothing else in the world besides these inconstant … 
  10. New Feeding Habits
     … So you use these forms of fabrication and you can be mindful to get the mind to settle down. Once it’s settled down, there can be strong states of concentration and you can feed off the sense of well-being that comes from the concentration. As you do this, you’re getting to understand your mind in terms of the factors of fabrication … 
  11. Staying, Moving, & Neither
     … how the mind creates these worlds by creating a world that has reference to the present, that’s solidly still, and that enables us to see the other worlds as they begin to form. This allows us to see that we have the choice to go with them or not. All too often the choice is almost automatic. A thought comes up and you … 
  12. Asalha Puja
     … It’s a pleasure that’s non-sensual, a pleasure of form. This pleasure is special because, unlike sensual pleasures, it doesn’t intoxicate the mind. It doesn’t have to involve any unskillful attitudes. It’s part of the way out. The other seven factors of the path are then its requisites, or its supports. In his first sutta, though, the Buddha actually … 
  13. Nuclear Thinking
     … As soon as mindfulness slips a little bit, a new thought forms in the corner. Then it spreads out to fill up all the areas abandoned by your mindful awareness. But if you can re-establish that larger frame, that larger field of awareness, the thought can go through the field and not do any damage. It can do its thing, but it won … 
  14. Right Effort
     … When you’ve got all these factors working together, that’s the kind of effort that forms part of the path. In fact, it’s such an important element of the path that the Buddha said that the four right exertions—which are the basic formula for right effort—can stand in for the path as a whole. So try not to bring a … 
  15. Reflect on What You’re Doing
     … In the case of the form jhanas, you’ve got the body, which would be the breath. Feelings would be a feeling of ease, well-being, or equanimity. The perception would be the mental image you have of how the breath comes in and out of the body. Fabrication would be your intention to stay here. It starts out with directed thought and evaluation … 
  16. Desire Is Part of the Path
     … would you do that? What benefit would there be in doing that?” He said, “Because you’re able to avoid the suffering that comes when you’re passionate about things like form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness, and they change on you.” Why did he say that? To give rise to a desire in his listeners, the desire to want to practice. So … 
  17. Abandoning & Developing
     … You can also use the brahmavihāras as a background for developing the factors for awakening, because the brahmavihāras are a form of mindfulness. Based on that, you’re going to develop all the other factors for awakening. Analysis of qualities—in other words, analyzing what’s going on in your mind, which is precisely what you’ve been doing as you try to overcome … 
  18. Training Your Selves
     … You latch on to something—to form, feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, fabrications, consciousness. In latching on to these things, you make yourself subject to things that you don’t want. So there is a way out that doesn’t involve just being accepting or resigning yourself to the way things are. We were talking today about the translation of dukkha sometimes as unsatisfactoriness. It … 
  19. As They’ve Come to Be
     … The Buddha recommends a five-step program to take apart the becomings that tend to form in the mind, and it’s good to master that program because you’re going to need it as you age, as you grow ill, and particularly as you die. At that point, the mind will be pushed out of its human-level becoming and it’s going … 
  20. To Discern Suffering
     … But discernment itself is also a form of strength, in the sense that if you see through a problem, you don’t have to just exert force of will to stay still in the face of something difficult. Ajaan Fuang had a student one time, a woman had a really bad problem with cancer. She had a cancer in this part of the body … 
  21. Stay
     … Is there a Dharma lesson here? Sometimes the lesson lay in watching how a vision formed and how it fell apart. Or if there seemed to be a particular lesson in terms of the content of the vision, you wouldn’t necessarily believe it. You put it to the test: If you can actually take this as an assumption and put it to use … 
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