Search results for: "Perception"
- Page 68
- Attahi Attano Natho… You work at it and you find yourself getting more and more perceptive, more and more sensitive, more and more discerning as the practice progresses, as you keep committing yourself to the practice and reflecting on what you’re doing, and then taking what you’ve noticed and plowing that back into your next decision for what to do. So you do look out …
- Ignorance… And the only way you can see it there is to sensitize yourself to the area through becoming more and more skillful with the way you breathe, the way you think, the way you deal with your feelings and perceptions. All these processes of fabrication are conditioned by ignorance. This is why paying attention to that simple question of “What am I doing right …
- Putting out the Flame… Attachment to form, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness: Wherever there’s attachment, there’s going to be a being. You’ve taken on the identity of being a being through your attachments. But by taking those attachments apart, you go beyond being a being. When you’re a being, you have to feed. Just as a fire feeds off the wind, you’re going …
- Mindfulness, Discernment, & Peace of Mind… The things you talk to yourself about, even just the bare perceptions, images that come flashing up in the mind: Sometimes they seem to be hard-wired but they don’t have to be. You can unwire them by questioning them. The best place to question them is when you’re standing right here with a sense of the breath that feels good in …
- Renunciation… The Buddha talks about learning how to see form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness as something separate; sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations as something separate. There’s an awareness that’s not touched by any of these things. You have to dig deep down into this awareness right here right nowto get to that level of awareness. But this is how you find …
- Admirable Friendship… how you deal with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations; how you deal with thoughts, feelings, and perceptions; even how you deal with the act of consciousness. All these things are a matter of skill. This is why the Buddha didn’t present himself as a savior. He was a teacher. He pointed out the way. Part of his pointing out the way …
- Stop Shooting Yourself… We pull it in—to use another image—or we use the perception of the pain to shoot ourselves. Part of the problem is that we’re used to feeding on these things. So to help us stop suffering in this way, the Buddha gives us other things to feed on. That way, the practice is not just a matter of gritting your teeth …
- The Skill of Renunciation… How do you adjust the breath? How do you adjust the mind? How do you adjust your perceptions so that it’s easier to stay with the breath all the way in, all the way out, again and again and again, with a sense of contentment at being here? Those are the basic steps in finding a sense of well-being that doesn’t …
- Discernment Is in the Doing… What perceptions are you holding in mind? Could you change them? Those are some of the parameters. But you’re going to have to learn for yourself. When you’re alert to see something’s actually working, then you remember it for the next time around. Now, of those three qualities, the one that’s most closely associated with discernment is the ardency. This …
- Mental Seclusion… your intentions, your perceptions. What kind of image do you have of the breath when you breathe in? Does it help or does it not? And if the mind is staying with the breath, try to be as sensitive as possible to the breathing. This moves into the third quality, ardency. You want to do this well. So while you’re with the breath …
- Occupy Your Space… See if you can maintain that perception. Other thoughts will come in, sounds will come past, but you don’t have to pay them any mind. If a sense of light appears or a vision of your own body, don’t pay these things any mind. If there’s a vision of white light, you can bring it into the body, because it’s …
- Saying No to Distraction… So you work with the breath; you work with your perceptions of the breath, keeping track of body—in other words, the breath itself and its relationship to the body—the feelings that arise, and the mental state that’s watching over this. You want to bring those three things together. And get interested in this. This is a big problem that a lot …
- The Uses of Pleasure & Pain… You’ve got aggregates of form, feeling, perception, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. Learn how to treat them as tools, showing them the proper care and attention that tools need, but also realizing that they’re not the be-all and end-all of life. They’re processes, not things. They’ve got their uses, but they’re not ends in and of themselves. Once …
- In Search of What is Skillful… There’s still a thought in mind, but at this point it’s a perception: just “breath, breath, breath…” You’re not thinking in full sentences anymore. But those three qualities of mindfulness are still there—ardency, alertness, mindfulness—simply that they’ve changed their role, because, as you’ve evaluated, the old role is no longer necessary. Now, if you find yourself slipping …
- Get Out of the Way… It’s simply a question of whether you’re looking at the right spot, or if your powers of perception are subtle enough. Focus on what strengths you do have. All too often when things are difficult, we let the difficulties get us down. We pile more difficulties on top of ourselves. So make a survey of what is going well. At least you …
- Stay… There’s just the perception that holds you there. There’s a sense of awareness filling the whole body. The breath fills the whole body, and it’s because everything feels connected inside that the breathing can stop, without your feeling any lack, any need to breathe. Sometimes you may find this startling, and as soon as a startled thought goes through the mind …
- Fabricating against Defilement… This depends in turn on the mental fabrication, the feeling and the perception that go along with the original defilement. This means first actually perceiving it as a defilement. This is one of our big problems. As the Buddha said, the main problem with the hindrances, for instance, is you see things in line with them. When sensual desire arises, you think that the …
- Self-hatred… He said there are people who manage to let go of form, feeling, perceptions, and thought constructs, but they don’t let go of consciousness, so they’re still holding on. It was when he pointed out to the five monks all five of these aggregates that they were able to let all five of them go. So the problem is not with all …
- Injustice… to see what it’s based on, to see what feeds it, to see how narrow the perceptions are that keep it going. As for the justification of the anger: When you see that something really has been done that’s unjust, unfair, harmful—then you’re in a better position to think about what could be done, what could be said, and about …
- Peace Requires Character… He traced the causes back through various factors and finally arrived at what he called the perceptions and concepts of papañca. Now, “papañca” is a word that’s hard to translate, but, basically, the concepts of papañca come from the sense that I am the thinker. In other words, you take on an identity as a being, someone who does things. And all beings …
- Load next page...
