Search results for: "Feelings"
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- Endurance… In other words, it follows the steps of the tetrad in breath meditation dealing with feelings. Remember, the first step in the tetrad is to breathe in and out sensitive to rapture. The next step is to breathe in and out sensitive to pleasure. The third is to breathe in and out sensitive to mental fabrications, which are perceptions and feelings, and the fourth …
- Nibbana Is Better than You Think… how you feel the body in terms of the energy of the breath, the warmth of the body, the coolness of the liquid parts, the solidity of the solid parts—how you feel it from within, what we call proprioception. Look for your pleasure there, because this kind of pleasure doesn’t corrode the qualities of the mind. Then, from there, the Buddha would …
- As Days & Nights Fly Past… See how that feels. If it feels good, keep it up; if not, you can change to shorter breathing or longer breathing. Heavier or lighter; deeper or more shallow; faster or slower; broader or more focused. There are lots of different ways you can breathe. Experiment to see what the range of breathing can do for the body. It’s like getting a new …
- On Your Own… So keep that in mind when you start feeling lazy or you start feeling your practice is beginning to unravel. And then the third principle, of course, is the Dhamma, reflecting on the fact that this is really an excellent Dhamma that we’ve found here, an excellent opportunity. It’s not the case that the Dhamma is always available. They talk about long …
- Centered in the Body… Whatever the situation, keep yourself in the body, be in touch with the energy in the body, how the breath is feeling. You may not be able to follow all the details of the in-and-out breath, but you can have a general sense of how the body feels. Or you can choose one spot in the body as your spot and stay …
- Samvega vs. Dispassion… The reason we feel trapped is because part of us is still in there and we can’t let it go. It’s like that famous monkey trap where they put a hole in a coconut and then into the coconut they put a little bit of fruit that the monkey wants. It can reach its hand in through the hole, but once it …
- Working with Fabrication… Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions are the labels we apply to things—the words or images we hold in mind. When you compare perception with directed thought and evaluation, a perception is like an individual word, whereas the directed thought and evaluation deals in whole sentences. These have a huge impact on how we experience things …
- The Power of Your Actions… And you want a sense of pleasure—so you’ve got feeling. You have a perception that allows the cool feelings, the pleasant feelings, to run through the whole body. It’s a mental image, a label that identifies that this is how things are happening. Then you have the directed thought and evaluation—that’s fabrication, as you direct your thoughts to the …
- Get Attached to Jhana… And you do want to get attached to it—not forever, but you want to develop a sense of feeling at home with jhana. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, “You have to be crazy about the meditation in order to do it well.” And part of what he meant was that you want to get really interested in the breath and really learn …
- Diagnosing the Mind… And you can learn an awful lot about the process of fabrication by fabricating new ways of breathing, new ways of thinking about things, new things to focus on things, developing alternative feelings, i.e., feelings of pleasure through the breath, so that the mind is not sunk in a funk. You learn how to avoid unnecessary trouble. In doing so, you’ve learned …
- Skillful Fear… Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, and notice where you feel the breathing process in the body. Then you can ask yourself: Is it comfortable? If it’s not, what would you change? Would you make it longer still? Or would you make it shorter? Or in long, out short? In short, out long? Deeper, more shallow? Heavier, lighter …
- Persistence… If you’re not focusing directly on the breath, well, at least keep in mind the fact that you’re dealing with feelings and mind states, any one of the four frames of reference. And if you’re going to focus on feelings, don’t just wallow in the feeling. Remember that you’re looking for the cause. That takes you back to the …
- Refreshing… A better choice would be to “feel” your breath. Think of wearing the breath, because the breath is all around the body. It’s not just at one spot, it’s everywhere. And you want to be open and alert everywhere. That quality of mind takes a while to develop, because we know that we have to keep other thoughts away, and in keeping …
- Nobody’s Servant… Then the mind can calm down, because a lot of our antsiness about the world outside comes from the simple fact that we feel antsy inside, but if you feel soothed inside, then the world is not so much of an issue. Of course, this is not just a matter of a physical feeling of being soothed. You have to think in ways that …
- Appropriate Attention… And of course in the mind, your feelings, your perceptions, thought constructs, even your consciousness: These things not really yours. But then there’s that passage we chant often—“I am the owner of my actions.” That, Ajaan Suwat said, is one area where you don’t want to apply the perception of not-self too early. Because what you’re doing makes the …
- Samvega… Whatever way you have of relating to the breath that makes it feel good just to be with the breathing coming in, going out right here in the present: Take that approach to the breath. This gives you a beachhead so that there’s something to hold on to in the present moment that’s pleasant, a good place to stay. And it gets …
- Delusion… When you’re angry, you usually know when you’re angry; when you’re feeling passion or greed, you know you’re feeling those things; but when you’re deluded, by definition you don’t know. You think you know. It’s not as if you live in a fog and have no idea of anything at all—you can have lots of knowledge …
- Right Speech, Inside & Out… With a few words you can give people wrong views, make them feel miserable, break people apart, and waste people’s time. A waste of time is a real shame. As the Buddha said, you can die at any time. Suppose you spent your last day dealing in frivolous chatter, and then the Big One came—the earthquake that’s going to knock everything …
- The Purity of Your Intentions… All the different organs in the body feel nourished. The needs of the mind have to do with having something that’s interesting to observe. Here again, your intention is important. When you think about how the breath fabricates feeling, and feeling fabricates the mind, you realize how important it is to get to know the breath. Then you think about all the important …
- Breathaholic… See how it feels. Notice how the breathing process feels in the different parts of the body and the different ways it can* *feel. This is something you discover over time. Sometimes you can see the effects immediately. You breathe in a particular way, and there’s an immediate sense of ease. In other instances, it takes a longer time to see the effects …
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