Search results for: "Perception"
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- Meditators at Work… You get to play around with the breath energies, play around with your perceptions around the breath. You can think of the body as a big sponge and, as you breathe in, the energy is coming in through all the pores. Or if you prefer, you can think of the energy starting within the body, at any one of the centers that Ajaan Lee …
- The Breathing Game… So, if you look very carefully at your perception of reality, you find that the cartoon has big blank spaces where your intentions are, and also big blank spaces where the connection between your intention and the happiness or the pain that results from your intention should be. But they’re just missing, and this is what meditation allows us to fill in. If …
- Strengthening Concentration… What you’ve done is that you’ve changed your perception, changed your understanding, in a way that enables you to strategize more effectively in overcoming resistance in the mind. The same thing applies with concentration. The Buddha talks about times when you’re trying to focus on the breath, and the mind says: “Oh, I’m not willing to settle down.” He calls …
- The Karma of Self… So if you could think of your perception of self as a tool and understand exactly what kind of self you want to define—the self that’s in control and the self that really does prefer pleasure to pain—that’s enough “self” to do the practice. Remember that the Buddha’s teachings are a path. He doesn’t start out with, say …
- The Heightened Mind… We can observe ourselves as we meditate and begin to see how we’re using form, feeling, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness—all the aggregates—in this state of concentration. You can start analyzing it. Where’s the stress? In fact, one of the ways of improving your concentration is to step back a bit like this and ask yourself, “Where am I causing unnecessary …
- Thinking & Evaluating… There’s the feeling of the breath, there’s the perception of the breath, and the thinking about the breath. How do these mental functions interact? When you perceive the breath as uncomfortable, think about it for a while: What kind of breathing would make the body more comfortable? And if thinking doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere, just watch the breath for …
- Mental Movements… clinging to your body or forms of any kind; clinging to feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness. There’s clinging only when there’s craving. So, these are the issues we have to watch out for. He says suffering is something you have to learn how to comprehend: understand why it’s happening, how it’s happening. To do that, you have to get the …
- The Right Time at the Right Place… Right here in the state of concentration, you’ve got the form of the body, you’ve got feelings of pleasure, you’ve got the perception that holds you here, you’ve got the fabrications of directed thought and evaluation that are your internal analysis—your internal conversation on how to get the mind and the breath together well—and then there’s consciousness …
- Happily on the Path… fabrication, intentions, attention, perceptions, feelings. We’re actively shaping things, and that’s what we’re trying to train: the way the mind shapes its experience. Part of that is learning how to find joy in simple things like generosity and virtue, and moving up to finding joy in the concentration, joy in the fact that you’re getting some control of your mind …
- What You Can’t Change, What You Can… The perceptions and labels you put on things, the thoughts you put together: These are the big culprits, so these are the things you want to watch out for. You begin to realize that even though there are a lot of things in the world you would like to change and you discover that they can’t be changed, there are other things that …
- Taking the Buddha at his Word… He said, “Notice that the list of strengths doesn’t start with perceptions or ideas or concepts. It starts with conviction.” It’s like being in a forest. If, when you’re lost in the forest, you’re convinced that there’s a way out, you have the chance to find it. If you’re convinced there’s no way out, you’re doomed …
- Between You and Your Eyes… It’s only that way you can use the basic building blocks of experience—the breath, directed thought, evaluation, feelings, and perceptions—so that they lead away from suffering and don’t simply pile more suffering on. So even though we are doing the meditation to gain results, you can’t keep your focus on the results down the line. You’ve got to …
- In the Present… It can flow anywhere in the body, so wherever there’s a sense of tightness or blockage, hold in mind the perception that allows your mind to believe, okay, the breath can go through the blockage, no matter how solid your bones or the pains or any other solid-seeming parts may seem. There’s a lot of space inside the atoms of the …
- Delight in Persistence… You’re holding a perception in mind: how you picture the breath to yourself. You’re trying to develop feelings of pleasure. Well, all those mental acts come under the factor what the Buddha called “name” in name and form. If you bring knowledge to these things, they turn from causes of suffering to the path to the end of suffering—and you bring …
- Evaluation… So you evaluate the breath, you evaluate your perceptions, and you make adjustments. Then you evaluate the results. This is the work. This ability to step back and watch what you’re doing is going to be an important part of the meditation. It’s the beginning of discernment, as Ajaan Lee points out. Here in the beginning stages, you’re devoting it to …
- Break Things Down… This is how you should hold certain analogies or perceptions in mind. This is how you should breathe.” Those are the instructions that are really useful. So think about how you breathe. Think about how you talk to yourself. Think about the images you hold in mind. Tell yourself, “I can do this differently. If this is causing suffering, I don’t have to …
- A Much Better Place… those who can see the danger coming before it comes; and then there are those who have to be slapped in the face with a danger before they realize, “Yes, this is dangerous here!” Of course, it’s best for us to see ahead of time the danger of identifying, say, with forms, feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness, all the things that go into …
- It’s What You Give… fabrication, name and form, intentions, acts of attention, perceptions, feelings, even the way you breathe. This is what you bring to sensory contact, and what you bring is going to make the difference between whether it’s going to be a cause for suffering or part of the path to the end of suffering. So this principle of the mind comes first goes from …
- The Buddha Defines Wisdom… What’s going on? Where are the perceptions of the mind playing tricks on you? You want to come from understanding so that you have control over thinking the thoughts you want to think, and don’t have to think the thoughts you don’t want to think—in other words, thinking thoughts that are going to be for your long-term welfare and …
- Metta Math… They’re perceptions to shape your thinking. Once you generate goodwill, then you try to protect it, as with all wealth, because there will be people who misbehave, and you can’t let that erode your goodwill away. Think of the example of the mother protecting her child. The poem says, “Just as a mother would protect her child, her only child, so you …
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