Search results for: "Perception"

  1. Page 75
  2. How to Listen
     … Now, gaining the Dhamma eye doesn’t necessarily change your personality, but it does change your perception of what is possible in the world. It is possible through your own efforts to find a deathless happiness. You may not fully experience the deathless—that’s what’s called stream-entry—so there’s more work to be done. But what you have experienced reorients … 
  3. Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence
     … As the Buddha points out, that’s going to lead people to say, “It doesn’t matter what I do.” The three characteristics or the three perceptions are teachings where we have to know the right time and place. In other words, they have to fit into the skills of the four noble truths. That’s when you use them intelligently. So this is … 
  4. Talking to Yourself
     … That’s another perception. Remind yourself: You’re not necessarily focusing on the air coming in and out of the lungs, you’re keeping track of the movement of energy around and throughout the body. This can be related to the blood, can be related to the dynamics of breathing. When you expand the chest, there’s pressure put on different parts of the … 
  5. Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt
     … Hold in mind the perception the breath can penetrate anything. After all, it’s energy. The solid parts of the body are composed of atoms that are mostly space. So let the energy go through. This way, you give yourself a grounding, something to do in the present moment. Otherwise, if you’re just here—“in out, in out”—the mind suddenly goes out … 
  6. Lessons from Stilling the Mind
     … In other words, you drop your thinking and evaluation of the breath—your discursive thinking about it, thinking in terms of sentences—and you’re just left with a perception of breath: “breath, breath, breath.” And you want to stay right there. In doing that, you’ll learn something interesting about the mind. Even though you’re not doing any directed thought and evaluation … 
  7. Start Out Small
     … Ajaan Fuang once noted that we now have lots of books on meditation, lots of explanations, and in some ways it’s a help, but in other ways it’s a hindrance — a hindrance in that many of our perceptions and memories picked up from books and Dhamma talks clutter up the present moment. They actually get in the way of seeing what’s … 
  8. Battling the Hindrances
     … You have to exert, as the texts say, a fabrication, which means you have to think about things in a new way, breathe in a new way, change your perceptions, until you can finally get past that particular defilement. So it takes work, and as with all work it requires desire. So chandam janeti, try to generate that desire that you really do want … 
  9. Sensitive to the Mind
     … the perceptions that hold you with the breath, and then the feeling-tones that you give rise to by the way you breathe. These are all very explicit in the instructions. And of course, when you’re with the breath you’re guaranteed that you’re in the present moment. But there are times when the mind is not willing to settle down with … 
  10. Choices that Matter
     … You can choose what kinds of perceptions you hold in mind about the breath. You can perceive the breath as the air coming in and out through the nose, or you can perceive it as the energy flow that goes through the body that allows the air to come in and out. The Buddha would actually recommend the second because when he talks about … 
  11. Dedicating Merit
     … You solve the problems by understanding consciousness from inside, what your intentions are, what your perceptions are, the questions you ask, how you can change these things. All this is consciousness changing itself from within. In this case, consciousness is prior. If it weren’t, meditation wouldn’t be doing anything useful at all. But it is doing something. It’s changing our minds … 
  12. Strategies for Happiness
     … The same holds true for feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness. But the Buddha doesn’t have you just drop and abandon these things — he has you turn them into the path. In other words, you take these things you identify with and you turn them into tools. Once they’re tools, it’s possible to get a sense of distance from them and … 
  13. The Water in Your Cup
     … Don’t get tied down by the perception that when you’re meditating, the breath has to be gentle or shallow or whatever for there to be concentration. You can concentrate on all kinds of breathing. But you want to listen to what your body needs right now. Pay close attention. This way you get to see things you didn’t see before inside … 
  14. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … Ajaan Fuang asked him, “Has your own practice reached that stage yet?” “Well, no.” Ajaan Fuang said, “In that case, I’m not going to answer, because whatever I say would just be perceptions in your case. It wouldn’t be a tool to actually help you.” So he was very strict with himself about what should be said, what shouldn’t be said … 
  15. Over-informed
     … So when the mind is there, drop all that chatter and just stay with the perception of breath. Then you’ll notice, “Is there still some stress here?” Don’t go too quickly through these levels. We’re not trying to jump through jhana hoops. We’re trying to observe our minds. Sometimes it takes a long time, sitting with one thing, to sense … 
  16. A Safe Harbor
     … The mental side is the way you talk to yourself, the things you focus on, the things you say about them, along with the feelings and perceptions that go along with them. As we practice with the breath, we learn how to shape these elements more consciously so that we can begin to rely not only on our thoughts, but also on our emotions … 
  17. The Basic Medicine
     … our lack of skill in managing our thoughts, our lack of skill in relating to feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs, and consciousness. And so what we’re doing is learning new skills to relate to what’s going on in the mind, along with a new sensitivity that comes with these skills. The skill is not just staying with the breath but also finding ways … 
  18. Loss
     … He had suffered brain damage in an accident and he said, “You know, my brain is telling me all kinds of weird things; all kinds of weird perceptions are coming up.” At the very least, he had the mindfulness to recognize that they were weird. And then he added, “But that thing I got from my meditation. That hasn’t left.” That’s something … 
  19. Choices
     … Or try to see what other image or perception will be really useful in getting the mind to settle down, feeling really at home with the breath, at ease with the breath, comfortable in the breath. Then look at the mind: What attitude are you bringing to the meditation? One of the lessons I learned very early on was that you come to a … 
  20. Thinking Your Way to Stillness
    Thinking Your Way to Stillness January 8, 2009 There’s a common perception that meditation doesn’t involve any thinking. You just force the mind to stay alert in the present moment and refuse to get involved in any thoughts at all. Then it will settle down. That approach works for some people in some circumstances, but not for everyone. This is why the … 
  21. Sensitive to Fabrication
     … We anchor it in the present moment with the breath and make up our minds that we’re going to breathe in such a way that we minimize bodily fabrication and minimize mental fabrication, to calm the bodily fabrication, calm the mental fabrication— in other words, too calm the breath, calm our perceptions. Then we’ll be able to pick up subtle things that … 
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