Search results for: "Perception"
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- Figuring Out Concentration… You’ll find there are different perceptions, different obstacles, different hindrances that get in the way. You’re trying to figure out: Why are they there? Why does the mind hold on to them? And holding on, of course, it doesn’t mean it has a hand that holds on. They’re actions that you keep repeating. So why do you keep repeating them …
- Wisdom as a Tool… See how inconstant your perceptions are. That’s making good use of a vision. As for insights that come, Ajaan Fuang used to say, “Don’t try to memorize them. You’re not here to write a book. If an insight comes, try to apply it right now and see what impact it has. If it’s not relevant to what’s happening right …
- Visakha Puja… There has to come a point where you get disenchanted with the way you identify with your body, the way you identify with your feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, even your sensory consciousness, seeing that these things are inconstant. You can’t really depend on them. They’re stressful. They can’t provide the true happiness you want. And they’re not-self: They’re …
- The Power of Present Karma… You have some preconceived notions, you have some perceptions, you have some intentions. Air them out. Open them up. Think of the Buddha on the night of his awakening. He could have fallen in line with what everybody else had done with that knowledge, but he asked questions from a different angle. In a way, he asked the obvious question—if action is what …
- Close to What You Know… It’s like having different perceptions of the world – the physical world, the psychological world, whatever worlds you are involved with: Tune in to the frequency that’s helpful right now, and let the other ones go. This is why we focus on the breath, because the breath is an area where you can establish an awareness that can begin to see these activities …
- Tranquility & Insight Together… We’re already shaping our experience—through the way we breathe, through the way we think about things, the perceptions we apply to things, the labels, the ideas we impose on our experience. These are all active processes. And as the Buddha said, we do these things out of ignorance for the most part, and as a result, even though we’re looking for …
- To Have a Purpose… In other words, you take the things that you’ve been holding on to and that have been causing you to suffer—feelings, perceptions, thought-constructs—and you turn them into the path that will take you across. Like right effort: That requires a lot of thinking, a lot of fabricating of your thoughts, because you’re doing this for a purpose. When the …
- Return of Wisdom for Dummies… We’re told that insight is seeing things in terms of the three characteristics or the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. Those are basically standards for judgement. You don’t have to repeat those words to yourself, just look at what you’re doing, see where you’re creating a sense of well-being, and then ask yourself: Is it good …
- Generating Power… Next time around try to be even more perceptive as to what’s going on, what’s needed where. As for singleness of preoccupation, make sure the mind doesn’t lose itself, doesn’t start wandering off in other directions, getting distracted. And watch out for the hindrances, because they drain your energy. Even though you may be generating a lot of power here …
- Cut the Currents… If you have thoughts about who you are, you see those are just perceptions. They’re flowing away from right here, right now. So, let go of them. As for other thoughts that focus you in on the object of your concentration, you hold on to them for the time being. But again, there’s no question about who’s doing this. It’s …
- The Origination of Suffering… the breath coming in, going out, your conversation inside, your thoughts, acts of evaluation, perceptions, feelings. Try to see these things simply as “those events” until you get a sense of dispassion for them. That’s how you can get past this dilemma of the fact that both craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming can lead to more suffering. So. We’re …
- Shelter… Mental fabrication covers perceptions—the labels the mind applies—and the feelings that go along with whatever you’re experiencing. You want to learn how to adjust these to make your inner home just right. Adjusting feelings may seem the strangest of the group, but as you work with the breath, with the way you perceive things, with the way you think, then you …
- Mindfulness, the Gatekeeper… How do these things have an effect on your mind?—the pleasure and rapture together with your perceptions of those feelings. Ideally, you want to get the mind in a state where it feels calm and at ease, so if you find certain ways of perceiving the breath or perceiving the pleasure or rapture to be disturbing, you let go of them. Try to …
- Determined to Make a Difference… And perceptions of self and no-self don’t apply there. You get there by looking at your experience in terms of not-self, but the experience itself is something other. Which is why it’s a good goal to choose, the most discerning goal to choose, the goal that’s most worthy of being truthful to, to make sacrifices for. It’s a …
- Stepping Out of Truth Games… The same with any other really basic perceptions that we tend to hold on to: You want to learn how to put them aside when you need to put them aside, and then take them back on again only when you need to. The skill here is having that part in the back of the mind that can look at different worlds that you …
- The Discernment of a True Person… Why do you want the perceptions that give rise to lust? So whatever your problem is, there is an antidote. All too often, our problem is that we don’t like the antidote, so we pretend that it’s not a problem. You need to admit the problem before you can solve it—which is why having a sense of yourself is an important …
- Developed in Body & Mind… Why is that? Because you drop the perception of the breath. You were overcome by pleasure. What we’re trying to do here is to give rise to a sense of pleasure, let it spread through the body, nourish the body, benefit the body, but keep our attention anchored with the breath. The pleasure will do its work. The sense of fullness will do …
- Purity… There’ll be simply a perception that holds the mind with the breath. Then you’re just thinking, “breath, breath,” or a mental image about the breath flowing through the body. That’s enough to keep you here. Then, as the meditation progresses, other things will fall away as well. The mind gets purer and purer. So it’s a progressive practice. You start …
- Work & Play… the breath, the verbal fabrication of directing your thoughts to the breath and evaluating the breath, and then the mental fabrication of the feelings that arise from the breath and the perceptions that you use to stay with the breath—you really begin to see: What is your present intention? Where is it skillful? Where is it not? What can you do to make …
- Reading Your Meditation… That’s a skewed perception. Focusing on the mistakes we made in the past and getting depressed about them is really not helpful, because when you start focusing on your own negative activities, after a while you get tired of focusing on your own negative activities, and you start focusing on the negative things that other people have done as well. That puts you …
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