Search results for: "Perception"
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- The Need for Evaluation… At the same time, in learning how to work with this feeling, work with these perceptions, you’re getting a hands-on sense of what the Buddha is talking about when he talks about aggregates. As you get more skillful in consciously directing your perceptions, then when the Buddha tells you to apply the perceptions, say, of inconstancy, stress, not self, you can apply …
- To Comprehend Pain… Is the pain the same thing as the body? Where is the most vivid point of the pain? Is the pain itself a block? Does it have a shape? Does the pain even know that it’s pain? See how your mind has created lots of layers of perception around the pain. The issue is with those layers of perception: You cling to them …
- Deconstructing Anger… And then there’s feeling and there’s perception. The perceptions underlie how you analyze and evaluate things. Sometimes the perceptions are obvious; sometimes they’re more hidden. But a state of anger is made up of the same kind of things that a state of concentration is made up of, so—if you want to get past the anger —you can learn how …
- When You Hit a Plateau… You get in touch with what kind of feelings you have in the body, and then you ask yourself, “What are the perceptions around this, the perceptions and feelings?” Those are the mental fabrications. “And to what extent are the perceptions the problem? How can I calm those perceptions? In other words, how can I find a perception that’s just as true, but …
- Self-Healing… As you stay focused on the breath, you’re going to need some perceptions to remind yourself: What is the breath? Where can you expect to feel it? You can use different perceptions that will actually make the breathing more comfortable—or make it less comfortable. So try to figure out which perceptions are most helpful right now. The word “perception” in English has …
- The Noble Truths Come First… I’ll let it go.” You’re actually fighting against those three perceptions. You want to make the mind as constant and as easeful and as much in your control as you can. And, at this stage of the path, you apply those three perceptions to other things: anything that would pull you away from the practice of virtue, the practice of concentration, or …
- Anupassana… They go together with perceptions. Perceptions are the images you hold in mind, and here we’re interested in the perceptions you use to keep the mind with the breath, but also the perceptions that you use to deal with any obstructions that come up, any hindrances that come up. With hindrances, the number one thing is to perceive, say, sensual desire and ill …
- Tranquility & Insight Through Jhāna… And, just as the allure is built largely out of directed thought and evaluation, looking at the drawbacks, you have to talk to yourself, and you have to bring other images in mind, other perceptions in mind. This is why the three perceptions play such a huge role—they and the other perceptions that are derived from them. Seeing things as alien, as a …
- A Poker Mind… But if you’re going to focus on the knower at that point, you don’t have anything to focus on but the perception itself. When there’s a gap in the perception, the focal point is gone. So you need practice in learning how to make your perceptions more and more continuous. This is what mindfulness is for. It stitches these perceptions together …
- Wisdom Requires Integrity… We’re talking about being disturbed by perceptions in your mind, and in particular by the perceptions or activities that are an integral part of that stage of concentration. This means that, to get past that disturbance, you’re going to have to let go of that perception to move to a deeper stage of concentration . As in the instructions to Rahula, you’re …
- Deconstructing Suffering… You learn to appreciate that, and you learn to realize the reason you had those disturbances of form is because of the perception of form, and the perception was a choice. You can choose the way you perceive, as to the field of awareness you have here, the perception you apply to it. That’s going to influence how much you feel a sense …
- An Inner Revolution… You’re now in a position where you can say Yes or No to your thoughts, instead of just going with whatever comes up, or going with whatever seems to fit with your perceptions of what you want to do. Because again, many of your perceptions are operating in the dark as well. So as you’re with the breath, you’ve got the …
- The Particulars of Your Suffering… How do you adjust the form, i.e., the breath? Well, that requires fabrication and it also requires perception because some perceptions get in the way of even imagining that breath energy could go down the back or out the legs, or that it could have an effect on any pains that you might feel in the body, any sense of blockage in the …
- The Karma of Ideas… attention, intention, and perception. Perception is the mental picture you hold. In this case, what picture do you have of the breathing process? When the breath comes in, what’s coming in? How does it come in? What’s making it come in? Have you stop to examine it? One way to examine it is to give yourself a new perception, consciously, intentionally. Think …
- The Buddha’s Conventions… examining our assumptions and asking ourselves what skillful assumptions we can adopt to question our old perceptions, to see what purposes they serve. Because every perception serves a purpose, good or bad. As when you’re learning a language: In some cases, people will point things out to you and say, “This is called that, and this means this.” But often you simply pick …
- Circumspection… Hold that perception in mind: “Breath” describes the feelings you’ve already got. You don’t have to create new feelings. Ask yourself: “If that sensation I have of, say, my arm or my torso or my feet or my head were breath, were an energy, what could I do with it?” Because that’s the advantage of this kind of perception: You can …
- Who Are You Trying to Please?… As you can settle in, as he says, to enjoy and indulge in that perception, you can carry this through, through many subtle states of meditation, the infinitude of space, the infinitude of consciousness, nothingness, neither perception nor non-perception. In each state, it’s the same thing. You settle in. You indulge in it. Then you see: Where is there a disturbance still …
- A Questioning Attitude… Then there’s also the perception of the pain. You want to learn how to see the feeling of the pain as separate from the perception of pain. See how the perception is something that arises and passes away, arises and passes away, creates a little bridge between the mind and the physical pain and then dissolves, then creates another one. You want to …
- The Dhamma Mirror… What kind of breathing is going to be pleasant, easeful? You have to explore, and as you do that, you begin to realize that these feelings you’re giving rise to do depend on perceptions, and the two of them—perceptions and feelings—are fabricating the state of your mind. Then you try to calm that fabrication. So you’ve got both the topics …
- Isolating the Aggregates… As you learn how to dissociate the breath from the pressure, dissociate your awareness from the pressure, you begin to see that what was holding you back from settling in properly was your original perception of the breath. Now that you’ve changed that perception, the new perception is what’s helping to hold you comfortably in place. There’s a mental label that …
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