Search results for: "Feelings"
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- Desires Rightly Directed… Feelings feel. Perceptions perceive, and so on. We get addicted to these aggregates in four ways: in line with our sensual fantasies, our ideas of how the world works, our ideas about how things should work in terms of habits and practices, and our ideas about who we are. We hope that from these things we’ll be able to get some consistency out …
- Right View & Right Resolve… Notice what way of breathing feels really good. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body, and what kind of breathing the body needs right now: energizing if you’re tired, calming if you’re wired. As the mind gets more and more focused, then you can step back from the focus on the breath and watch the mind as it’s focused …
- Unlearning Helplessness… What would feel good right now? What way of breathing would actually induce feelings that would feel good? You’ve got a whole hour here to explore and experiment. That’s the essence of developing meditation as a skill: that you explore. You take the basic principles and see what you can do with them. When you read in Method 2, the text says …
- The Power of Attention… He talks about bodily fabrication, which is the breath itself, and mental fabrication, your perceptions and feelings. This is where you apply the questions of appropriate attention. For instance, how does the breath feel right now? Could you breathe in a way that makes you feel better? What is your perception of breath? We talk of breath as the energy flow in the body …
- Three Levels of Evaluation… It didn’t feel comfortable at first but after a while I began to notice that it really was having a good effect on the body. So I stuck with it until it had done its work, and then I let things relax. So sometimes you can’t tell right away what’s going to work and what’s not. But this is one …
- The Seven Factors for Awakening… But if you feel that there’s a lack of energy in your practice, these are the ones you want to focus on, to help you see, when you’re feeling lazy or just tired: What potentials for skillfulness are there in the mind? What can you focus on that’ll give rise to energy? Sometimes this means moving your focus around. If you …
- The Wisdom of Restraint… So we’re not here to be true to our feelings. We’re here to be true to our desire for true happiness. That means turning around and looking at our feelings to see: Do they fit in with that desire? Anyplace where they don’t, you’ve got to put them aside, put them aside. Any thoughts, any words that don’t fit …
- All of a Piece… Keep focusing the mind on the breath whether you feel like it or not. At the same time, stay away from distractions whether you want to follow them or not. You have to develop the attitude that your wants and your likes are not reliable, especially when you see that they lead in the wrong direction. You’ve got to learn strategies for saying …
- Potentials for Energy… Sometimes we don’t feel that way, but they’ve done studies to show that you expend more calories in a day than you take in through your food. There’s something in there that’s creating energy. As the Buddha would say, it’s the mind. So when you’re feeling tired, when you’re feeling depleted, look into your mind. There are …
- Perceptions as Targets… If you’re feeling weak or your back feels sore, you might think of energy as coming up the back to give you support. There are lots of different pictures or kinetic images of what’s going on in the body that you can hold in mind. What are the mechanics of the breathing here? This issue of perception is very important. The Thais …
- Judging Your Meditation… Does the breath feel good? Does it not feel good? What would feel better? When you choose a point to focus on, which spot is going to be most congenial? You’ve got to learn how to judge these things. So it’s good to keep in mind some important principles about judging as it applies to the meditation. The first one is that …
- Desire for Happiness… Can you detect any part in the body where things feel depleted, as if they’re lacking in energy? Are there any cells that would like a good deep breath to reach all the way down to them? Well, you can breathe that way. No one’s stopping you. No one’s preventing you. Just remind yourself of the possibility to open up. And …
- Being Reliable… You want to feel good about your compassion, so you need to find people who are suffering. Your happiness depends on their suffering. Ideally, you should have a totally independent happiness. Then the gifts you give to others are appropriate for what they need, as best you can figure out. They’re not tainted by this idea that “I want to feel good about …
- Just One Person… You’re doing your feelings. You’re doing your perceptions, your thought fabrications, your consciousness. You’ve even been doing your sense of the body. This is why the Buddha said that all of the aggregates depend on the fourth one—fabrications. That’s what takes the potentials coming from your past actions and turns them into your present experiences. So you’re playing …
- Harmony, Right & Wrong… So try to breathe in a way that makes it feel good to be here, feel good to stay here for a good long time. Whatever’s needed for the sake of harmony, you do it. Don’t see it as a luxury. This is one of the problems with our society, our culture. It feeds on strife. We fall into strife very easily …
- Glad to Be Here… The mind does need a good place to stay, a place where it feels at ease, where it feels confident. So even though we have to be heedful, wary of the dangers in our minds, it doesn’t mean we have to be grim—because grimness can also be a defilement, in that it wears you down. We’re in here for the long …
- Cutting Through the Hype… The actual feeling of pleasure, the actual feeling of pain: How long does it last? What is like when you don’t embroider these things? What can stand up to the test that’s good even it’s not embroidered? This required patience. It requires mindfulness, concentration, and the ability to stay focused on just this: “What am I doing? What’s effect? How …
- A Load of Straw… If you see people who are suffering, you feel compassion for them, you’d like to see them gain release from that suffering. As for those who are already happy, you wish them to continue in that happiness. It’s funny that this last attitude, appreciation or sympathetic joy, is the harder of the two. Sometimes compassion is easy because we can view ourselves …
- Pay Attention to Some Things… You feel feelings, you perceive perceptions, you put thoughts together, you’re conscious of things, and all this is based on your sense of the body. We hold on to these activities. And out of these activities, we create the things we consciously cling to: We cling to sensuality, our fascination with sensual fantasies. We cling to our views about the world, who’s …
- The Fortress… Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Remember the “breath” here is not so much the air coming in and out through the nose, but it’s the breath energy in the body that exists on many different levels. The most blatant level, as you’re sitting here, is the in-and-out breath. Ask yourself: Where do you feel it most …
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