Search results for: "Feelings"

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  2. Be Precise
     … You begin to realize that the way you focus on the breath, the image you hold in mind of the breath, and the perception of the breath are all going to have an effect on how the breath feels—whether it’s going to be a good place to stay or not a good place to stay. But those are things you can change … 
  3. The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough
     … They can be very soothing when the mind is feeling exasperated. They act as good antidotes to states of mind when you’re feeling frustrated with yourself or with other people. But the results they bring are only partial. You have to combine them with the seven factors for awakening, which involve a lot of analysis, a lot of probing and questioning, trying things … 
  4. The Buddha Defines Wisdom
     … This is why the control of the mind—in other words, thinking what thoughts you want to think, and not thinking what you don’t want to think—has to go together with the ability to get the mind into a state where it does feel a sense of rapture and well-being. So you provide the mind with an alternative pleasure. The Buddha … 
  5. Always Willing to Learn
     … the games you feel comfortable playing, the ones you feel you can play well. Are they really good games to play? If not, how can you pull out of those games? That’s an important range of skills to develop. And again, as you’re meditating, learn which areas of the Dhamma apply to which phase of the emotional waves you go through. In … 
  6. True Freedom of Speech
     … Harsh speech, when you speak in ways that are meant to hurt people’s feelings. And then idle chatter, when you open your mouth and don’t have any clear intention as to what’s going to come out or why it’s going to come out—speaking just to pass the day, speaking to get things off your chest, speaking to express your … 
  7. It’s All about Action
     … It could be the results of past actions coming in, and that can be anything from pains you may feel in the body to your habitual ways of thinking. If you’ve been meditating, some of the skills you’ve picked up from your past meditation should be coming in to help, too. Then there are your present intentions and the results of your … 
  8. Holding on Strategically
     … It’s a feeling tone. And when you don’t glom it together with the body, you begin to see that that feeling tone moves around a lot. In particular, it moves around in connection with your perceptions, the labels you’re putting on things: the label that says “pain” or the label that says, “The pain is here.” You begin to realize there … 
  9. The Four Noble Truths
     … All of this falls under the stress that comes from clinging to form, feeling, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness—consciousness here being the consciousness of the senses. All of this, the Buddha says to comprehend. Now, for most of us, when we run into pain, comprehending is not the first thing we have in mind. We want to push it away; we want to … 
  10. The Karma of Narratives
     … Notice how that energy flow feels. How do you sense it? Does it feel like a flow or does it feel more static? Start with what you’ve got. Don’t force it too much. In fact, the only forcing you can do is to relax. Wherever there’s tension in the body, that’s a sign that things are not flowing well, so … 
  11. A Trained Observer
     … Feeling, which is the feeling of pleasure you’re trying to develop. Perception, the image you hold in mind of how the breath moves through the body, where it starts, where it finishes. Fabrication, how you talk to yourself about the breath, evaluate it, make adjustments. And then consciousness, which is aware of all these things. As you reflect on these activities, you’re … 
  12. Thinking Seriously about Happiness
     … So Ratthapāla says, “Even though you’re king, can you ask them to share out the pain so that you feel less?” The king says, “Oh no, I have to feel it all on my own.” That’s an area in which the king is not in charge. The pain is in charge. So that’s a teaching on illness and a teaching on … 
  13. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … Try to make yourself interested in the breath, to see what kind of breathing feels good and what kind of breathing is good for the body and mind. If you’re tired, what kind of breathing will give you more energy? If you’re wired, what kind of breathing will calm you down? As you begin to see the effect that the breath has … 
  14. The Kamma of Meditation
     … And perceptions and feelings—mental fabrication. Those are your choices in the present moment. You can choose to breathe in different ways. You can choose to talk to yourself in different ways. You can choose your perceptions. You can choose the feelings you nurture. It’s because we have this range of choices that meditation makes sense, is possible, gives results. You do have … 
  15. Death Is All Around
     … Focus on the breath, develop feelings of ease, spread them throughout the body. You use your perception of the breath to focus your concentration. You use your directed thought and evaluation, which are thought constructs, to keep your mind on the breath and to evaluate the breath. Then you’re aware of all these things. That’s taking these five aggregates and turning them … 
  16. Bless Yourself
     … When you feel tempted to lie, remind yourself that your speech is a valuable property, a valuable treasure. Ajaan Lee’s expression is, “Bow down to your mouth every day. You’ve worked hard to become a human being, to have a human mouth that can express truths.” Think about that Far Side cartoon where a guy has invented a machine that interprets what … 
  17. Strength of Persistence
     … Have you ever looked for it? Have you ever allowed it into your imagination? You can ask yourself: “If the breath energy around the body were smooth, what would it feel like? If it were agitated around the body, what would it feel like?” Think of it smoothing out. Then think of that smooth energy penetrating the body. Or if there’s a pain … 
  18. Disenchantment
     … He says, “Wow, I was really fooled by that guy.” In the same way, the Buddha says that once you attain the first taste of Awakening, you look back on your old pleasures and realize how you’ve been fooled by the mind — that in finding your pleasure, what you’ve been feeding on is just forms and feelings and perceptions and thought constructs … 
  19. Four Bases of Success
     … Mental fabrication has to do with perceptions and feelings. Perceptions are the images by which the mind communicates with itself, either with pictures or with single words, assigning meanings to things so that you can recognize what they are. And feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. These things all respond to your intentions, and they have an impact … 
  20. A Passion for the Path
     … They may be old things that you feel nostalgia for, old things that you feel that you can’t imagine how you can live without. But if they’re weighing you down, they’re unnecessary, because the mind doesn’t need to be weighed down. That’s something that’s hard for us to think about. We may have a sense that our minds … 
  21. Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!
     … The leper sits there and takes a stick, heats it in the fire and then, when the stick is nice and hot, cauterizes his wounds with the stick because it feels good. Why does it feel good? Because as the Buddha said, his perceptions are skewed. If he were actually cured of leprosy, would he take a stick, put it in the fire, and … 
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