Search results for: "Feeling"

  1. Page 94
  2. Our Sense of Self
     … This is why when the Buddha talks about not-self, we feel threatened. It’s as if he’s trying to take something away from us, deprive us of our strategies. But that’s not the case. He’s actually providing us with new and better strategies. On the one hand, he tries to expand our sense of what kind of happiness is possible … 
  3. A Legacy of Strengths
     … You ask yourself, “Does the breath feel good? If not, what can I do to make it feel better?” You can change the rhythm of the breath or the texture of the breath. Or you can change the image you have in mind about what the breath is doing in the body. When we speak about “breath” here, it’s not so much the … 
  4. Strategies for Happiness
     … They feel that these teachings are going to deprive them of the strategies they use to find happiness. But these teachings are meant to protect you from suffering. They’re there to remind you that if you latch onto the body as yours in a really strong sense, you’re going to suffer. If you can see it as a tool that you use … 
  5. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … You don’t want to say things to hurt people’s feelings just for the sake of hurting their feelings. But there are times when you have to use strong language in order to make people take notice. So again, this is one of those areas where you have to use your discernment in that direction. Finally, there’s the principle against idle chatter … 
  6. Cutting Roads
     … When you keep that perception in mind—an energy center with energy flowing from that center in a way that feels good, feels nourishing—then you just learn how to maintain that perception. Over time, that perception will gain more and more staying power, because the breath gets infused with that association. You tend to associate that level of energy, that type of energy … 
  7. The Karma of Perception
     … When you’re feeling lightheaded, you can focus on the heavy, earth-like sensations in the body, to bring things into balance. When you’re feeling too warm or too cold, you can focus on whichever element will bring things back into balance. But earth can also get really heavy and oppressive, and water and fire can also get out of control sometimes. When … 
  8. Kamma & Rebirth
     … We do know when we feel suffering and we know when we feel relative ease, but that’s about as much as we know. As we grow up, there are people to explain things to us. This is where human beings have an advantage over animals. There’s nobody to explain anything to a dog or a cat about how to live. There’s … 
  9. Every Little Bit
     … Once you get into position, and the mind settles down and feels good, you realize you don’t really want to get up again. This reflects a teaching the Buddha gave one time, which is that when the mind is in an unskillful state, just giving rise to a finger-snap of a skillful mind state has value. If the idea of trying to … 
  10. Discipline Is a Choice
     … How would it feel to go someplace new, try out something new, right now? Now, this desire to try something new is what got us on the path to freedom to begin with. But just because it got us here doesn’t mean that we have to follow it wherever it goes. Once we’re here, we have to realize that this is a … 
  11. Choices
     … In other words, you’re not here watching the breath, you’re here feeling the breath. You try to feel it all around you, because it is all around you. When it comes in, think of it coming in from all directions. It goes out, it goes out it goes out from all directions, and it runs around the body in all directions. Or … 
  12. Virtue & Right View
     … Then ask yourself, “What kind of breathing would feel good?” The long breathing is to air out the body, to make you sensitive to how the breathing feels, and to give you an anchor. Then, as you settle down a little bit more, you get more sensitive to what the body needs. Does it need to be energized right now? Okay, try long in … 
  13. Interdependence
     … I know a lot of people who feel a lot of anguish at this time because they don’t see any way out. They feel trapped. They’ve begun to realize that interdependence does trap you. If you don’t know the way out, it’ pretty scary. But the Buddha’s good news is that there is a way out. Still, we don’t … 
  14. Going Out of Your Way
     … The desire not to harm other people also requires that you think of their well-being, think of their feelings. But when you’re generous, it requires a more active involvement. You start thinking: What do I have that I can share? What do I have that I can do without that would please other people if I gave it to them? This doesn … 
  15. A Concentration Diet
     … When you’ve found something that feels good, stick with it. If it doesn’t feel so good anymore, you can change. Keep on top of the needs of the body. When you’re able to maintain a sense of well-being, then you can let it spread through the body. Think of the in-and-out breath connecting with the breath energies throughout … 
  16. Balanced Breathing
     … You have a sense of feeling at home as you work on following the path. So do your best to maintain this sense of being right here with the breath in the present moment, having a sense of its importance, having a sense of the importance of being more mindful and more alert, but also a sense of how important it is to feel … 
  17. The Quality of Your Awareness
     … You also try to quiet down the feelings and perceptions in the mind. In other words, figure out how you might conceive of the breath, how you might picture the breath to yourself, to allow it to become more quiet and to allow the mind to become quieter too. As things grow more quiet, then you begin to see that, at least in the … 
  18. Mindful Judgment
     … What kind of breathing feels good right now? What kind of breathing feels good over time? The longer you stay with the breath, the more you realize that there’s a lot going on in the breath. It’s not just air coming in and out through the nose, but there’s also a flow of energy that goes along with it. And the … 
  19. The Possibility of Letting Go
     … If you feel that you would be untrue to them, or disloyal to them if you decided to create a little more independence, that’s not the case at all. In fact, the less you’re feeding off a relationship, the better the relationship becomes—and the more you’re able to see it with clarity. So wherever you find that there’s something … 
  20. The End of Karma
     … Some people say, “What flow?” The fact that you have a sense of the body as you feel it from within: That’s the breath. Thinking of it as breath allows you to ask yourself, “Those places that are tense, tight, solid, blocked: Do they have to be that way?” This is why this is a useful perception, because it opens up possibilities for … 
  21. The Wisdom of Equanimity
     … Compassion is what goodwill feels when you see that people are suffering, or doing things that will lead to suffering. You want to help, if you can, overcome the suffering, or to help them stop doing the things that are going to lead to suffering. Empathetic joy is what goodwill feels when you see that people are happy or are doing things that would … 
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