carecodeconnect/jhana-sentences · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 19 10.8k
Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you dont really have or avoid feelings that you do have.
If you are miserable you are miserable that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that.
Look it square in the eye without flinching.
When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics.
The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built.
You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece.
The trap cant trap you if it has been taken to pieces.
This point is essential, but it is one of the least understood aspects of Buddhist philosophy.
Those who have studied Buddhism superficially are quick to conclude that it is pessimistic, always harping on unpleasant things like suffering, always urging us to confront the uncomfortable realities of pain, death, and illness.
Buddhist thinkers do not regard themselves as pessimistsquite the opposite, actually.
Pain exists in the universe some measure of it is unavoidable.
How would you deal with the death of your spouse How would you feel if you lost your mother tomorrow Or your sister or your closest friend Suppose you lost your job, your savings, and the use of your legs, all on the same day could you face the prospect of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair How are you going to cope with the pain of terminal cancer if you contract it, and how will you deal with your own death when that approaches You may escape most of these misfortunes, but you wont escape all of them.
Most of us lose friends and relatives at some time during our lives all of us get sick now and then and all of us will die someday.
You can suffer through things like that or you can face them openlythe choice is yours.
If any of these tragedies strike you in your present state of mind, you will suffer.
The habit patterns that presently control your mind will lock you into that suffering, and there will be no escape.
bit of time spent in learning alternatives to those habit patterns is time well invested.
Most human beings spend all their energies devising ways to increase their pleasure and decrease their pain.
Buddhism does not advise that you cease this activity altogether.
Pain should be avoided whenever possible.
Nobody is telling you to give away every possession or seek out needless pain, but Buddhism does advise you to invest time and energy in learning to deal with unpleasantness, because some pain is unavoidable.
When you see a truck bearing down on you, by all means jump out of the way.
Learning to deal with discomfort is the only way youll be ready to handle the truck you didnt see.
Problems will arise in your practice.
All of them can be confronted and each has its own specific response.
All of them are opportunities to free yourself.
Nobody likes pain, yet everybody has some at one time or another.
It is one of lifes most common experiences and is bound to arise in your meditation in one form or another.
Then, if some pain lingers, use it as an object of meditation.
In this case, employ standard medical treatments before you sit down to meditate take your medicine, apply your liniment, do whatever you ordinarily would do.
Then there are certain pains that are specific to the seated posture.
If you never spend much time sitting cross-legged on the floor, there will be an adjustment period.
According to where the pain is, there are specific remedies.
If the pain is in the leg or knees, check your pants.
If they are tight or made of thick material, that could be the problem.
It should be about three inches in height when compressed.
If the pain is around your waist, try loosening your belt.
Loosen the waistband of your pants if that is necessary.
If you experience pain in your lower back, your posture is probably at fault.
Slouching will never be comfortable, so straighten up.
Pain in the neck or upper back has several sources.
Your hands should be resting comfortably in your lap.
Dont let your head droop forward.
After you have made all these various adjustments, you may find you still have some lingering pain.
If that is the case, try step two.
Make the pain your object of meditation.
When the pain becomes demanding, you will find it pulling your attention off the breath.
Just let your attention slide easily over onto the simple sensation.
Get beyond your avoiding reaction and go into the pure sensations that lie below that.
You will discover that there are two things present.
The physical part consists of tensing the muscles in and around the painful area.
This step alone will probably diminish the pain significantly.
Just as you are tensing physically, you are also tensing psychologically.
You are clamping down mentally on the sensation of pain, trying to screen it off and reject it from consciousness.
The rejection is a wordless dont like this feeling or go away attitude.
But it is there, and you can find it if you really look.
The best way to get a handle on it is by analogy.
Examine what you did to those tight muscles and transfer that same action over to the mental sphere relax the mind in the same way that you relax the body.
Buddhism recognizes that body and mind are tightly linked.
This is so true that many people will not see this as a two-step procedure.
For them to relax the body is to relax the mind and vice versa.
These people will experience the entire relaxation, mental and physical, as a single process.
In any case, just let go completely until your awareness slows down past that barrier of resistance and relaxes into the pure flowing sensation beneath.
The resistance was a barrier that you yourself erected.
You slow down into that sea of surging sensation, and you merge with the pain.
You watch its ebb and flow and something surprising happens.
Only the pain remains, an experience, nothing more.
The me who was being hurt has gone.
In the beginning, you can expect to succeed with small pains and be defeated by big ones.
Like most of our skills, it grows with practice.
The more you practice, the more pain you can handle.
Please understand fully There is no masochism being advocated here.
If the pain becomes excruciating, go ahead and move, but move slowly and mindfully.
See how it feels to move.
Watch what it does to the pain.
The less you move, the easier it is to remain fully mindful.
New meditators sometimes say they have trouble remaining mindful when pain is present.
This difficulty stems from a misunderstanding.
These students are conceiving mindfulness as something distinct from the experience of pain.
It always has some object, and one object is as good as another.
The rules we covered in chapter apply to pain just as they apply to any other mental state.
You must be careful not to reach beyond the sensation and not to fall short of it.
And keep your awareness right in the present time, right with the pain, so that you wont miss its beginning or its end.
Pain not viewed in the clear light of mindfulness gives rise to emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, or anger.
If it is properly viewed, we have no such reaction.
Once you have learned this technique with physical pain, you can then generalize it to the rest of your life.
You can use it on any unpleasant sensation.
What works on pain will work on anxiety or chronic depression as well.
It is very common for beginners to have their legs fall asleep or go numb during meditation.
Some people get very anxious about this.
They feel they must get up and move around.
few are completely convinced that they will get gangrene from lack of circulation.
Numbness in the leg is nothing to worry about.
It is caused by nerve pinch, not by lack of circulation.
You cant damage the tissues of your legs by sitting.
When your legs fall asleep in meditation, just mindfully observe the phenomenon.
It may be sort of uncomfortable, but it is not painful unless you tense up.
It does not matter if your legs go numb and stay that way for the whole period.
After you have meditated for some time, that numbness will gradually disappear.
Your body simply adjusts to daily practice.

Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you dont really have or avoid feelings that you do have.

If you are miserable you are miserable that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that.

Look it square in the eye without flinching.

When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics.

The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built.

You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece.

The trap cant trap you if it has been taken to pieces.

This point is essential, but it is one of the least understood aspects of Buddhist philosophy.

Those who have studied Buddhism superficially are quick to conclude that it is pessimistic, always harping on unpleasant things like suffering, always urging us to confront the uncomfortable realities of pain, death, and illness.

Buddhist thinkers do not regard themselves as pessimistsquite the opposite, actually.

Pain exists in the universe some measure of it is unavoidable.

How would you deal with the death of your spouse How would you feel if you lost your mother tomorrow Or your sister or your closest friend Suppose you lost your job, your savings, and the use of your legs, all on the same day could you face the prospect of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair How are you going to cope with the pain of terminal cancer if you contract it, and how will you deal with your own death when that approaches You may escape most of these misfortunes, but you wont escape all of them.

Most of us lose friends and relatives at some time during our lives all of us get sick now and then and all of us will die someday.

You can suffer through things like that or you can face them openlythe choice is yours.

If any of these tragedies strike you in your present state of mind, you will suffer.

The habit patterns that presently control your mind will lock you into that suffering, and there will be no escape.

bit of time spent in learning alternatives to those habit patterns is time well invested.

Most human beings spend all their energies devising ways to increase their pleasure and decrease their pain.

Buddhism does not advise that you cease this activity altogether.

Pain should be avoided whenever possible.

Nobody is telling you to give away every possession or seek out needless pain, but Buddhism does advise you to invest time and energy in learning to deal with unpleasantness, because some pain is unavoidable.

When you see a truck bearing down on you, by all means jump out of the way.

Learning to deal with discomfort is the only way youll be ready to handle the truck you didnt see.

Problems will arise in your practice.

All of them can be confronted and each has its own specific response.

All of them are opportunities to free yourself.

Nobody likes pain, yet everybody has some at one time or another.

It is one of lifes most common experiences and is bound to arise in your meditation in one form or another.

Then, if some pain lingers, use it as an object of meditation.

In this case, employ standard medical treatments before you sit down to meditate take your medicine, apply your liniment, do whatever you ordinarily would do.

Then there are certain pains that are specific to the seated posture.

If you never spend much time sitting cross-legged on the floor, there will be an adjustment period.

According to where the pain is, there are specific remedies.

If the pain is in the leg or knees, check your pants.

If they are tight or made of thick material, that could be the problem.

It should be about three inches in height when compressed.

If the pain is around your waist, try loosening your belt.

Loosen the waistband of your pants if that is necessary.

If you experience pain in your lower back, your posture is probably at fault.

Slouching will never be comfortable, so straighten up.

Pain in the neck or upper back has several sources.

Your hands should be resting comfortably in your lap.

Dont let your head droop forward.

After you have made all these various adjustments, you may find you still have some lingering pain.

If that is the case, try step two.

Make the pain your object of meditation.

When the pain becomes demanding, you will find it pulling your attention off the breath.

Just let your attention slide easily over onto the simple sensation.

Get beyond your avoiding reaction and go into the pure sensations that lie below that.

You will discover that there are two things present.

The physical part consists of tensing the muscles in and around the painful area.

This step alone will probably diminish the pain significantly.

Just as you are tensing physically, you are also tensing psychologically.

You are clamping down mentally on the sensation of pain, trying to screen it off and reject it from consciousness.

The rejection is a wordless dont like this feeling or go away attitude.

But it is there, and you can find it if you really look.

The best way to get a handle on it is by analogy.

Examine what you did to those tight muscles and transfer that same action over to the mental sphere relax the mind in the same way that you relax the body.

Buddhism recognizes that body and mind are tightly linked.

This is so true that many people will not see this as a two-step procedure.

For them to relax the body is to relax the mind and vice versa.

These people will experience the entire relaxation, mental and physical, as a single process.

In any case, just let go completely until your awareness slows down past that barrier of resistance and relaxes into the pure flowing sensation beneath.

The resistance was a barrier that you yourself erected.

You slow down into that sea of surging sensation, and you merge with the pain.

You watch its ebb and flow and something surprising happens.

Only the pain remains, an experience, nothing more.

The me who was being hurt has gone.

In the beginning, you can expect to succeed with small pains and be defeated by big ones.

Like most of our skills, it grows with practice.

The more you practice, the more pain you can handle.

Please understand fully There is no masochism being advocated here.

If the pain becomes excruciating, go ahead and move, but move slowly and mindfully.

See how it feels to move.

Watch what it does to the pain.

The less you move, the easier it is to remain fully mindful.

New meditators sometimes say they have trouble remaining mindful when pain is present.

This difficulty stems from a misunderstanding.

These students are conceiving mindfulness as something distinct from the experience of pain.

It always has some object, and one object is as good as another.

The rules we covered in chapter apply to pain just as they apply to any other mental state.

You must be careful not to reach beyond the sensation and not to fall short of it.

And keep your awareness right in the present time, right with the pain, so that you wont miss its beginning or its end.

Pain not viewed in the clear light of mindfulness gives rise to emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, or anger.

If it is properly viewed, we have no such reaction.

Once you have learned this technique with physical pain, you can then generalize it to the rest of your life.

You can use it on any unpleasant sensation.

What works on pain will work on anxiety or chronic depression as well.

It is very common for beginners to have their legs fall asleep or go numb during meditation.

Some people get very anxious about this.

They feel they must get up and move around.

few are completely convinced that they will get gangrene from lack of circulation.

Numbness in the leg is nothing to worry about.

It is caused by nerve pinch, not by lack of circulation.

You cant damage the tissues of your legs by sitting.

When your legs fall asleep in meditation, just mindfully observe the phenomenon.

It may be sort of uncomfortable, but it is not painful unless you tense up.

It does not matter if your legs go numb and stay that way for the whole period.

After you have meditated for some time, that numbness will gradually disappear.

Your body simply adjusts to daily practice.