carecodeconnect/jhana-sentences · Datasets at Hugging Face

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You might call it a flavor or texture.
Whatever you call it, that unsettled feeling is there as a definable characteristic.
Once you have spotted it, note how much of it is present.
Watch how long it lasts, and see when it fades away.
Doubt Doubt has its own distinct feeling in consciousness.
The Pali texts describe it very nicely.
Which road should he take There is no way to tell.
So he just stands there vacillating.
One of the common forms this takes in meditation is an inner dialogue something like this What am doing just sitting like this Am really getting anything out of this at all
Another of the minds little smoke screens to keep you from actually becoming aware of what is happening.
See when it comes and how long it lasts.
Then watch it fade away, and go back to the breathing.
This is the general pattern you will use on any distraction that arises.
By distraction, remember we mean any mental state that arises to impede your meditation.
It is useful to list some of the possibilities.
The negative states are pretty easy to spot insecurity, fear, anger, depression, irritation, and frustration.
Craving and desire are a bit more difficult to spot because they can apply to things we normally regard as virtuous or noble.
You can experience the desire to perfect yourself.
You can feel craving for greater virtue.
You can even develop an attachment to the bliss of the meditation experience itself.
It is a bit hard to detach yourself from such noble feelings.
It is a desire for gratification and a clever way of ignoring the present-moment reality.
Trickiest of all, however, are those really positive mental states that come creeping into your meditation.
These mental states are so sweet and so benevolent that you can scarcely bear to pry yourself loose from them.
It makes you feel like a traitor to humanity.
We are not advising you to reject these states of mind or to become heartless robots.
We merely want you to see them for what they are.
They arise, and they pass away.
As you continue your meditation, these states will arise more often.
The trick is not to become attached to them.
Just see each one as it comes up.
See what it is, how strong it is, and how long it lasts.
It is all just more of the passing show of your own mental universe.
Just as breathing comes in stages, so do the mental states.
Every breath has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Every mental state has a birth, a growth, and a decay.
You should strive to see these stages clearly.
This is no easy thing to do, however.
As we have already noted, every thought and sensation begins first in the unconscious region of the mind and only later rises to consciousness.
We generally become aware of such things only after they have arisen in the conscious realm and stayed there for some time.
Indeed we usually become aware of distractions only when they have released their hold on us and are already on their way out.
It is at this point that we are struck with that sudden realization that we have been somewhere, daydreaming, fantasizing, or whatever.
We may call this phenomenon catching the lion by his tail, and it is an unskillful thing to do.
Like confronting a dangerous beast, we must approach mental states head on.
Patiently, we will learn to recognize them as they arise from progressively deeper levels of our conscious mind.
Since mental states arise first in the unconscious, to catch the arising of the mental state, youve got to extend your awareness down into this unconscious area.
That is difficult, because you cant see what is going on down there, at least not in the same way you see a conscious thought.
But you can learn to get a vague sense of movement and to operate by a sort of mental sense of touch.
This comes with practice, and the ability is another of the effects of the deep calm of concentration.
Concentration slows down the arising of these mental states and gives you time to feel each one arising out of the unconscious even before you see it in consciousness.
Concentration helps you to extend your awareness down into that boiling darkness where thought and sensation begin.
As your concentration deepens, you gain the ability to see thoughts and sensations arising slowly, like separate bubbles, each distinct and with spaces between them.
They bubble up in slow motion out of the unconscious.
They stay a while in the conscious mind, and then they drift away.
It is very easy to overreach the sensation.
That is, to add something to it above and beyond what is really there.
It is equally easy to fall short of sensation, to get part of it but not all.
The ideal that you are striving for is to experience each mental state fully, exactly the way it is, adding nothing to it and not missing any part of it.
Let us use pain in the leg as an example.
What is actually there is a pure, flowing sensation.
It changes constantly, never the same from one moment to the next.
It moves from one location to another, and its intensity surges up and down.
pure unobstructed awareness of this event will experience it simply as a flowing pattern of energy and nothing more.
Early on in our practice of meditation, we need to rethink our underlying assumptions regarding conceptualization.
For most of us, we have earned high marks in school and in life for our ability to manipulate mental phenomena, or concepts, logically.
Our careers, much of our success in everyday life, our happy relationships, we view as largely the result of our successful manipulation of concepts.
In developing mindfulness, however, we temporarily suspend the conceptualization process and focus on the pure nature of mental phenomena.
During meditation we are seeking to experience the mind at the preconceptual level.
But the human mind conceptualizes such occurrences as pain.
You find yourself thinking of it as the pain.
It is a label, something added to the sensation itself.
You find yourself building a mental image, a picture of the pain, seeing it as a shape.
You may see a diagram of the leg with the pain outlined in some lovely color.
This is very creative and terribly entertaining but not what we want.
Those are concepts tacked on to the living reality.
Most likely, you will probably find yourself thinking have a pain in my leg.
It is something extra added to the pure experience.
When you introduce into the process, you are building a conceptual gap between the reality and the awareness viewing that reality.
Thoughts such as me, my, or mine have no place in direct awareness.
When you bring me into the picture, you are identifying with the pain.
That simply adds emphasis to it.
If you leave out of the operation, pain is not painful.
If you find insinuating itself in your experience of pain or indeed any other sensation, then just observe that mindfully.
You want to really see each sensation, whether it is pain, bliss, or boredom.
You want to experience that thing fully in its natural and unadulterated form.
Your timing has to be precise.
Your awareness of each sensation must coordinate exactly with the arising of that sensation.
If you catch it just a bit too late, you miss the beginning.
You wont get all of it.
If you hang on to any sensation past the time when it has faded away, then what you are holding onto is a memory.
The thing itself is gone, and by holding onto that memory, you miss the arising of the next sensation.
Youve got to cruise along right here in the present, picking things up and letting things drop with no delays whatsoever.
It takes a very light touch.
The human mind seeks to conceptualize phenomena, and it has developed a host of clever ways to do so.
Every simple sensation will trigger a burst of conceptual thinking if you give the mind its way.
Let us take hearing, for example.
You are sitting in meditation and somebody in the next room drops a dish.
Instantly you see a picture of that other room.
You probably see a person dropping a dish, too.
If this is a familiar environment, say your own home, you probably will have a -technicolor mind movie of who did the dropping and which dish was dropped.

You might call it a flavor or texture.

Whatever you call it, that unsettled feeling is there as a definable characteristic.

Once you have spotted it, note how much of it is present.

Watch how long it lasts, and see when it fades away.

Doubt Doubt has its own distinct feeling in consciousness.

The Pali texts describe it very nicely.

Which road should he take There is no way to tell.

So he just stands there vacillating.

One of the common forms this takes in meditation is an inner dialogue something like this What am doing just sitting like this Am really getting anything out of this at all

Another of the minds little smoke screens to keep you from actually becoming aware of what is happening.

See when it comes and how long it lasts.

Then watch it fade away, and go back to the breathing.

This is the general pattern you will use on any distraction that arises.

By distraction, remember we mean any mental state that arises to impede your meditation.

It is useful to list some of the possibilities.

The negative states are pretty easy to spot insecurity, fear, anger, depression, irritation, and frustration.

Craving and desire are a bit more difficult to spot because they can apply to things we normally regard as virtuous or noble.

You can experience the desire to perfect yourself.

You can feel craving for greater virtue.

You can even develop an attachment to the bliss of the meditation experience itself.

It is a bit hard to detach yourself from such noble feelings.

It is a desire for gratification and a clever way of ignoring the present-moment reality.

Trickiest of all, however, are those really positive mental states that come creeping into your meditation.

These mental states are so sweet and so benevolent that you can scarcely bear to pry yourself loose from them.

It makes you feel like a traitor to humanity.

We are not advising you to reject these states of mind or to become heartless robots.

We merely want you to see them for what they are.

They arise, and they pass away.

As you continue your meditation, these states will arise more often.

The trick is not to become attached to them.

Just see each one as it comes up.

See what it is, how strong it is, and how long it lasts.

It is all just more of the passing show of your own mental universe.

Just as breathing comes in stages, so do the mental states.

Every breath has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Every mental state has a birth, a growth, and a decay.

You should strive to see these stages clearly.

This is no easy thing to do, however.

As we have already noted, every thought and sensation begins first in the unconscious region of the mind and only later rises to consciousness.

We generally become aware of such things only after they have arisen in the conscious realm and stayed there for some time.

Indeed we usually become aware of distractions only when they have released their hold on us and are already on their way out.

It is at this point that we are struck with that sudden realization that we have been somewhere, daydreaming, fantasizing, or whatever.

We may call this phenomenon catching the lion by his tail, and it is an unskillful thing to do.

Like confronting a dangerous beast, we must approach mental states head on.

Patiently, we will learn to recognize them as they arise from progressively deeper levels of our conscious mind.

Since mental states arise first in the unconscious, to catch the arising of the mental state, youve got to extend your awareness down into this unconscious area.

That is difficult, because you cant see what is going on down there, at least not in the same way you see a conscious thought.

But you can learn to get a vague sense of movement and to operate by a sort of mental sense of touch.

This comes with practice, and the ability is another of the effects of the deep calm of concentration.

Concentration slows down the arising of these mental states and gives you time to feel each one arising out of the unconscious even before you see it in consciousness.

Concentration helps you to extend your awareness down into that boiling darkness where thought and sensation begin.

As your concentration deepens, you gain the ability to see thoughts and sensations arising slowly, like separate bubbles, each distinct and with spaces between them.

They bubble up in slow motion out of the unconscious.

They stay a while in the conscious mind, and then they drift away.

It is very easy to overreach the sensation.

That is, to add something to it above and beyond what is really there.

It is equally easy to fall short of sensation, to get part of it but not all.

The ideal that you are striving for is to experience each mental state fully, exactly the way it is, adding nothing to it and not missing any part of it.

Let us use pain in the leg as an example.

What is actually there is a pure, flowing sensation.

It changes constantly, never the same from one moment to the next.

It moves from one location to another, and its intensity surges up and down.

pure unobstructed awareness of this event will experience it simply as a flowing pattern of energy and nothing more.

Early on in our practice of meditation, we need to rethink our underlying assumptions regarding conceptualization.

For most of us, we have earned high marks in school and in life for our ability to manipulate mental phenomena, or concepts, logically.

Our careers, much of our success in everyday life, our happy relationships, we view as largely the result of our successful manipulation of concepts.

In developing mindfulness, however, we temporarily suspend the conceptualization process and focus on the pure nature of mental phenomena.

During meditation we are seeking to experience the mind at the preconceptual level.

But the human mind conceptualizes such occurrences as pain.

You find yourself thinking of it as the pain.

It is a label, something added to the sensation itself.

You find yourself building a mental image, a picture of the pain, seeing it as a shape.

You may see a diagram of the leg with the pain outlined in some lovely color.

This is very creative and terribly entertaining but not what we want.

Those are concepts tacked on to the living reality.

Most likely, you will probably find yourself thinking have a pain in my leg.

It is something extra added to the pure experience.

When you introduce into the process, you are building a conceptual gap between the reality and the awareness viewing that reality.

Thoughts such as me, my, or mine have no place in direct awareness.

When you bring me into the picture, you are identifying with the pain.

That simply adds emphasis to it.

If you leave out of the operation, pain is not painful.

If you find insinuating itself in your experience of pain or indeed any other sensation, then just observe that mindfully.

You want to really see each sensation, whether it is pain, bliss, or boredom.

You want to experience that thing fully in its natural and unadulterated form.

Your timing has to be precise.

Your awareness of each sensation must coordinate exactly with the arising of that sensation.

If you catch it just a bit too late, you miss the beginning.

You wont get all of it.

If you hang on to any sensation past the time when it has faded away, then what you are holding onto is a memory.

The thing itself is gone, and by holding onto that memory, you miss the arising of the next sensation.

Youve got to cruise along right here in the present, picking things up and letting things drop with no delays whatsoever.

It takes a very light touch.

The human mind seeks to conceptualize phenomena, and it has developed a host of clever ways to do so.

Every simple sensation will trigger a burst of conceptual thinking if you give the mind its way.

Let us take hearing, for example.

You are sitting in meditation and somebody in the next room drops a dish.

Instantly you see a picture of that other room.

You probably see a person dropping a dish, too.

If this is a familiar environment, say your own home, you probably will have a -technicolor mind movie of who did the dropping and which dish was dropped.