Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. To Be Your Own Teacher
     … So the more you can become your own teacher, the better. The discernment that’s involved in becoming your own teacher is going to be essential for release. Discernment is not just a matter of seeing things in line with the texts; it’s a matter of learning how to watch your own mind, question your impulses, look at your intentional input into any … 
  3. Right Inner Speech
     … That becomes an element of your concentration. The perception that stays with the breath: That’s an element of concentration. Any acts of directed thought and evaluation, which are thought-fabrications, become part of your concentration as well. Everything is right here. These things that before were a cause of suffering when you clung to them, now can become the path. In this way … 
  4. Goodwill for Free
     … The story goes on that he becomes a Bodhisatta and eventually becomes our Buddha. Whether this really happened or not, I don’t know. But it does illustrate some interesting points, one of which is that our sense of goodwill for others, our sense of compassion for others, does come from a sense of right and wrong. The second being saw the one next … 
  5. Adjusting the Flame
     … Suffering is caused by the craving that leads to becoming, and one of the forms of craving that leads to becoming is craving for non-becoming—in other words, craving to destroy whatever types of becoming you’ve already got. So how do you free yourself from becoming without craving non-becoming? How are you going to get past that impasse? The Buddha’s … 
  6. Bases of Success
     … one of those things that’ll become true only if you want it to become true. That’s why the Buddha talks about the factors of success in the meditation—and he does talk about success. He’s not one of those people who says, “Well, there’s no such thing as a good meditation or a bad meditation. It’s all the same … 
  7. Admitting Mistakes
     … That’s what enabled him to become the Buddha, to become awakened. There’s no way you can learn unless you recognize a mistake for a mistake and resolve to make changes. The people who do some of the most damage in the world are those who don’t see the error of their own ways or who think that admitting a mistake as … 
  8. A Rite of Passage
    Ancient cultures used to have rites of passage, a point marking where you become an adult. You go out, leave the village, leave your home, into the wilderness for a while. Different cultures would have different ways of dealing with a rite of passage, but it did give the individual a time to get out. And for many people, this was their first time … 
  9. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … The issue is your own behavior, because that becomes your karma. If other people misbehave and you misbehave in response, then that misbehavior becomes yours. If they think you’re weak, then they know nothing of the Dhamma”—because you have to remember that qualities like goodwill, patience, equanimity, and kindness are forms of strength. There’s that story where Lady Vedehika is famous … 
  10. The Safety of Jhana
     … That’s how you go beyond the dichotomy between being attached to becoming and being attached to non-becoming. This is one of the ways in which you use pleasure. And it’s an important way. This is the way to use the pleasure of concentration to go to even higher a happiness. The Buddha once talked about the happiness of nibbana, and some … 
  11. Maintenance Work
     … Otherwise, just thinking about the breath becomes just one more place for to travel to. The sticking with it is what makes a difference. A lot of meditation is maintenance work, maintaining your intention to stick with the breath. It’s like the monastery here. Not that much construction work goes on, but a lot of maintenance work does: sweeping every day, cleaning every … 
  12. Right Learning
     … The important thing is that the breath not become a chore. If breathing becomes a chore, that simply makes life that much heavier. The breath can be something you enjoy playing with. It can become your sport. Then you have something to play with all the time. At the same time, you start learning more and more about this process of karma, exactly how … 
  13. The Message of Mindfulness
     … The mind and the breath become one. Your awareness fills the body. The breath fills the body. At that point, you can drop the verbal fabrication. But this doesn’t mean you drop mindfulness. At that stage, mindfulness becomes a perception. It simply uses perceptions as its means to remind you of what to do. You may have a mental image of the breath … 
  14. Skillful Papañca
     … You have to ask yourself, where are they leading you? Do you want to identify with those goals? When you take on a particular desire, what kind of person are you becoming? And what kind of person will you become if you get the desire, get the thing you want? How does that compare to being someone who’s actually found what the Buddha … 
  15. Brahmaviharas on the Path
     … It becomes a way of contemplating what you understand about happiness and the causes for happiness, so that you can dig up any unskillful or poorly thought-out ideas about happiness that come to light. Then it becomes easier and easier just to think, “May all beings be happy,” and there’s no conflict, there’s no problem inside. Don’t pretend that there … 
  16. Strength from Within
     … The craving that leads to suffering is specifically three kinds—for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming—but the desire to do well on the path is not part of the cause of suffering. It’s part of the path. So you try to nurture that desire, give rise to it, and nourish to keep it strong. Again, one of the customs of … 
  17. Insight from Developing Concentration
     … This is priming you to see the processes that can lead to becoming simply as processes. As you maintain this perception of the breath, it’ll lead to a state of becoming—a skillful one: concentration. You’re inhabiting the body. There’s a sense of you in here in the world of the body. But you’re doing this in such a way … 
  18. Normalcy
     … We become one with the tree so that the tree can take over. We become one with the wall so that the wall can take over. We want to blot out our experience of who we are and who we’ve been. Or we push ourselves into extremes with the idea if we just push a little bit harder, we’ll get over the … 
  19. Instructions for a New Monk
     … Then learning how to see one of these effluents, becoming, and learning how to abandon it gets rid of ignorance takes you to full awakening. Becoming is basically your sense of identity in a world of experience, which can either be here in this human world on the macro scale, or in the worlds of the mind on a micro scale. You can see … 
  20. Agreements to Perceive
     … The breath becomes more important, your sense of stillness becomes more important, and the thoughts get pushed down to a lower level. Instead of being something to explore and take on as a new world, a thought becomes simply an event that you have to watch out for. When you can change your priorities like this, change your inner agreements like this, it has … 
  21. Compunction
     … These become your perfections. They become your treasures. They become your protection. These are the good qualities you build in the mind. They don’t go anywhere else. They stay with the mind. And that’s the paradox, that the goodness you leave behind in the world is the goodness that goes with you. The goodness that you try to grab to yourself—in … 
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