Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 100
  2. Delight & Beyond Delight
     … Then, as the path becomes more alluring, you can look back at the other habits you’ve had in the past and you’ll be more willing to see through their allure. The reason why we delight in them is because we don’t see anything better. But now you’ve got something better that you can focus on, that you can aim at … 
  3. From Darkness to Light
     … The cause, as the Buddha said, is the three kinds of craving that lead to becoming. Those have to be abandoned. But here again, we run into trouble because a lot of things we crave are the things we hold on to. We actually develop our cravings, we elaborate on them. Sensual craving is probably the most elaborate. We like to sit around thinking … 
  4. Investing Your Happiness
     … It becomes a lot less desperate. Of course there’s always the danger of complacency when you figure you can tap into the breath at any time, but if you can overcome that complacency, you begin to realize that this is an extremely useful state of mind — a very skillful way of approaching happiness, and a very skillful way of providing a foundation for … 
  5. Duties
     … As they become skills, you find that they do a better and better job of uprooting the causes of whatever suffering you’ve been experiencing, and getting you past the suffering. They’re good tasks, good skills to develop. No one’s forcing you, aside from the fact that there’s suffering breathing down your neck all the time if you don’t. But … 
  6. Purity Comes Through Discernment
     … They become your tools as you develop your powers of concentration. Otherwise, we can perceive things in ways that cause us a lot of anguish. Feelings rise up, and you grab hold of the pain, grab hold of the anguish, identify with it, so that your breathing and your directed thought and evaluation and your feelings and your perceptions are all contributing to suffering … 
  7. Patience & Consistency
     … How could this ever become a large fire? It’s hopeless. But if you abandon it, you really will be hopeless. That little tiny spark will have no chance at all. But if you cup your hands around it, protect it from the wind, it’ll grow a bit, it’ll grow a bit, and then as you’re patient with it, it’s … 
  8. Technique & Attitudes
     … The more still the mind becomes, the better you’re able to judge how your tactics are working. This is the test for everything as you meditate: How is it working? What kind of results are you getting? The more you get absorbed in the breath, then the less you consciously have to think about developing attitudes of goodwill or gratitude or respect, because … 
  9. Analyzing Anger
     … Dispassion sounds like gray oatmeal, but it is the way to open up as we grow up, become more mature inside. There’s a greater sense of freedom in the mind. So this is how the breath meditation connects to learning to understand your mind, to understand the processes of fabrication, so that you can do something about your lust, your anger, your jealousy … 
  10. Factors for Stream Entry
     … As the Buddha asked one time, “What are you becoming as day and nights fly past, fly past?” You want to listen to a Dhamma that would lead you to be able to give the Buddha a good answer to that question. Once you’ve learned the Dhamma, the next step is to figure out, “How do I use this to put an end … 
  11. Metta Means Goodwill
     … This way your goodwill becomes honest. And it actually does have an impact, which is why we develop this attitude to begin with: to make sure that it actually does animate our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. As the Buddha said, the development of goodwill is one of causes for true happiness, a happiness that’s good for everybody. And that kind of … 
  12. What You Can’t Change, What You Can
     … Where are these subtle movements? Where’s the movement of craving? Where’s the movement of ignorance? Can you detect when the level of stress in the mind is going up, when it goes down? The greater the sense of ease you can develop with the meditation, the more sensitive you become to these things. When the level of stress goes up in the … 
  13. Overcoming Delusion
     … This can actually become a major problem in the practice, especially when you start developing a sense of ease, concentration, spaciousness in the mind. You might get to a point where you say, “This is good enough,” or “This is as good as it can get.” You see this all over the place. People saying, “Well, if there’s any stress left in this … 
  14. Factors for Awakening
     … When you have a state of well-being like this, then subtler levels of tension or stress you may have missed before become more apparent. Those are the ones you want to look for. So once you’ve got the mind into concentration, use the concentration to foster further discernment. As the Buddha says, “Virtue and discernment”—and virtue here includes concentration—“are like … 
  15. Between You and Your Eyes
     … Be sensitive to that, so that each breath becomes your goal, in and of itself. And try to find the most delicious breath, the most comfortable breath, the most gratifying breath, not because you’re going to keep it and put away in storage, but because the process of looking for these things is what clears up your ignorance.
  16. The Buddha’s Good News
     … The Buddha teaches him, and he becomes a noble disciple. The Buddha looked for every opportunity to encourage people. So, yes, you can do this. As he said, if it were impossible to abandon unskillful qualities, he wouldn’t have taught it. If it were impossible to develop skillful qualities, he wouldn’t have taught that. But it’s because it’s possible, and … 
  17. Bodies & Minds Outside
     … This then becomes a very useful instruction in that it reminds you to compare what you’ve got with what other people have, and there are lots of different ways you can benefit from this kind of contemplation. For instance, with the body: You reflect that your body is made out of the four properties. And it’s the same with other people’s … 
  18. Training in Happiness
     … You realize okay, what should you do? What’s the most skillful thing to do right then? That way, your breath becomes your friend. And you learn to identify which voices in your mind are your true friends, as in the chant just now. You’ve got true friends inside and you’ve got false friends inside as well. The training lies in learning … 
  19. Recollection of Hell
     … Only when we bring that knowledge to the process can it become a path that really does lead away from stress and suffering, does really lead to security where there’s no more potential for any more stress. When the Buddha described those hells that can open up to us if we don’t reach that security, he said at the end of the … 
  20. Delight in Persistence
     … They’ve done studies about people who become really, really good at certain skills. In every case, those people have a very live sense of the advantages that come from mastering the skill, and the dangers that come from not. If you feel that “It doesn’t make much difference whether my mind is concentrated or not, whether I understand my mind or not … 
  21. Break Things Down
     … Separate things out like this, and the job becomes a lot easier. So when you tell yourself, “I’m bad,” remember that the Buddha said that kind of thinking is not helpful at all. When you tell yourself, “I’m good,” that’s not helpful, either. After all, if you were really good, you wouldn’t be suffering. Our problem is that we glom … 
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