Search results for: "Greed"
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- Generosity First… You’re sitting here trying to understand your greed, anger, and delusion, trying to bring them under control — which means that you’re not the only person who’s going to benefit from the meditation. Other people will benefit — are benefiting — as well. As you become more mindful, more alert, more skillful in undercutting the hindrances in your mind, other people are less subject …
- The Desire to Be Free from Desire… As for unskillful qualities based on greed, aversion, and delusion, you see that if you follow them they take you in a direction you don’t want to go. So if they’re there, you want to abandon them. If they’re not there, you want to prevent them from arising. So desire is an important part of the path. And this faculty of …
- Protection for the Holidays… Desire comes up, greed comes up, and in the context of family, okay, that’s a good thing. After all, this is the holiday for greed, the holiday for everybody to get together and get a little bit drunk and be friendly—as if being drunk and being friendly were two things that went together well. That’s on a blatant level, but there …
- The Goldsmith… It’s a pretty bad show—sometimes it’s a show of greed, a show of lust, a show of anger, a show of just wanting to wander around. Okay, watch the show. Whether it’s a good show or a bad show, you watch it. And at some point, it’ll reveal itself: This is why it’s upset or this is why …
- Effortlessness Through Effort… You can’t just say, “I’m attracted to this thought because of greed, or because of anger, or because of my sense of self.” You have lots of different greeds, lots of different angers, lots of different senses of self, and you have to learn how to sort out which are the ones that are coming into play right now. So you try …
- The Flow of Time… The part of the mind that pushes for greed, aversion, and delusion knows how to squeeze the breath and to make you feel that you’ve got to give in. So you’ve got to learn how to undo the squeeze. Work on breathing in a way that feels spacious, that feels soothing to the body, strengthening to the body, calming you when you …
- Admirable Intentions… The formula for mindfulness is keeping track of “the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” That’s a formula for getting the mind into concentration. There are two activities there that you’re focused on. The first is keeping track of the body in & of itself. In this case, it’s …
- Stop Weaving… In other words, greed, anger, and delusion arise in your mind as a result of either an experience of pleasure or an experience of pain, but you can decide to not act on them. That takes restraint. And often with restraint, we feel a kind of pressure: “You’ve got to act on this.” The restraint is pushing against your impulse to act, which …
- Fear of the Truth… And yet greed, anger, and delusion, all the unskillful emotions, manage to break through the walls, to seep through the cracks. Like tree roots, they work their way through the walls, and then bring them down—these roots of what’s unskillful in the mind. So rather than expending a lot of energy in a useless way, try to devote your energy to building …
- How to Straighten Out the World… Because they’re doing this out of ignorance, there’s usually greed and aversion involved in their ways of deciding how they want to straighten out the world. They often end up just inflicting other people with their greed, aversion, and delusion. That’s not really helpful. What’s really helpful to others is that you straighten out the greed, aversion, and delusion in …
- Fires of the Mind… burning with the fires of greed, anger, and delusion; or the fires of passion, aversion, and delusion. One of the reasons we’re here is because we feel that our minds are on fire and we’d like to put them out—because passion is like a fire. Aversion is like a fire. Delusion is a little bit harder to compare with a fire …
- Large-hearted Equanimity… When I was in France, there were people who asked, “If the Buddha really had goodwill for the world, why didn’t he keep coming back?” The answer is that he wanted to teach by example, that by straightening out your mind so that you’re not giving in to greed, aversion, and delusion, you’re not causing any suffering to anybody. That’s …
- Defilements… There’s greed, aversion, and delusion, and they work themselves out into all kinds of other things. There’s spite and malice and hypocrisy and envy. I can’t remember the whole list: about fifteen all together, what they call the upakkilesas. But you notice these things best if you have the mind in concentration and you try to maintain that sense of center …
- Sticking with an Intention… If a thought of greed, anger, or delusion comes in, you’ll be able to sense it and to see what it does because you’re more sensitive to what’s going on here. Insights may come up, but you don’t have to memorize them. Ajaan Fuang once said that if an insight is really valuable you don’t have to take note …
- Question Your Actions… When greed comes, you want to know: “What am I doing? Why am I going for the greed? What’s attractive about it? Even though I don’t want to be a slave to my things, why do I keep trying to get more things?” Or anger: We can all see the drawbacks to anger, yet there’s part of the mind that wants …
- The Values of Stillness… This defilement has that trick.” And bit by bit, learning how to fend these things off, you gain insight into what the Buddha calls subduing greed and distress with reference to the world. It’s an important part of mindfulness practice, a part that’s often overlooked: learning how to fend off the things that are going to come in and chew up your …
- Anchored in the Present… It’s part of the formula, “keeping focused on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” The breath, of course, is an aspect of the body in and of itself. The activity of staying focused on the breath contains the activity of attention. The act of attention to the breath, the …
- Protective Meditations… If the needs of the body lead you to feel greed, remind yourself of what the Buddha had to say about sharing: Even if it were your last meal, if there was somebody there to share something with, he’d say go ahead and share. The power of generosity is that strong. Then finally, recollection of death: This also counteracts greed, with the thought …
- Restraint… Who’s doing the gobbling? When you’re looking at something, what’s the purpose? Is the purpose in your best interest, or is it in the interest of greed, aversion, and delusion? If it’s the latter case, then you’re not really the one looking. Greed is looking. Anger’s looking. Delusion is looking. The more they take charge of the looking …
- Smart vs. Wise… It’s so easy when greed or laziness whisper in your ears, it’s so easy when anger whispers in the ears, whispers in your heart, for you to identify with the voice and say, “Ah, Yes. This is what I really feel, what I really believe.” But where do those attitudes take you? Where has greed gotten the world? Where has anger gotten …
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