Search results for: "Greed"

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  2. Who’s in Charge Here?
     … Laugh at your greed. Laugh at your aversion. Laugh at your delusion. See how foolish they are. In the Canon, most of the humor is in the Vinaya, which is the section on disciplinary rules. You wouldn’t think with discipline that there’d be a lot of humor, but this is how they make discipline palatable. Like the story about the monk who … 
  3. When You Don’t Like Your Selves
    There are times when events elicit a very strong sense of self that comes out, sometimes with a lot of greed, a lot of lust, a lot of anger. Afterwards, we regret what we did under the influence of that sense of self. It’s all too easy to say, “The big problem in my life is my sense of self. What can I … 
  4. From Inconstancy to Dispassion
     … In other words, a particular defilement comes up—say, greed comes up, or anger comes up, or a particularly bad habit you have comes up: You want to see, when it comes, why is there the urge to follow through with it? What sparks the urge? What do you like about this? We’re so protective of our defilements. People come up with all … 
  5. Values of the Noble Ones
     … They encourage greed, they encourage anger, they encourage delusion. That’s true not only here but everywhere. Whereas people who are trying to get rid of their greed, aversion, and delusion are going against the stream. So you’ve got to have some inner strength. This is why we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. The word for refuge in … 
  6. Fangs in the Static
     … Let’s look inside and see what’s actually there.” In other words, you’re training the mind how not to fool itself, or not to be fooled by its greed, aversion, and delusion. You learn how to see the tricks of greed, aversion, and delusion—how they make you think that something’s going to be really good when it’s not, or … 
  7. Factions in the Mind
     … Ordinarily, when the factions of greed, anger, and delusion take over the mind, they kick out the mindfulness and alertness; they don’t want anybody around watching. It’s like politicians when they’re discussing a corrupt deal: They don’t want journalists in the room; they don’t want anybody to see or hear what they’re doing. You notice this when part … 
  8. Persistence
     … Anything that comes out of the mind based on greed, aversion, or delusion is going to be unskillful. Anything based on absence of greed, aversion, or delusion will be skillful. That means with your effort you have to notice when something comes up in the mind, where is it coming from? Then you have to decide what to do. The realization that you have … 
  9. Analyzing Anger
     … anger, lust, greed, delusion. Delusion’s the hardest to see because it’s kind of muddy. You work first with your desires and your angers because you can see them a lot more clearly. You want to see what sparks them. Sometimes with lust it’s just a little tiny thing that you wouldn’t expect. But there it is: an assumption that has … 
  10. Mental Seclusion
     … Then, he says, put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Any issues that relate to the world as they come up—things you’re happy about, things you’re not happy about—just put them aside for the time being. Years back, when I was in Thailand, there was a woman who came to meditate at the monastery. She was going … 
  11. Becoming Consummate
     … So if you’re clear on the fact that if you speak out of greed or anger or delusion, it’s going to cause trouble, then you just don’t speak. If, when you act out of greed or anger or delusion it’s going to cause trouble, you don’t act. Which means that you may have to wait for a while, but … 
  12. Kindfulness
     … We’re working to overcome greed, anger, and delusion in the mind. We’re learning to make ourselves more self-reliant—which means that other people will be less subject to our greed, anger, and delusion, and we’ll have to lean on them less. As we develop mindfulness, concentration, discernment, compassion, these things can’t help but spill over into the way we … 
  13. Fabricating against Defilement
     … This knowledge comes at the very end of the path after you’ve gotten rid of greed, anger, and delusion, so that you can see these things as they actually arise. If greed, anger, and delusion are still arising, you can’t see things as they’ve come to be, because you’ve already jumped in and have gotten involved in creating a state … 
  14. Solidly Here
     … Greed may be coming up and you don’t recognize it as greed—at least in the very beginning. After a while, it begins to grow and then you start realizing, “Oh, I’ve got a problem here.” The same with anger: Sometimes it starts as a minor irritation, and then you find it building. Delusion is hard to see. The best way to … 
  15. The Four Precepts
     … When you don’t act on greed, anger, and delusion, other people are not subject to your greed, anger, and delusion. So they benefit as well. As you work on the practice, you find that your ability to develop a happiness inside that places less and less and less of a burden on other people gets more and more refined. So ultimately you find … 
  16. Intent
    One of the phrases we chanted just now, “keeping focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world”: This is a formula for how you get into concentration. And underlying it is a very important quality for succeeding in concentration, which is intent. You want to be totally intent on what you … 
  17. Kill Your Anger
     … There are three—greed, aversion, delusion—but there are no clear lines among the three. In particular, greed and aversion owe an awful lot to delusion. This is particularly true in the case of aversion or anger. We may see something very clearly when we’re angry, but we don’t see the whole picture. It’s like trying to look at a landscape … 
  18. Filling in the Buddha’s Outline
     … Across the board, the Buddha says no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no harsh speech, no divisive speech, no idle chatter; trying to avoid greed that goes out of bounds—of course, that raises the question, “What are the bounds?” The bounds start with any greed that would require that you do things that are against the precepts in order to … 
  19. Papañca
     … It brings you back to the present moment in a way that makes you want to take apart that sense of “what you are,” “who you’ve been,” “who you will be.” This is why the Buddha recommends just focusing on the body in and of itself and putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world, because as soon as you start … 
  20. Appreciating Goodness
     … You realize that you’re not a slave to your greed. You have something that you could use yourself, but you say, “No, I’d rather give it to somebody else.” You begin to realize there are gradations of well-being, gradations of happiness in the world. There’s the pleasure that comes from consuming something, but there’s a greater pleasure that comes … 
  21. Dedicating Goodness, Spreading Goodwill
     … And as for the people you choose to give to, the Buddha says the most skillful recipients to look for are people who are free of greed, aversion, and delusion, or people who are practicing trying to get rid of greed, aversion, and delusion, because they’ll probably make the best use of the gift. And as for the recipients, the Buddha said that … 
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