Search results for: "Delusion"
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- Appreciation… When we meditate and lessen our greed, anger, and delusion, we learn how not to be overcome by our moods and emotions. We realize that we have tools to use so that the emotion is not just a given that we have to accept, but is instead something we can learn to work with. We learn how to reshape the present moment in a …
- Doing, Maintaining, Using… You begin to see where your personal issues are, which things spark your greed, which things spark your anger, which things are still surrounded by delusion. These things are easier to notice if you stay with the breath. For one thing, when anger begins to arise in the mind, it’s going to make a change in the breath. There will be a catch …
- Question Your Perceptions… That allows you to question the perceptions that give rise to greed, aversion, and delusion, and the perceptions that serve the purposes of greed, aversion, and delusion. As you call them into question, you find that you open up a lot of understanding inside. So perception is a good aggregate to focus on, because it’s key to a lot of our defilements. There …
- The Buddha’s Cost-Benefit Analysis… In other words, where in the mind do these thoughts come from? Where do these desires come from? What kinds of mind states? Imbued with passion, aversion, delusion, or free from those things? When you look at where these things are coming from, in philosophy they call that genealogy, in the same way that we talk about your genealogy in terms of where your …
- To Know the Noble Truths… The truth of suffering is to be comprehended, and comprehension means that you really understand it to the point where you have no more passion, aversion, and delusion around suffering. You might say, “I’m not passionate about my suffering,” but there’s a lot that we don’t understand about why we suffer. That’s what we’ve got to comprehend. The duty …
- A Victory that Matters… This is why the Buddha said that it’s better to focus on the battles inside, battles over your own defilements, greed, aversion, and delusion. Those are the battles that can be won, and when you win, you don’t create any bad kamma. As for whether the people outside will acknowledge your victory, that doesn’t really matter. In fact, as Ajaan Lee …
- Remorse… In other words, as long as we’re living under the power of delusion, then no matter how good things get, there’s always an under side. There’s always the possibility that everything will fall apart. No matter how much we understand about the Dhamma, there are times when we forget. Thinking in this way gives you the motivation to want to get …
- Head, Heart, & Gut… Actions based on greed, aversion, and delusion are going to cause suffering. Actions based on the lack of greed, lack of aversion, lack of delusion can lead away from suffering. That’s one of the basic principles of causality. In fact, causality is so central to the Buddha’s awakening that when he gave the very shortest description of what he awakened to, it …
- Choose Your Cravings Wisely… In the beginning, you have to think about these things: “What kind of breathing is good? When the breathing is getting comfortable, what do you do to make sure that you don’t just kind of blur out into a state of delusion concentration?”—in other words, concentration without mindfulness, where you’re just very still but not really clear about where you are …
- Three Levels of Refuge… Our greed, aversion, and delusion can cause us all kinds of trouble. But we can recognize that there is that trouble, but also there’s an escape from the trouble through our own actions: That’s what lies at the basis of what the Buddha said is the most basic quality for being skillful, which is heedfulness—realizing that you have to be careful …
- Stand Your Ground… Either something is out of balance in the body, or greed, aversion, and delusion have arisen in the mind. The first reaction should be to open it up again—breathe in a way that opens the spot. Then look at your mind. What happened in the mind? What did you just do? Or what did somebody else do that you reacted to? What can …
- Your World to Practice In… We’re trying to get rid of greed, aversion, and delusion as we meditate, so have the same values as you go around outside. When you look at something, when you listen to something, ask yourself: Why am I looking? Why am I listening? Who’s looking? Who’s listening? Is it greed looking? Is anger listening? **Ajaan Lee and the other forest masters …
- Interconnectedness… As you work through the processes that ordinarily would give rise to greed, anger, or delusion, you find that you can manage them in a way that doesn’t have to stumble into those unskillful states. At the same time, you find that the people around you are subjected to less of your greed, anger and delusion as well. The whole atmosphere surrounding you …
- Knowing the Body from Within… That’s how you begin to understand things like greed, anger, delusion, craving, and all those other mental states that cause suffering—learning how to watch how they form and how not to get hoodwinked into running along with them. But this requires becoming more and more sensitive to how things are happening here in the body, how the mind and the different properties …
- Damming & Diverting… In other words, greed, aversion, and delusion don’t start from things outside. It’s not the case that we’re just sitting here perfectly fine—passive and placid—and then something comes along and stirs us up. All too often we’re out there looking for trouble. The mind goes flowing out, looking for things that it can desire, looking for things that …
- A Greater Happiness… Bias in terms of liking—people you do like and you’re willing to break the precepts for their sake; bias in terms of aversion, where you mistreat certain people because you don’t like them; bias based on confusion and delusion; and the big one is the fourth one, bias based on fear. Ultimately, fear comes down to fear of death. To protect …
- Antidotes… After all, some of the worst delusions that meditators suffer from come from a concentrated mind. Ajaan Fuang had a number of students who became quite psychic through their meditation. In some cases, the more psychic they were, the more they were impressed by how accurate their intuitions were. But then when mistaken intuitions came up, they wouldn’t recognize them. They wouldn’t …
- Lessons for New Monks… All too often we let greed, aversion, and delusion have free rein as we look at things and listen to things. Our looking and listening is pretty much determined by what we like, so we’re feeding our likes. But then, as the Buddha pointed out, so many of the things that we like are actually suffering or the cause of suffering in and …
- Taking Responsibility… One of the ways we can fight against delusion in the practice is by getting perspectives from outside. But as Ajaan Lee once said, what’s really important ultimately are the questions you learn to ask. Meditation is like a skill. The teacher can teach you the basic techniques. It’s like a skill of learning how to weave a basket. The teacher can …
- The Art of Right Speech… The Buddha said that if certain things, when you say them, give rise to greed, aversion, delusion in you or in the person you’re speaking to, or if your intention is to give rise to greed, aversion, delusion, you shouldn’t say them. Of course, you can’t be totally responsible for the other person’s response. But if you’re anticipating that …
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