Search results for: "Greed"
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- Behind the Scenes… the way greed, aversion, and delusion go into the creation of a mind state, and how they disguise themselves as something else. And there’s the question: How is it that we’re both the creator of these mind states and the observer of the mind states, and yet we fall for them? How is it that we cover things up? It’s like …
- Sowing Good Seeds… A lot of the insights that you’re going to gain are uncomfortable truths about yourself, about how you’ve given into greed, anger, and delusion when you really knew better—and how you’ve tried to cover up the evidence. So this is one of the reasons we try to make the breath as comfortable as possible. When the mind has been nourished …
- To Be Trustworthy… Your own greed, aversion, and delusion will get you. And when they get you, they make you do unskillful things. That’s our big fear: that we can’t trust ourselves not to do unskillful things. You think about what’s going to happen in society if this quarantine lasts for a long time. There’s going to be a lot of hardship. When …
- The Good We Already Have… sometimes the mind thinks in skillful ways, sometimes it gets overcome by greed, anger, and delusion, and goes off in unskillful ways. Back and forth like this, and nothing really positive has much of a chance to grow. And so we meditate – the Pali word is bhavana, which means to develop, to increase. That’s what we’re doing: We’re increasing the good …
- Free for the Time Being… The Buddha says that an important part of staying with the breath, staying with the body in and of itself, is what he calls subduing greed and distress with reference to the world, or putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. The “world” here has many meanings. You can think about the world outside. Or just the world of your six …
- The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind… The Buddha calls it putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. We have greed and distress over things that have meanings. So try to cut things down to individual events just happening on their own: coming, going away. This is why the Buddha says discernment deals with penetrative insight into arising and passing away: seeing things as they come just as …
- Time to Heal… All those little times offer lots of little entryways for greed, aversion, and delusion to slip into the mind and to infect it. So here we want to have some time to sit down and be quiet and heal the mind. The breath helps. It feels good coming in, feels good going out. If it doesn’t feel good coming in and coming out …
- Virtue Fosters Concentration… Where is this going to get your mind in terms of virtue, concentration, and discernment? And who’s doing the looking, who’s doing the listening? Are you doing it, or is greed? Or is it lust? Anger? Are they taking over? Remember Ajaan Lee’s analogy of all the little beings inside your body. Maybe they’re looking through your eyes instead of …
- Delight & Beyond Delight… As for your mind that’s so good at advertising greed, aversion, and delusion, get it to advertise the path to itself: how good it is that you can wake up early in the morning and have nothing else to do but sit and meditate. Think of all the people in the world who don’t have that opportunity. Think of the fact that …
- Reclaim Your Breath… In other words, greed doesn’t take it over; anger doesn’t take it over. Fear, delusion: We don’t want these things seizing our breath. We’ve got to reclaim our breath. That puts us in a better position to deal with the mind’s defilements. You’ll often notice, especially when anger arises, that the breath has changed, having an impact on …
- Reflect on Your Actions… We’ve got our greed, aversion, and delusion in the background. If you put all your energy into focusing on your project, the greed, aversion, and delusion get to run rampant. They might stay within the bounds of the project that needs to be done, but as soon as the project is accomplished or you feel that you can let up a little bit …
- A Happiness Based Inside… But you’ve got to be consciously making the comparisons and seeing the areas where you can focus on things outside in certain ways so that your center is not disturbed by other ways of focusing, i.e., involving greed, anger, delusion, and all the other unskillful mental qualities that knock your center off kilter. This requires discernment: comparing things, seeing connections, and seeing …
- Meaning & Purpose… Someone showed me a video the other day, where some Abhidhamma expert was talking about how people who try to get the mind to be concentrated are suffering from greed, which is an unskillful state. When the mind gets still and is not analyzing dhammas, it’s suffering from delusion, which is another unskillful state. But: If you can’t have any desire in …
- Reflecting on Karma… The happiness where there’s no greed, aversion, or delusion to make you do foolish things with your good fortune. So when you see people who are abusing their good fortune, take it as a lesson. Maybe someday you’ll be there too, having good fortune. And for your own sake you want to make sure you don’t abuse it. This kind of …
- The Gift of Meditation… If you’re able to say No to your greed, aversion, and delusion, then other people don’t have to be exposed to your greed, aversion, and delusion, either. All of the goodness we do in the practice—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, discernment—is the kind of goodness, the kind of happiness that spreads around, that doesn’t have clear boundaries—which …
- A Trained Observer… Your greed is something else. Your anger is something else. If you’re watching pain, the pain is one thing, the awareness is something else, the body is something else. It’s this ability to watch, to step back, that allows you to see the whole story of how different things interact. One of Ajaan Fuang’s students complained to him once that the …
- Skillful Fear… I’ve had a number of psychotherapists ask me: “Why did the Buddha say unskillful thinking comes from greed, aversion, and delusion? Where is fear in the list?” Fear is not in the list because fear is not necessarily unskillful. There are things that are good to be afraid of. The fear gets unskillful when it’s combined with greed or with aversion or …
- The Kamma of Meditation… Actions done under the influence of unskillful intentions, based on greed, aversion, and delusion, tend to lead to suffering. Actions done without the influence of greed, aversion and delusion tend to lead to happiness. Right there is where the Buddha’s teachings are important, different even from those who did teach kamma in the past. There were groups of people who said that your …
- Detail Work… Turn it on to in trying to understand your greed, your aversion, your delusion. Understand the workings of the mind that may be getting in the way of your concentration. Take an interest in the skills that are needed. Concentration is not a dulling of the mind. If it’s done right, it sharpens things. Because it’s quiet, it allows subtle things to …
- A Mental Fortress… If you see that looking at something or listening at something gives rise to greed, aversion, or delusion, learn to look in a different way. Listen in a different way. Bring some discernment to what you choose to focus on and how you approach things. After all, it’s not the case that the mind is perfectly still and perfectly calm, and then all …
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