Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. W.W.B.R.
     … You’re getting into a state of becoming, and when you’re in that state of becoming, the world looks very different from what it does when you’re out of that state of becoming. It’s like waking up from a dream. You realize, “That was just a dream.” While you’re in it, you’re all concerned. You’re in an airport … 
  3. Protecting the Mind from Itself
     … He said, “Virtue is primarily a matter of the heart, of the mind, because it’s a matter of your intentions.” When you understand virtue in that way, then the precepts don’t just become ceremonial. They become an active part of training your mind. That’s because you’ve got to exercise restraint not only over what you do and say, but also … 
  4. The Heart of the Teachings
     … After all, even though all those monks had become arahants, many of them had become fully awakened after hearing only one Dhamma talk. The Buddha decided to teach them a full range of teachings from the most basic up to the most advanced as a guide for what they should teach others. So we’re paying homage to this event. That’s what the … 
  5. A Connoisseur of Happiness
     … We’re here to see what pleasure really is, and become connoisseurs of pleasure, distinguishing between which kind of pleasure, when you indulge in it, has harmful results, and which kind of pleasure, when you indulge in it, becomes part of the path—so that you can find the ultimate pleasure that doesn’t require indulgence at all. It’s just there. That’s … 
  6. Abandoning Effluents (1)
     … the effluent of sensuality, the effluent of becoming, and the effluent of ignorance. These are big issues. To think about the knowledge that led to the Buddha’s final awakening while we’re sitting here meditating, struggling with our own minds, may seem far away, but there’s a sutta where he talks about abandoning effluents in seven ways. These seven ways are practices … 
  7. Breathing through Daily Life
     … The breath becomes the foundation that underlies them all — the solid floor on which you stand so can you can juggle your activities with skill. And with a continuous foundation like this, your life isn’t chopped up into little bits: a little time for this, a little for that. It all becomes time to be with the breath, and then to work from … 
  8. Feeding your Attack Dogs
     … Well, that becomes a habit. And then that habit gets carried into the meditation. So when you’re working on the mind, it’s not just a matter of what you’re doing while you’re here sitting with your eyes closed, but also of what you do and think about during the rest of the day. The Buddha talks about anusaya , which is … 
  9. Not-selfing Your Selves
     … Your sense of self is part of what’s called “becoming.” And every becoming deals with a desire. You take on an identity in a particular world to attain that desire, and that identity consists of at least two parts. One is the part that’s going to experience the pleasure that comes when that desire has been met: the self as the consumer … 
  10. The Energy in the Body
     … Experiment with them and, over time, you learn how to evaluate the results of what you’re getting, as the wisdom becomes your own, the discernment becomes your own. That’s when you can really do important work in the mind. As you develop greater and greater sensitivity in reading the breath, you also become more and more capable of reading the mind: what … 
  11. Think Like a Thief
     … This is what’s called the process of becoming. Can you turn around and devote it to the project of learning how to understand the process of becoming so that you can put an end to it? It all comes down to your intention. Do you really want to see, or do you just want to play with your likes and dislikes? This is … 
  12. Ingenuity
     … That’s when you become someone who can rely on yourself. It’s the ingenuity of stepping back that saves you. So look into yourself. To what extent do you have these qualities, and to what extent do you need to develop them? Work on them. And as you work on them, you find that you become more and more reliable as a judge … 
  13. Discerning the Middle Way
     … It’s in this way that your concentration becomes just right and the other factors of the path become just right as well. But it requires a lot of discernment. This is why in every description of the path discernment is necessary. And why all the teachers talk about how discernment is what makes all the difference. This is not just the discernment that … 
  14. Talking to Yourself
     … There will come a time when we’ve talked enough, and the mind and the breath seem to become one. When they become one like that, then there’s no need to chat. There’s a real sense of stillness and solidity because you’ve make friends with each other. But until you reach that point, try to talk yourself in a way that … 
  15. A Path Rooted in Desire
     … The cause is the craving, the thirst that wants to feed off these things—for the sake of sensuality, for states of becoming, or to destroy a state of becoming you already have. That craving is to be abandoned. Abandoning is done through dispassion for the craving: That’s the cessation of suffering, and it’s something you want to realize—in other words … 
  16. The Karma of Pleasure
    A couple years back, when the psychology of happiness was beginning to become popular, I was asked to review a book on the topic to give a Buddhist perspective on the issue. I said one of the things the book was missing was an understanding of karma, that in your pursuit for happiness, you do things that have an impact on other people, and … 
  17. A Safe Harbor
     … Then right mindfulness, in the establishing of mindfulness, becomes the theme for your concentration as you’re focused on the breath, focused on the body in and of itself, developing these qualities of ardency, alertness, mindfulness: That becomes a theme of your concentration. The Pali word for “theme” here is nimitta. Sometimes people talk about the nimitta of concentration as being a light or … 
  18. Seeing Danger in Birth
     … The second proof is, if you believe in the possibility that there is a path that leads to awakening, to the end of becoming, you open more possibilities for what you might achieve in terms of a real happiness than if you assumed that there was no such thing as awakening or the end of becoming. At the very least, if you open yourself … 
  19. Truth
     … In that way, the truth becomes your refuge. Your truthfulness becomes your refuge. Otherwise, how are you going to know what’s skillful and what’s not? How are you going to know whom you can trust and whom you can’t? You have two basic sources of knowledge: what you gain from other people, and what you gain from yourself. Both have to … 
  20. Passion, Dispassion, Compassion
     … The Buddha calls compassion of this sort an ornament of the mind—an ornament of the mind that’s become cleansed of its passions. So it’s not that you become hard-hearted or unfeeling. It’s simply that you don’t need the same play of emotions, the same play of feelings, in order to get yourself to do the right thing. As … 
  21. Developed in Body & Mind
     … In the same way, the more the mind stays with the breath, the more the breath seeps into the body, the mind seeps into the body, until everything becomes one. The breath fills the body, your awareness fills the body, a sense of well-being fills the body. And then try to stay balanced right there. And don’t ask where this is going … 
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