Search results for: "Greed"
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- 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 …
- Momentum Through Restraint… As you go through the day, you look at something, you listen to something, and if you see that the way you’re looking or listening will create greed, lust, anger, or delusion in the mind, you have to ask yourself, “Why are you looking in that way?” Restraint doesn’t mean that you put blinders on your eyes or plugs in your ears …
- Refuge in the Dhamma… After all, you’ve got your own greed, aversion and delusion that you’ve got to protect yourself from. The Buddha says the mind is luminous, but that doesn’t mean that it’s innately good. It simply means that the mind has a quality of knowing. It can watch its own actions. It can watch the results of its actions. It can catch …
- Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)… After you’ve fed the mind well on concentration, you begin to look at all the other things that would pull you out of concentration, and you see that there’s greed or aversion or delusion involved in going after those things. So, to get past them, the first step is to see, when the greed or the anger comes, how does it come …
- Faith in the Buddha’s Awakening… If you know that looking at something is going to give rise to greed, anger, delusion, lust, or fear, you don’t look at it. Or you try to look at it in a different way so as to prevent those qualities from arising. As for skillful qualities, if they haven’t arisen yet, you try to give rise to them. When they have …
- An Island of Concentration… The definition of right mindfulness begins by saying that you stay focused on the body in and of itself—in this case, that would be the breath—and you put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, any thoughts having to do with the world, for good or for bad, you put them aside right now. You don’t …
- Doubts… Do you want your mind to be bent in the direction of lust? Do you want it to be bent in the direction of anger? Greed? Jealousy? The Buddha’s image is of a young woman or a young man fond of ornament who looks in the mirror and sees a carcass of a dead snake or a dead dog around his or her …
- Working Hypotheses… The flames of greed, aversion, and delusion are like the flames of a bonfire. They flicker here, flicker there. They’re so unstable, so erratic, that you can’t really read by them. And they create all sorts of weird shadows, lots of false impressions. But if you can turn down the flame—think of turning down the flame on a gas stove until …
- Constant, Easeful, Self… As for other worlds outside of your concentration, as the Buddha said, you put aside greed and distress or you subdue greed and distress with reference to those other worlds so that you can fully inhabit this one. Those other worlds, of course, would be the other becomings that come into your mind—wanting to think about tomorrow, wanting to think about yesterday, your …
- In the Details… What is getting results? A defilement comes up in the mind—greed comes up in the mind, lust comes up in the mind, aversion comes up in the mind—and if you can look at it and it just drops away, you know you’re making progress. But if you find that it comes up and just latches on, and you have trouble shaking …
- Good Work… When craving, greed, anger, and delusion get into the act, they do it right here. This is why we want to be right here, to pay attention right here, so that we can watch these things as they happen, and catch them in the act before they create big problems. So we’re resting the mind in concentration not because that’s where we …
- Study to Practice… You’re ardent, you’re alert, you’re mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. There’s a lot to discuss there. How do you stay with the body in and of itself? How do you stay with the breath in and of itself? When greed and distress with reference to the world come up, how do you deal with …
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