Search results for: "Kamma"
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- How to Really Depend on Yourself… Remind yourself that you don’t want to have any bad kamma with anybody, that you at least wish them goodwill. Then develop some equanimity around the issues of the day so that you can settle down with the breath. Or you can contemplate the inconstancy of the distractions that would pull you away from the breath. You can contemplate the fact that they …
- Taking Responsibility… He called himself a kamma-vādin, someone who taught action. As we read his quest for awakening, we realize it’s a lesson in how to act—a lesson in the power of human action and how best to use that power. In his own case, he had to go down a lot of blind alleys before he found the right path. The way …
- Self-Bypassing… When you think of the issue in other terms, though, this way of speaking is not ironic at all because the Buddha’s main teaching was kamma: We suffer because of our actions, but we can find the end of suffering by understanding our actions—the actions that lead to suffering, and then the actions of the path to the end of suffering. That …
- Strength of Conviction: 2… In other words, you’ve seen the principle of kamma, confirmed for yourself that, Yes, the Buddha was awakened, he did know what he’s talking about, there is a deathless and it is the end of suffering, the Dhamma he taught was well-taught, the Sangha has practiced well—and you’ve seen that it was your own lack of skillful actions that …
- Greed for Outer & Inner Wealth… people who have conviction in the principle of kamma, people who are generous, people who are virtuous, people who are wise—and not only having these people as your friends, but also trying to emulate them. Because they remind you that there’s more to life than just getting and gaining wealth and spending it. You want to look at what good your wealth …
- The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites… The Buddha reprimands him, saying that when you’re talking about kamma, you’re talking about skillful and unskillful action, so you talk about three kinds of feeling. There are pleasant feelings, painful ones, and feelings that are neither pleasant nor painful. It’s obvious here that applying the three perceptions would be a mistake. If you said that everything you do, skillful or …
- Keeping the Buddha in Mind… People are going around very casually, wiping other people out, thinking that once those people are gone, they’re gone for good; not realizing that the kamma is going to come back at the people who wiped them out. So you have to take the happiness of other people into consideration. You have to think about their happiness, too, to make sure that your …
- High Level Metta… It’s only when you’re really secure in yourself that your metta can become high level metta, because you can’t take these teachings out of the context of kamma. It’s always their actions that are going to lead to their happiness. You can’t be responsible for their actions. You have to be responsible for yours. Sometimes, the best you can …
- Give It Your All… Everything he taught about levels of being, samsara, and the bigger picture of kamma and rebirth actually comes out of this framework of seeing those beliefs as actions. Believing, say, in rebirth, believing in the principle of karma, having conviction in these things: That’s a kind of action. What comes about as a result? You put the teachings into practice; you give of …
- Pain & Distraction… The commentary talks about what are called kamma-nimitta, which means seeing actions from your past, things you did in the past, either good or bad, and then gati-nimitta, visions of where you’re going. It’s not necessary that only one vision is going to come up. Lots of things can come up. You want to be in a position where, if …
- Generosity of Spirit… That becomes your good kamma. For most of us, our lives are negative feedback, negative in the sense that your unskillful qualities feed on one another. Technically, that’s a positive feedback loop, positive in the sense that it takes one quality and strengthens it, like the howling of a speaker when you place a microphone next to it. But it’s negative in …
- Life in the Buddha’s Hospital… That’s when you should reflect on the principle of kamma to develop equanimity. There are antidotes for all these diseases, and our duty here is to use them. Because, after all, who’s suffering because of our diseases? Other people may be suffering to some extent, but we’re really suffering. We suffer very little from what other people do, and a great …
- Unfabricated Happiness… But the Buddha’s analysis is that, no, we’re creating the present moment on our own initiative using the raw materials, as I said, that come from past kamma, pointing the present moment in different directions. Because we’re creating it, we can take it apart. When we take it apart, that’s when we can find something that’s not fabricated. This …
- Hold on to Right View… The meditators who saw this came to the conclusion that kamma was deterministic: If you do good, you’ve got to be reborn in a good place next time around. If you do bad, you’ve got to be reborn in a bad place. But then there were other meditators who saw cases where people did good in this lifetime and were reborn in …
- The Basic Pattern… The principle of kamma, which is the Buddha’s basic teaching, underlies everything, reminding you that your actions are important, that they do have consequences, and that you have the freedom to change the way you act. If you see that the consequences are causing harm, causing suffering, you can change the way you act. You have that freedom. You can learn from your …
- What Makes Concentration Right… Actually, you’re fashioning these things out of your potentials provided by past kamma. So learn how to fashion them well. The more conscious you are about the process of fashioning your feelings so that they’re consistently good, or as good as you can make them, you’re turning that factor of depending co-arising into the path. If you breathe in ways …
- Think of the Consequences… It’ll be willing to take the long term into account, because, after all, that’s what the principle of kamma is all about. Actions are good or bad not because you like to do them or don’t like to do them. They’re skillful or unskillful because of the consequences—where they lead you. If you have genuine goodwill for yourself and …
- Stop Shooting Yourself… He could reflect also on the fact that this was, in some way, the result of his past kamma that he was subject to this. What the Buddha’s recommending is that you develop the areas in the body where there is pleasure so that you can have something to feed on aside from physical pain or the nasty words that are said to …
- Throughout the Day… Any kamma done by the body is kāya-saṅkhāra. Some people say that this means that kāya-saṅkhāra has two totally different meanings—breath on the one hand and bodily action on the other—but that’s not a useful way of looking at the issue. A more useful way is to realize that every movement of the body has to start with the …
- Bless Yourself… He saw that he was subject to aging, illness, and death, that all that he loved was going to be taken away from him, but at that point, the fifth reflection, on kamma, was not yet confirmed. He had faith that maybe it would be possible through human effort to find a way to go beyond aging, illness and death, beyond separation. And as …
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