Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 16
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. The Making Of
     … As a meditator, you want to learn how to step out of that, because those thought worlds are states of becoming. As the Buddha said, when you have a craving for becoming, that craving is also going to create suffering. So we have to change our values. Often we like our thought worlds because they’re entertaining. We use our thoughts to figure things … 
  11. WYSIWYG
     … So if you get some hands-on experience here, it’ll serve you well as the mind begins to fabricate a new state of becoming as you realize that you can’t stay in this state of becoming anymore. So you’re learning a lot of important things. There’s a lot to see here if you learn how to look. This is one … 
  12. Work & Play
     … Then the concentration becomes an exercise in sheer will power: How long can you force the mind to stay here in spite of its impulses to wander away? But if you can see that by staying with the breath, working with the breath, playing with the breath, you’re actually making the present moment a more interesting and more pleasant place to stay, then … 
  13. Focus on the Doing
     … When you’ve learned how to tap into that skill, then the desire to practice becomes more strongly based, and the path becomes enjoyable in and of itself. As it becomes enjoyable, then the second base for power—persistence—gets more constant, more reliable. You want to keep at it. This doesn’t mean just going off to do nothing but meditate, closing your … 
  14. Strength of Conviction
     … Your sense of here or there is part of the process of becoming, and the things you latch onto become the seeds for different worlds of becoming. Fortunately, you have choices. Your past karma is like a field, as the Buddha says, filled with all kinds of potential seeds. What you water right here in the present moment: That’s the seed that’s … 
  15. Your Tranquility & Your Insight
     … This is precisely what you need in order to become discerning. There’s no foolproof method for giving rise to insight. If there were, then even fools could gain insight and still be foolish. You have to practice getting more and more discerning, asking the right questions, exploring, trying things out, so that your concentration becomes your concentration, not somebody else’s idea of … 
  16. Universal Truths
     … The more we define ourselves, the more limited we become. Even if we think of having a cosmic identity, we get limited to that. We get limited to that view and that view becomes a source of controversy. You’re going to have to argue it with other people. Or even if you don’t argue with other people, you’ve still got the … 
  17. Exercising the Mind
     … We create states of mind that are called becoming. It’s like a little world in your mind. As you go into that world, that suddenly becomes your surroundings, that becomes your environment. Then you lose interest in it, or something else comes along, and you create another one. These are all based on desires. Each desire has a little world, and there’s … 
  18. Start the Year Right Here
     … When you see that, the mind really does have the chance to become more skillful. It becomes a mind that does create happiness for itself, a mind that creates a happy new year, a happy life, a happy new century, a happy new millennium. That’s the kind of mind you want, and it can be done. You look at the texts. Little kids … 
  19. Skilled in Aims
     … So practice your goodwill so that it’s quick with regard to anybody—that it becomes the default mode—and this way you become skilled in aims, skilled in the goal. This is what should be done by someone who wants to be skilled in the goal. Years back, I was sitting in on a class where this sutta was being explained. The teacher … 
  20. Of Essential Worth
     … And if you become a member of the noble Sangha, you become a refuge for others. When we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, it’s because they’ve set an example of what a really honorable human life is like. They suggest the possibilities of what human beings can do. And it’s an inspiring set of possibilities. So … 
  21. Admirable Intentions
     … You become more and more sensitive to your intentions, and you learn how to articulate them to yourself. All too many people go through life not really knowing why they’re doing things. It’s all too common when you ask someone, “Why did you do that?” and they have to stop and think for a bit. But in the practice of generosity and … 
  22. Load next page...