Search results for: "Nibbana"

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  2. Where the Mind & Body Meet
     … The question should be, ‘Where do the four great elements find no footing?’ And that’s in consciousness without a surface.” That consciousness—the consciousness of nibbāna, where there is no awareness of any of the elements, or any of the cosmos at all: The cosmos doesn’t impinge on that. But it’s the ultimate happiness. It’s something other, but it is … 
  3. Training Your Cynical Voices
     … They were materialists, they didn’t believe in the power of kamma, thought that going to nibbana was impossible or selfish. But were they the people who benefitted from hearing the Buddha? No. The Buddha taught noble truths. The word ariya, which we translate as “noble,” also means standard or universal. They’re true all over the world. The problem is simply a matter … 
  4. Patience & Endurance
     … i.e., more in line with our aspirations. We do want true happiness. That’s a desire that the Buddha affirms. The teachings as a whole are aimed in that direction: nibbana, the highest happiness. It’s not the highest equanimity, or the highest acceptance. It’s the highest happiness. And even though we can’t create it, we do reach it through our … 
  5. The Buddha’s Currency
     … It was as if they had “Nibbāna or bust” written on their foreheads. Then he said, “The reason is because they haven’t had any experience with generosity and virtue.” If you have the joy that comes from being generous, the joy that comes from being virtuous, it’s a lot easier to put up with the difficulties of meditation. You bring a sense … 
  6. Believing & Knowing
     … As Ajahn Maha Boowa once said, if you could take a nibbana and all the noble attainments so that people could actually see them, nobody in the world would want anything else. But they can’t be taken out and shown like that. The Buddha did, however, teach in a way that would try to give rise to a sense of conviction. He had … 
  7. So Little Time
     … it fully satisfied. What would be a higher level of pleasure? The word sukha runs everywhere from just plain old physical pleasure, ease, well-being, all the way up to bliss. Nibbana is the ultimate sukha. The Buddha doesn’t want you to be afraid of pleasure. He says to learn how to appreciate which pleasures are actually helpful for you on the path … 
  8. Skillful Desire
     … The only thing that’s beyond the category of dhamma is nibbana. So the path is based on desire, and whatever else our desire or whatever else our motivations for following the path, we’re here because we do want to get beyond aging, illness, death, and separation. That desire may be a form of suffering, but it’s also our motivation for getting … 
  9. Equanimity on the Path
     … There’s no place where the Buddha says nibbana is the ultimate equanimity. It’s always “the ultimate happiness.” So the question is: What role does equanimity play on the path? The first thing to notice is that sometimes it’s regarded as skillful and sometimes it’s not. When it makes you lazy, it’s not part of the path. But when it … 
  10. Be Prepared
     … We’re not going to be totally free of danger until nibbana, but in the meantime we can help protect ourselves, and in protecting ourselves we protect others, because we don’t go thrashing around. So keep in mind the sense that the world is a dangerous place, but learn how not to be overwhelmed by that sense of danger. Take it in a … 
  11. The Wisdom of Dualities
     … The unfabricated is nibbana. It’s so much better than everything else that it’s the one and only goal. Everything else is done for the purpose of that, whereas it’s not done, and it doesn’t serve any other purpose at all. Given that there’s this basic duality in the potentials for human experience, it only makes sense that discernment be … 
  12. The Dhamma Protects
     … The Buddha said as much in the line that following that, “Nibbana is the highest, say those who know.” So we practice patience as a means, as part of the path. We learn how to endure painful sensations, hurtful words, we train the mind to be like earth, as the Buddha told Rahula. We can hear painful words, but we don’t have to … 
  13. When the Mind Is Still
     … The message is nibbāna. When insight has done its work, you’re going to experience something deathless inside. That’s what all this is for. But this means that you have to learn how to view your thought fabrications from the outside so that you don’t get sucked into them as you ordinarily do. That’s why we create this sense of stillness … 
  14. Big Desire, Detailed Focus
     … And then, as with any path of practice that depends on desire, you have to realize that if you sit there thinking about the goal—how much you want the mind to settle down, how much you’d like to have nibbana come pretty soon— the desire on its own is not going to make it happen. In fact, that kind of desire actually … 
  15. Changing the Pleasure Equation
     … This is why when you tell people that things are inconstant, stressful and not-self, they don’t go “Bingo!” and hit nibbāna. You look at your feeding habits: What are you feeding on right now? You want to develop a perspective on the ways you’ve been feeding to see that they’re not worth it anymore. Now, if you’re hungry, you … 
  16. The Heightened Mind
     … The karma that’s neither bright nor dark is the karma that leads to nibbāna. The entry requirement for the human realm is karma that’s bright and dark. So we all come with a mixed bag. We all come with a mixed background, so we’re dealing with people with a mixed background. Like the story I was told one time by a … 
  17. Heightened Skillfulness
     … After all, when the Buddha was searching for nibbāna, he kept framing his search as the search for what is skillful. Of course, that’s skillful in the ultimate degree. When we think about skillfulness, we think about that question the Buddha has you ask to develop discernment: “What when I do it will be for my long-term welfare and happiness?” Now, the … 
  18. Investing Your Happiness
     … All of the Buddha’s teachings are meant to help us in this quest for a true happiness, the ultimate happiness, nibbana. That’s where they’re all aimed. It’s a happiness that isn’t fabricated, but the only way you can get there, the only way you can get beyond fabrication, is to learn how to fabricate well.
  19. The Right Time at the Right Place
     … Back when the forest ajaans were beginning to teach in central Thailand, they came up against a belief that jhana was no longer possible, to say nothing of nibbana. So they had to counteract it. Ajaan Lee’s way was interesting: He would teach people how to gain psychic powers from their concentration. There’s the story of a woman who would come and … 
  20. The Buddha’s Good News
     … As the Buddha said, if you think there’s any trace of suffering or disappointment at all in nibbana, that’s wrong view. That’s his guarantee that this is going to be really good. Think of the deal he portrayed. If there were a deal that someone would spear you with 300 spears every day—100 spears in the morning, 100 spears at … 
  21. Recollection of Hell
     … Some of the epithets for nibbana—haven, harbor, refuge, security—emphasize its aspect as genuinely safe. Without that safety, the mind just keeps gobbling things down and trying to fabricate more. If it can’t find good things to gobble down, it just stuffs horrible things inside itself. It takes whatever it can get. If it can’t get good things, it takes pain … 
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