Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Truths of the Will… So learn to be clear about your intentions, recognizing which ones you should cultivate, which ones you should drop, so that the truth of the path, that fourth truth, becomes a reality in the mind—and the third noble truth, the end of suffering, will become a reality in the mind as well. That way, nibbāna, unbinding, total freedom from suffering, which actually goes …
- Light Your Way… He ended up becoming an ajaan that we all bow down to, because of his goodness. That’s a case of coming in dark and going in light. In the same way, when people come in light, it doesn’t mean that all their past karma is good. They may have some past bad karma, but it’s just not showing yet. The problem …
- Friends with The Breath… Learn the extent to which you can make changes right here, right now, in the way you relate to this breath that you’re trying to become friends with. The breath does its thing. The problems in the friendship are all on our side. But as we become more sensitive to what we’re bringing to the friendship, we can actually make it a …
- Oneness… This is how the breath, the object of your conversation, becomes one: It fills the range of your awareness. Think of the whole body breathing in, breathing out, and let the whole-body breath flow as comfortably as you can. Then, after a while, when you’ve been evaluating the breath, and it really feels good as you’re breathing in, breathing out, there …
- Actualizing Your Potentials… craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming. It’s not that all desires are bad. In fact, the desire to get rid of unskillful qualities and the desire to encourage skillful qualities are part of the path, under right effort. We’re not here just watching things coming and going, arising and passing away, in a passive way. We want to …
- Layers of Selves… One of the reasons why the Buddha has you focus on pain as a large issue is because your sense of self, or whatever identification you may have, is going to become very clear around the pain. All your clingings are going to become very clear. The problem in dealing with pain is that, in the very beginning, it’s hard to take. In …
- Vows… When the going gets tough, how do you keep going? How do you talk yourself into staying encouraged? In other words, how do you become your own best friend? How do you become your own teacher? How do you learn the strategies for training yourself so that you really do grow in the practice? This is important to remember. When the Buddha was teaching …
- Kindness in the Light of Karma… Have another chocolate.” From there, the idea of being kind to others becomes basically indulging them, doing things they like. But if you think in terms of karma, kindness is something else. Being kind to yourself means looking at your thoughts, looking at your actions, and figuring out where they’re still lacking in skill, so that you can do something about it. A …
- The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites… But you’re going to try to work with the breath so that it does become more constant. The mind’s concentration becomes more constant. There’s a sense of ease in body and mind, and you gain some mastery over it. So there you are: constant, easeful, under your control. Now, eventually, you’re going to have to let go of the concentration …
- A Heart Set on Goodwill… That way you’ll get to become king, and I’ll get to become Buddha.” When the prince tried to kill his father, the father found out why, and so he handed the kingdom over to him. But then the prince didn’t trust him and he ended up putting his father to death. So now he was a king who had conspired against …
- Responsible Happiness… If you do it with wisdom and heedfulness—in other words, thinking about the long-term—it can actually become a happiness that spreads around. After all, we’re not going to become happy meditating and then being mean and stingy in daily life. Part of the practice is also being generous and being virtuous. This is the kind of happiness that helps to …
- The Uses of Equanimity… Train yourself to become sensitive to where there’s pleasure, to where there’s a sense of refreshment or rapture in the breathing. Notice how these feelings have an effect on the mind and then allow them to grow calm.” What this means is that, building on equanimity and patience, you become proactive. In other words, the equanimity and patience are designed to make …
- High Level Metta… But if you do them with knowledge, they actually become part of the path. What are they? To begin with, we’ve got the breath, which is bodily fabrication. Well, that’s right here. It’s coming in and going out right now. It’s a fabrication in the sense that you can shape it with your intentions. You can breathe in different ways …
- Attahi Attano Natho… In this way, you become more and more independent. You become your own mainstay. There’s a saying in the Buddha’s teachings: *Attahi attano natho, *the self is its own mainstay. But it can be your mainstay only if you develop the resources you’ve got inside. So that’s what we’re doing here. We’re developing an internal food source. It …
- Pain & Distraction… This is the process of what they call becoming and then birth. Becoming is when visions appear in the mind, whole worlds, and they’re not limited to visual visions, they can also be the worlds of pain. All the perceptions and ideas you have around a pain can suck you into a little world of their own. You want to be in a …
- Birth Is Suffering… That becomes the focal point for another becoming. It goes on and on and on. So you’ve got to learn how to think in ways that get you out. For instance, the Buddha says when someone misbehaves, our ordinary reaction is anger. But he says the proper reaction is compassion. You should want for that person or that being to have some happiness …
- Three Noble Truths Versus Four… for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming. He points out the cessation of suffering, which is dispassion for those kinds of craving. Then there’s the path to develop that dispassion, starting with right view and ending in right concentration. What’s interesting in those factors of the path is that after he sets out the three causes of suffering — craving for sensuality …
- Basics… Once you focus your desire properly, it becomes an aid to the meditation and not an obstacle. The same goes for the other qualities. Sometimes your effort can push, push, push so hard that it gets in the way of any kind of progress. So step back. Then it doesn’t become a matter of not pushing; you just learn where to push — what …
- Ways to Think… As the Buddha said, when you reflect in this way it’s not just a matter of becoming heedful. You develop a sense of samvega, that no matter where you might go in this universe, no matter what you do, no matter how good things can get in life, these things always lie in wait. You can become a deva, you can become a …
- Analyzing Results… And the meditation does become more of a skill. This is how you become more and more your own teacher, observing what’s working and what’s not, what needs to be done, what needs to be dropped, because no one else can peer into your mind to tell you. Even people who can read your mind can’t necessarily tell what’s going …
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