Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. Evaluation
     … That way, the breath becomes comfortable, the mind can begin to settle down with a sense of ease and well-being, and the mind and the breath can become snug together. That’s the point where you don’t have to evaluate things anymore. Then you can just settle in. As Ajaan Lee pointed out, the evaluation there is the beginning of discernment. You … 
  3. Close to the Heart
     … That way, the simple fact that you’ve got a breath becomes more than just a means for keeping the body alive. It can actually be used to heal the body, to deal with different types of pain in the body. At the same time, it gets more and more healing for the mind. As you become more sensitive to precisely how you approach … 
  4. The Quality of Your Awareness
     … In other words, figure out how you might conceive of the breath, how you might picture the breath to yourself, to allow it to become more quiet and to allow the mind to become quieter too. As things grow more quiet, then you begin to see that, at least in the body, you begin to pick up on patterns of tension you missed earlier … 
  5. Questioning Your Way to Certainty
     … This, as the Buddha said, is how the Dhamma becomes visible here and now. Someone once asked him, “What does it mean, ‘visible here and now’?” He responded, “Do you know in your mind when passion has not been abandoned?” “Yes.” “Okay, there it is: the Dhamma that’s visible here and now. And do you know when passion is abandoned?” Well, you would … 
  6. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
     … You use clinging-aggregates as part of the path so as to get to know them, because the state of becoming you crave with concentration is a transparent kind of becoming that allows you to see these processes in action—unlike other forms of becoming. For example, when you’re involved in sensuality, the focus is out there on the object. You tend to … 
  7. Remembering Ajaan Fuang
     … As Ajaan Fuang always said, “Mistakes can always be rectified if you’re willing to look, willing to admit that they’re mistakes, and look inside yourself for what went wrong.” So you become responsible. You become accountable. That’s how an independent streak becomes not just willfulness and stubbornness, but an asset in doing your duty of trying to comprehend suffering, abandon its … 
  8. Empathetic Joy
     … And when you can settle down with a sense of well-being like that, it becomes a much more solid base for the insight that’s going to grow as your concentration grows stronger and you become more skilled at it. So, if you’ve been neglecting empathetic joy in your practice, maybe it’s a good time to give it a little more … 
  9. What’s Worth Doing?
     … The work of developing does require a state of becoming. In Pali, this is obvious. *Bhava *is the word for becoming. *Bhavana, *the word for meditation, means developing. So as you meditate, you develop a state of becoming. You take on an identity. But you take it on when it’s worth it. You let it go when it’s done its duty. So … 
  10. Willing to Learn
    Willing to Learn January 24, 2019 The Buddha talks a lot about the process of becoming, which is a combination of two things: one, a particular world of experience; and two, your identity in that world, your sense of who you are, what your capabilities are. And the two are very dependent on each other. You see this particularly when you go into a … 
  11. Fear of Death
     … That’s the process of what they call “becoming” and “birth.” The appearance of the image of the place is the becoming. Going into it is the birth. The same thing happens as you die—the big difference, of course, being that you’re going to be pushed out of the body. You can’t stay here anymore. When you’re sleeping, you voluntarily … 
  12. Bases for Success
     … If you sit there simply thinking about how much you’d like to get the mind quiet but without actually doing the work that needs to be done, the desire becomes an obstacle. So focus in on what you’re doing. Try to want to be with the breath, try to want to catch the mind, to want to get it back. Do what … 
  13. Categorical Truths
     … Suffering comes from three types of cravings—specifically, craving for sensuality, for becoming (to take on an identity in a world of experience because you have a desire for something in that world of experience), or craving for non-becoming (your desire’s been frustrated; that particular mental world or physical world is not satisfying you anymore and you want to get rid of … 
  14. Respect for Emptiness
     … When you take these lessons to heart and carry them through, you find that the sense of peace, space, and stillness in the mind becomes more and more attractive. You want to move into that sense of peace for good. The Buddha calls this taking emptiness as your dwelling. Instead of focusing on the figures in the foreground, you focus on the still space … 
  15. Craving & Clinging
     … That’s how becoming starts: from craving to clinging to becoming. So, as I said, you draw the line. The state of concentration is what you want, and you have to develop a sense of dispassion, disinterest in any of the other becomings the mind could develop right now. This is one of the reasons why Ajaan Lee, when he gives concentration instructions, especially … 
  16. Anybody Home?
     … This is the process of becoming, which, as he said, happens an awful lot. It’s why we suffer. You create an identity in a particular world of experience: That’s becoming. Then you go into it: That’s birth. The process can go on indefinitely because we get so fascinated with the becomings we create. The Buddha’s image is of little children … 
  17. The Dangers of Sensuality
     … But when you first become aware of it, what feelings in the body, feelings in the mind, spark these things? Then you see that these things end. Then they have to be revived again and again. So when you revive them, then the question is, why? What’s the appeal? In some cases, the appeal is in the object. This is one of the … 
  18. Strength of Mindfulness
     … If things break down outside—food becomes hard to find, other things become hard to find—can you guarantee to yourself that you’re not going to stoop to some unvirtuous actions in order to get what you want? You’ve got to create a state of mind where you know for sure that you’re not going to stoop in that way. Even … 
  19. Good & Independent
     … This is why we have to learn how to become independent. Our goodness has to become independent. Again, you hear a lot of talk about how the idea of an independent self is the source of all evil. But we’re not talking about an independent self, we’re talking about independence—it’s a state that ultimately doesn’t require self. But to … 
  20. Using the Committee of the Mind
     … They become your power, they become your strength on the path. Because you *need *that strength. We get encouragement from our teachers, we get encouragement from our fellow practitioners, but there comes a point where you really have to depend on yourself. You have to find the resources of appropriate attention inside you. This is when the practice really becomes yours. Ajaan Fuang noted … 
  21. The Forerunner of All Things
     … You don’t simply fall head over heels into whatever state of becoming is being pushed on you by your greed, aversion, or delusion. In this way, staying with the breath makes you sensitive, and it also gives you some resistance. The benefits of having the mind in charge come from directing it in a skillful way. Think of that question the Buddha has … 
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