Search results for: "Kamma"

  1. Page 2
  2. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … So he asks us to work further at what he calls the fourth kind off kamma. There’s kamma that’s dark, kamma that’s bright, kamma that’s bright and dark, and then there’s the fourth level: kamma that’s neither bright nor dark, that leads to the end of kamma. The end of kamma is nibbana, where the ultimate refuge is … 
  3. The Purpose of Empathetic Joy
     … But then there’s a fourth level of kamma: kamma that leads to the end if kamma—and that’s the noble eightfold path. It’s only when you see the limitations of even the best bright kamma that you’re willing to go for the noble path. This is a pattern throughout the Buddha’s teachings, as in his step-by-step discourse … 
  4. Loving Yourself Wisely
     … This is the kamma that the Buddha had you focus on most intently: what you’re doing right now. As for your past kamma, that’s going to come willy-nilly. When it meets up with good kamma in the present, sometimes past bad kamma can be dissolved. The image the Buddha gives is of a big lump of salt. If you try to … 
  5. A Conglomeration of Germs
     … As the Buddha said, “See this as old kamma.” When you were born with this, this was the result of your old kamma. Now it’s the raw material with which you create new kamma, which is something you want to focus on because kamma is what really belongs to you. That’s what goes with you when you go, and that’s what … 
  6. The World Is Aflame
     … Think about your old kamma as burning. It’s from our old kamma that we derive the raw materials to try to find happiness, but if it was unskillful kamma then the raw materials are painful. If it was skillful, they’re pleasant, but around the pleasantness there congregate all kinds of trouble. You know that blessing we have, “May you be beautiful, strong … 
  7. Wise Endurance
     … Look at his teachings on kamma. He says we have many seeds sprouting in our kamma field. It’s not just one kamma account. Lots of different seeds are getting ready to sprout. We have our choice as to which ones we’re going to irrigate, which ones we’re going to encourage. What this means in practical terms is that if you’re … 
  8. The Lessons of Good Kamma
    The Lessons of Good Kamma April 14, 2016 We look around us and we see a lot of people who have mastered a particular profession or a particular skill, who are very good at that one thing, but whose lives otherwise are a mess. They can be real bastards, horrible in their dealings with others or in the uses to which they put that … 
  9. Honest & Observant
     … Lots of good qualities are brought together this way, and it’s in this way that you learn how to protect yourself from bad kamma, both from doing bad kamma now and on into the future, and also from the results of bad kamma in the past. As you get more skillful in the present, you develop that quality of goodwill more and more … 
  10. Cheating the System
     … This path, the noble eightfold path, as the Buddha said, is the kamma that puts an end to kamma. Not only does it stop you from creating new kamma, but it also frees you from many of the effects of past kamma. The pains may be there in the body, but the mind doesn’t have to suffer from them. And that’s what … 
  11. “May I Be Happy”
    I once asked Ajaan Fuang, “What do you need to believe in order to practice meditation?” He said, “All you need to believe is the principal of action, kamma.” Most of us in the West, when we get to the teaching on kamma, freeze up. We start thinking about all the bad things we did in the past. We’re afraid that all those … 
  12. Put the Other Person’s Heart in Yours
     … No, the Buddha never said life is sacred.” That idea came from wanting to understand the precepts without ever having to think about kamma. Kamma underlies everything the Buddha taught. Virtue, concentration, discernment: These things are all kamma. The path is a kind of kamma. And you have to understand it that way. As for the rationale behind the precepts, as the Buddha said … 
  13. Becoming
     … The creating of a state of becoming in the mind like this is the kamma of your meditation, right here, right now. A lot of people believe that kamma is one of those teachings that’s not particularly relevant to their meditation practice. But essentially, kamma is what the practice is all about. After all, kamma is what you’re doing to create suffering … 
  14. The Need for Agency
     … After all, we’re working on a type of kamma here that’s really special. The Buddha says there’s bright kamma, there’s dark kamma, there’s a mixture of the two, and then there’s kamma that’s neither bright nor dark: It’s the kamma that leads to the end of kamma. That’s the path to the end of suffering … 
  15. Discernment Performs
     … He said that the ascetic was asking about kamma, and so the right answer was to speak of the three kinds of kamma, corresponding to the three kinds of feeling produced by kamma: pleasant feeling, painful feeling, and feeling that’s neither pleasant nor painful. When you’re concerned about the results of your actions, those are the kinds of feelings you focus on … 
  16. The End of the World
     … You’re developing the skills that will hold you in good stead wherever the currents of kamma may wash you up. That’s an image from Ajaan Lee: In Thai he says, kam sat pai, which means that your kamma can throw you up on a beach someplace like a rogue wave. But as he said, if you have discernment, then even if the … 
  17. Dedicating Merit
     … And people who’ve practiced magic tend to believe that the doctrine of kamma doesn’t apply to them. So all of a sudden, as she was meditating, she saw all these people who were suffering from having done bad kamma in one way or another. It was a good lesson in kamma for her. When she first started seeing these things, she didn … 
  18. The Power of Present Karma
     … Now, sensory contact, as the Buddha said, is old kamma coming at you. This means that you actually experience your present kamma before you experience your past kamma. But we pay so little attention to it—because we’re more interested in the things coming in through the senses—that we don’t really realize what we’re contributing. So, try to gain a … 
  19. The Raft of Concepts
     … This is where the teaching of kamma is always and immediately relevant to your meditation, and why the Buddha stresses the issue of kamma over and over again. The early Buddhists often made the point that their teachings on kamma were what set them apart from all the other teachings available at the time. For instance, the Buddhist take on kamma isn’t the … 
  20. Mindfulness of Death
     … The mind will be swept along by its cravings depending on its kamma, the kamma you do as you go through the day and the kamma you’re doing as you approach the moment of death. Your daily habits, your meditative skills—these are the things that will determine whether you suffer or not. This way, you’re prepared emotionally, but you’re also … 
  21. The Right Place to Look
     … And the Buddha adds that that’s your old kamma. Try to see it simply in those terms. He also says that it’s burning. So if we try to straighten out the world, we’re working at the wrong place. It burns us because our greed, aversion, and delusion try to hold on to the results of our past kamma. And, of course … 
  22. Load next page...