Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. Positive Capability
     … And he gives us the tools for examining where our attachments are—the things that keep us imprisoned. That’s the big irony. This is one of the reasons why early Buddhists used fire as an image many times. They believed that fire was an element that existed in all things. When you provoked it, it would latch on to fuel and start burning … 
  3. Solidly Established
     … You keep on adjusting the rate of breathing, even if there’s just a little bit of discomfort attached to the breath, whether you’re tensing up as you breathe in or holding on to tension as you breathe out. Try to be sensitive to that and then let the tension go. Those are the three qualities we’re trying to develop: mindfulness, alertness … 
  4. Space for Sustained Contemplation
     … Whatever the attachment is, whatever the craving is, you realize it has to be made out of these things. That’s what you want to look for. This is work that requires a lot of sustained attention and sustained focus, which is why, as we’re living together, we want to give one another space to do that kind of sustained work. We don … 
  5. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … He said that if they didn’t have their pleasures, we wouldn’t be attached to them. But the pleasures can go only so far. Most people will say, “Well, that’s the best we can find in the world, that’s as far as it goes, so we might as well content ourselves with them as they are.” But the Buddha found that … 
  6. Consciousness, Name, & Form
     … When there’s that sense of well-being, then the mind can look at its old attachments, its old ways of handling its thoughts, and realize, “Okay, that way of dealing with things actually causes stress and I don’t have to do it.” When you realize that it’s stressful, and that it’s unnecessary, why would you hold on? You don’t … 
  7. A Generosity of Spirit
     … And particularly as you give up things—and generosity doesn’t mean just giving up things, but also giving up your attachment to, say, your knowledge, wanting to hold it back from other people, or wanting to hold back your energy from other people—when you learn how to overcome that resistance, you develop generosity of spirit. This is probably one of the most … 
  8. Four Noble Truths to One
     … But as the factors of the path get more solid, and your attachments to things aside from the path get weaker, that’s when you can actually turn this analysis on the path itself. You turn right view on itself. Right view looks at views, looks at all mental activities, in terms of action and result: “What is the act of holding to a … 
  9. No-Tech Meditation
     … If you get attached to that place, you’re trapped in the parameters of how space and time relate to that place. It’s all because of your actions. So, meditation is something you do and something you watch for yourself. The commitment in the doing and the sensitivity in the reflection will allow you to see the things that will open up new … 
  10. Look after Your Baby
     … And when that feeler attaches to something, it goes, like a spider casting its web filament to see if it will catch something. So watch out for the filament. Watch out for the feeler. The mind may be with the breath, or part of the mind is with the breath, but it’s not the whole thing. Something else is already sneaking off to … 
  11. Where Your Mind Gravitates
     … But in particular, you release it from whatever its attachments may be. Then you go back to that step of being sensitive again. It goes around and around and around. All too often you deal with a problem once and it’s not really dealt with. It’s going to have another angle the next time around. The mind’s like a little child … 
  12. Take Care of Your Tools
     … And don’t be afraid of getting attached to the concentration. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, you have to be crazy about the meditation in order to do it well: looking for every chance to get in touch with the breath, looking for every chance to get the mind to settle down. Whatever comes up in the course the concentration, there’s nothing … 
  13. Sober Up
     … That’s going to involve looking at all the things that you’re attached to and realizing that a lot of them you’re going to have to let go. And it’s going to require work. Some of the causes of suffering, the Buddha says, go away when you simply look at them. But there are a lot that require work. You have … 
  14. Events as Events
     … When it has that sense of well-being, it can look at its old attachments, the old ways it had of thinking and looking, and realize, “Okay, that way of doing things actually causes stress, and I don’t have to do it.” When you realize that it’s stressful and unnecessary, why would you hold on? You don’t even have to think … 
  15. Magha Puja: Showing Respect with the Practice
     … You may be able to stay away from them for a while, but you haven’t really cut your attachment to them. Eventually the mind will find its way back to them. So you’ve got to develop this sense of well-being inside. And you take refuge here. The idea of taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha is not … 
  16. What Made the Buddha Exclaim
     … He sees people behaving in ways that are really harmful for themselves and for the people around them—and they’re so ignorant and so blind and so attached to what they’re doing. You have to remember his perspective. He’s coming from the night of his awakening, when he not only attained nibban but also saw how karma works in the world … 
  17. Just One Person
     … You figure out what you’re doing that’s skillful, what you’re doing that’s not skillful, and you sort things out with no sense of nostalgia, no sense of attachment, but with a clear sense that what you do matters. So you want to be careful about what you’re doing right now. That requires your full attention, all of your mental … 
  18. The Buddha’s Secret Weapon
     … He asked himself: “Is this the path? Maybe this is the path to the end of suffering.” And something in his mind said, “This could be it.” Then the question was, “Why am I afraid of that sense of well-being, the pleasure and rapture that come from that? Is there any blame attached to it?” No, none. So he gave that path a … 
  19. What Are You Doing?
     … Often we’re attached to things not because we think they’re permanent or have a substance but simply because we think that the pleasure we get out of them is worth the effort that goes into getting it. People get married realizing that the marriage is not going to last forever. There are all kinds of things that people hold onto in full … 
  20. Mindfulness of Breathing: Four in One
     … the mind has to have a sense of well-being and stability so that it doesn’t feel threatened by the things it doesn’t like, and it’s not so attached to things that it does like—but that are not quite as skillful as you may have thought. It’s easier to accept the things that are unpleasant about your own mind … 
  21. The Web of Pain
     … We usually think of insight simply as the ability to see things arising and passing away, which is supposed to do away with our attachment to them. Well, it’s important to see things arising and passing away, but then you have to realize that you’ve been sticking them together in a particular way through your perceptions. But that’s not enough. You … 
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