Search results for: "Greed"
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- A Rare Gift… But if you straighten out your mind, it means that you’re not subjecting other people to your greed, anger, and delusion. If you straighten out your mind, and have a greater sense of ease, well-being—you’re not constantly piling all sorts of extra stress and suffering on top of yourself—then you’re in a better position to be helpful, to …
- Getting Out of Karmic Debt… When you start looking for ways in which you can undercut your lust, undercut your greed, undercut your aversion, undercut your fear, jealousy, all these things, try to see that as a game, as a sport. That’s what will carry you through. So even though you recognize your debts, it doesn’t mean you have to be grim about them. In fact, grimness …
- The Hall of Mirrors… This is why an important part of the meditation is that phrase in the description of right mindfulness: “putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In other words, you’re not playing with the monkey out there. You’re not trying to steal berries from the birds. You’re trying to understand this process of what it means to look into …
- Strength of Conviction: 1… Does this person have the sort of greed, aversion, or delusion that would get him or her to claim to know something he or she didn’t know? And if they do, well, you know they’re not people of integrity. The second test: Would this person try to get someone else to do something that was not in that person’s long-term …
- More than Ordinary Heedfulness… You see something nice, and the normal reaction is greed. Well, it may be the normal reaction, but it’s not the best. It’s not the best that we’re capable of. The Buddha’s actually pointing out that the mind doesn’t have to stay on the “normal” human level. We meditate so that we can transform it. But how many people …
- Balanced Breathing… A little tiny bit of greed, a little tiny bit of irritation, if you’re not careful, can take root and grow. A little bit of sloppiness in the way you’re focusing, a little bit of sloppiness in the way keep with your object: That can take root and grow as well. So find a way to be meticulous without being tense in …
- The Cost of Happiness… He talked about how, after his awakening, he surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha and he saw everyone on fire with greed, anger, delusion; passion, aversion, and delusion. And what were the people doing? They were searching for happiness. Yet the way they were searching for happiness was setting them on fire. This is why, in his very first sermon, this …
- Living Forward, Understanding Backward… to strengthen the skillful intentions in the mind, the intentions that are not wound up in greed, aversion, or delusion. Greed and aversion are fairly easy to see. Delusion is hard—because after all, when you’re deluded, you don’t know you’re deluded. You don’t really know the truth. The only way around that is to keep your past mistakes in …
- The Easy Way Out… the arrow of suffering, greed, aversion, delusion. We all want to find a way to take the arrow out. Some of us, of course, don’t realize that the arrow is there. We feel the pain but we think that it’s coming from something else. We grow up when we really realize that, okay, the arrow is here, and that we’re the …
- Doubt vs. Discernment… Mindfulness is trying to keep in mind that you’re trying to stay with one topic—say, the body in and of itself—and you’re putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. The commentary, when explaining those three qualities, identifies sampajañña—which I translate as alertness—as the wisdom quality. It defines it as seeing things in terms of the …
- Happiness – Yours & Others’… And when you train the mind to bring some control over its greed, aversion, and delusion, these things don’t go prowling around and biting the neighbors. So in your own pursuit of happiness, you’re helping others. It’s good to remember that when the meditation seems like a lonely process. Even though you get advice from others, it’s something you have …
- Truths That Are Noble… Right mindfulness tells you to give up greed and distress with reference to the world. For a lot of us, that’s a huge part of our lives, especially now that news is available all the time. We have to overcome our fear of missing out and realize that what the news is telling us is that the big issues in the world are …
- A Refuge in Quiescence… Our greed, aversion, and delusion present a lot of dangers. Our wrong views, wrong resolves, wrong actions: It’s because of these things that we need refuge. Traditionally, we talk about taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. In the Buddha’s time, it seems to have been a common pattern: People who knew nothing about the Buddha’s teachings would …
- To Excel… But the defilements will pull you away, and you go with them because you think they’re you—your greed, your anger, your whatever. But you don’t seem to be too picky about what they are. As long as it’s “you,” you go with them. That’s where we all fall down. So it’s wise to look at defilements not as …
- Seclusion… Once you get the frame of reference, then as the texts say, you put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. In other words, your frame of reference is just the body sitting right here, right now, breathing in, breathing out. As for who you are and what your name is, you can put issues like that aside. Those are issues of …
- 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 …
- Staying Grounded… At the very least, you’re not going to cause yourself a lot of delusion, greed, or aversion. And you’re less likely to get involved in any struggles and conflicts that go around these things. Conflict, the Buddha said, comes from the thought process he calls papañca. It’s a hard term to translate. Some people like proliferation, but the issue not so …
- The Pleasure of the Middle Way… Any sensual pleasure that requires that you break the precepts or aggravates greed, aversion, or delusion in the mind is a pleasure you’ve got to avoid. Then there’s a gray range in between. With certain pleasures, if some people enjoy them they don’t have any bad effect on their minds, but if other people indulge them, they do develop bad effects …
- Desert Island Meditation… keeping track of the body in and of itself—ardent, alert and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Or feelings in and of themselves, the mind in an of itself, mental qualities in and of themselves: That’s our island. And what are you going to take on that island? Hopefully, things that don’t clutter it up, things …
- Rapture… Why go out looking for trouble? Greed, aversion, and delusion are all looking for trouble. They’re like strong attacks of hunger and they’re never really satisfied. When you act on these things, they may provide a little bit of fullness and a little bit of energy, but then it goes. It’s like food that’s bad for your health. But here …
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