Search results for: "Becoming"
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- On an Even Keel… Part of it has to do with being sensitive, when you breathe in, to how long a breath feels good, and at what point the in-breath becomes too long. Or if it’s not long enough, how do you tell that? You’ve got to learn how to be sensitive to this area of the body: the breath energy flowing through it. We …
- No One Size Fits All… The concentration itself becomes more sensitive. Your insights become more sensitive. And that sensitivity is what will take you where you want to go.
- Karma-ism… As the Buddha once said, there’d be no point in his trying to teach people to be skillful if they couldn’t actually become more skillful. But we can become more skillful. By being observant, by watching, by being mindful and alert, by making an effort, we can develop more and more skill in the way we act, and in particular, in the …
- Beginner’s Mind… If you can’t get enjoyment out of it, the breath becomes a task master; your meditation object becomes an adversary. It’s as if it has guardian demons at the door, like the guardian demons in the temples in Thailand. Just the thought of meditating brings to mind the snarls and the angry faces of the guardian demons, and you get repelled. So …
- Dealing with Pain… If, while you’re trying to develop this level of concentration, you find that the pain becomes unbearable, or if it becomes hard to stay focused on your comfortable spot, sit with the pain for maybe about five minutes or so and then shift your position. You’re not ready to do battle with the big fighters right now. You’re trying to work …
- Dispassion Isn’t Depression… meditating to become sensitive to your own actions as you learn to become more and more skillful in what you do, say, and think. When you can create a good state of mind through your actions, be careful to maintain it. Ajaan Fuang had some students who were complaining one time that they’d been meditating with him and had gotten into a really …
- Put the Other Person’s Heart in Yours… The biggest danger that faces you in the world is that you might do something unskillful under the influence of ill will, because that then becomes your own kamma and it becomes a habit in the mind. It bends the mind, as the Buddha said. When your mind is bent in that direction again and again and again, your views are going to be …
- Admirable Friendship, Inside & Out… That’s when the discernment we learn from our admirable friends becomes appropriate attention within us, so that both principles—the foremost outside practice and the foremost inside principle—become one in our thoughts, words, and deeds. That’s why we have that fifth reflection. It teaches us to look in the right place, to look in our actions and to reflect on the …
- Equanimity & More… As Ajaan Fuang said, if you develop the brahmaviharas without a sense of equanimity, they become a cause for suffering. So as protection for the mind, we have to develop equanimity. What’s interesting is that the statement for developing equanimity, reflecting on the principle of karma, has more than one use in the Canon. There’s another place where the Buddha says, when …
- Fear of Death… This is why you work with the breath so that it becomes your natural base of operation and your natural foundation—natural in the sense that you’ve made it habitual. And it helps, of course, when the breath is comfortable or you can make it comfortable. After all, there is an intentional element in the breath. This is why it’s called bodily …
- Listening to the Practice… In this way, you become more sensitive to what’s going on. As you become more sensitive, it’s a lot more pleasant to stay here. So be very attentive to this faculty of listening to the present moment, being observant. Instead of rushing in with a lot of preconceived notions about how the meditation should go, or making very quick snap judgments of …
- A Happy Tradition… But he’d teach them how to become awakened anyhow. Even his foremost disciple, Ven. Moggallana, had some pretty bad karma in his past that was going to follow him all the way into this lifetime. But again, the Buddha taught him how to become awakened, so that he wouldn’t have to suffer from that karma. There’s a case of King Ajatasattu …
- Nurturing Patient Endurance… And these six qualities of conviction, generosity, virtue, learning, discernment, and ingenuity are a really good solvent so that big problems become small, and small problems get solved, and your patience does become large. One of the Pali words for patience is khama. It’s also the name of the Earth—so hold that image in mind. Make that part of the mental fabrication …
- Chew Your Food Well… It tries to feed on becoming this or becoming that, and whatever it becomes doesn’t last very long. Then it gets all disgusted with the whole thing and wants to destroy everything, so it feeds on the idea of destruction. When it doesn’t have anything left, it has to start all over from scratch because it still needs to feed. It hasn …
- The Buddha’s Program… What are the assumptions that are making you suffer right now? Can you question them? If you can’t question them now, what are you going to do when you die? One of the hardest things about dying is the question, “What will become of me?” Like Elisa Doolittle in My Fair Lady: “What will become of me?” If you assume yourself to be …
- Undividing the Mind… After he passed away, the Buddha commented that if he had gone on the path early in life, he would have become an arahant. Even if he’d gone on the path late in life, he would have become a stream enterer. But he threw those possibilities away. It’s a chilling story. One of the forest ajaans says that the proper response to …
- To Be an Adult… If we believe them and act on those beliefs, that becomes our karma—and that’s the danger. So we have to look into our own minds. Where are we susceptible to these kinds of messages? We’ve got to learn how to see through them. No matter who tells them, no matter how many people tell us, no matter how many times they …
- Dealing with Limitations… If you come into a situation with fixed preconceived notions about who you are or what you are, that can become a major limitation. In other words, you turn yourself into a being. As the Buddha said, when you become a being, you identify with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, or consciousness of particular kinds. And whatever way you identify yourself, that’s how you …
- Stay… As Ajaan Maha Boowa said “This center of awareness is the essence of the state of becoming.” But then, after all, that’s what concentration is. You’re trying to create a state of becoming so that you can understand becoming. So you want to stay with that center so that you can use it to gain subtle understandings, to gain clear understanding of …
- Anger… This is the thread that turns daily life into a genuine “practice of daily life.” Your interaction with other people then actually does become part of your practice. The work you do becomes part of your practice. Everything you do and say and think can become part of your practice if you approach every activity with the question, “What’s skillful here? What’s …
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