Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Goodwill for the Breath… So in this way you and your breath become friends working together. The breath becomes more comfortable, the body gets healthier, the nerves get soothed, the mind has a good soothing place to stay, a restful place to stay. The breath and the body have somebody looking after them. You walk the path together with a sense of goodwill. Be friends with the breath …
- One Thing Clear Through… You become aware of the breath energy throughout the body as you breathe in, as you breathe out. As you develop a sense of ease in the breathing, you allow that to spread so that it fills the body as well. That becomes your food on the path. But as you do this, you’re also radiating good energy out into the world. One …
- Subduing Greed & Distress… We’re creating a new state of becoming here. There’s going to be a new world here and a new you in this world who doesn’t have to be weighed down by the “you” who’s gone through life so far—or the worlds that you’ve been through so far. To be fully in this world, you have to put those …
- Evaluation… It’s a matter of being very sensitive to what you’re doing and learning how to evaluate the results, becoming more and more sensitive as you go along. That way, discernment comes not from following instructions, but from developing your own powers of sensitivity, catching yourself doing unskillful things that you didn’t notice before, and realizing that you have a choice not …
- Disconnecting… But when there are so many different people and there’s so much loss, after a while it becomes meaningless. Yet we keep going back for more, largely because we don’t know how to find happiness inside. It’s because of our sense of lack that we go looking for others to fill up the lack. And then when they can’t fill …
- A Generosity of Spirit… But you realize that the mind becomes lighter as a result. It’s like the sandbags that hold down hot-air balloons. You give away the things that you’re holding onto, you cut off the sandbags, and the balloon can go higher and higher. The mind becomes more expansive, and that becomes the mind that’s in line with unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion …
- Protection in all Directions… Beyond that, it becomes wasteful. So whenever you find the mind wanting something, ask yourself, “What’s the genuine gain is there? And what’s the loss?” So many things in life are a trade. I know someone who built a really beautiful new Dhamma hall in Thailand. He put years and years of work into it. More recently, he’s been complaining that …
- The Joy of Monotasking… That joy then becomes your food on the path, so that everything you’re doing becomes part of the practice, and you can find joy in all those things as well.
- Preparing to Meditate… Mindfulness becomes directed thought. Alertness becomes evaluation as you begin to evaluate cause and effect there in the breath. When there are comfortable breath sensations, you spread them out so that you’re alert to the whole body, mindful of the whole body. That’s when simple mindfulness practice turns into concentration practice as you develop this awareness of the whole body breathing in …
- Make Yourself Reliable… Does your knowledge really help put an end to suffering? Does it help you look at your habits that are unskillful and help pull you out of them? When you’ve put things to that test, again and again and again, then you become a more reliable judge, and the knowledge you gain can become more reliable as well.
- Concentration & Insight… This is a state of becoming, but it’s a state of becoming that’s really clear, that enables you to see other states of becoming as they arise. Which is why the Buddha said, insight comes from concentration, by which he meant that you need some insight into the workings of the mind to get into concentration. That insight is basically a value …
- Focus on Your Skill… In other words, you quickly take on becoming around your desires. All the narratives that go with that, worldviews that go with that just tie you down. Whereas if you look at the choices you’re making right now, there’s a possibility of liberation. So try to stay focused right here. This is where the meditation becomes a balancing act, as with any …
- There Is This… You find yourself thwarted, and the mind becomes really frustrated if it hasn’t been trained. This is why we have to train it in meditation. Otherwise, craving takes over, and we become slaves to our craving. It’ll bring us back to more birth, aging, illness and death. Think of King Koravya: He’s had that conversation with Ven. Raṭṭhapāla about why Raṭṭhapāla …
- No-Tech Meditation… You’re creating a state of becoming right here, and that becomes your laboratory case. You’ve got to talk to yourself as you’re settling down. But there comes a point where you don’t have to talk to yourself anymore. Just let that conversation go. That’s letting go of verbal fabrication. Then there’s bodily fabrication, the in-and-breath. When …
- Questions of Skill… As you start taking on an identity—you as a meditator—within this form of your body, that’s going to teach you a lot about craving for becoming. And when you get states of mind that you don’t like, that’s going to teach you about how you deal with craving for non-becoming. So it’s in the practice of concentration …
- The Desire for Truth… So how do you become more true as a person? The Buddha starts with his instructions to Rahula about how important it is to be truthful in reporting what you’re doing, what you’ve done. Then he goes into seeing truly what you’re doing and the results of what you’re doing, because you can learn about the Dhamma and hear the …
- Right Here, Right Now… The more you get to know what’s right here, right now, the more those other things will become plain. This is not to say that book learning is totally useless. It’s very useful in giving us pointers as to where to look, what questions to ask. But as for the answers: If they really are going to be answers, they have to …
- Friends with the Dhamma Wheel… the three kinds of craving for sensuality, for becoming, and for not-becoming. The duty there is to abandon it so that the suffering it’s causing can end. In other words, the Buddha is taking a cause-and-effect approach to things. When we find ourselves suffering and we want to get rid of it, it’s like trying to get the water …
- Balanced Meditation… There’s very little opportunity to become well-rounded. There’s very little opportunity to learn how to become good at something that you’re not automatically good at. But with the meditation, the Buddha gives you the tools. This is how you get good at something. You try it. Notice the results. Consult other people. Try it again. Try to notice the connection …
- Paying Off Your Debts… So whatever practices get us in the direction of becoming arahants, those are the practices for paying off our debts. Ideally, we have to learn how to produce wealth from inside so that whatever the debts are, we can pay them off. Otherwise, if you just borrow from somebody else, then you’re indebted to that person. It’s like borrowing from one bank …
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