Search results for: "Greed"
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- The Awful Truth… So we each have to turn inside and say, “Okay, where are the roots of these unskillful conditionings?” They lie in the greed, anger, and delusion in our own minds. These are the things that cause us to act unskillfully, so that we cause ourselves suffering, and we cause suffering for the people around us. If these things can be uprooted, we’re not …
- Watch the Mind at the Breath… When greed, aversion, and delusion come into the mind, you use your mindfulness and ardency to put them out. One of the advantages of staying with the breath like this is that you detect these fires when they’re small sparks, tiny little flames just beginning to get started, and you can snuff them out before your head catches on fire. So try to …
- Ups & Downs… Sometimes the mind seems so clear and settled that you think it will never go back to its old greed, aversion, and delusion ever again. And then of course it does. Part of the reason, of course, is that you got complacent. When you get something good, do your best to protect it, maintain it. When things aren’t going well, remind yourself that …
- Building Character… This is a kind of greed, you might call it, that actually has no bad consequences. So when things are difficult, look around. I knew of another monk—I didn’t know him personally but I read an article he had written one time, about how when he had gone to Asia, he tended to look down on the monks and nuns who puttered …
- Firm in Your Intent… Our greed, aversion, and delusion give rise to all the circumstances that cause us to keep coming back like this. We feel a hunger; we feel a lack. One of the purposes of the meditation is to develop strength inside, so that we have a sense of enough. The lack comes from a desire for happiness, but still, the Buddha says that that desire …
- The Gift of Discernment… And then you can use the skills you develop in concentration to deal with other issues as they come in the course of the day because, after all, the fabrications that you use to create that state of concentration are the same fabrications with which you can create greed or anger or fear or anxiety, jealousy—whatever unskillful states there are. They’re basically …
- Medicine – Timely & Timeless… What’s it sick with? Greed, anger, and delusion. And this is the treatment. It has its different stages. You try to get as constant and easeful and controlled a state of mind as you can. You’re actually fighting against those three perceptions. But it’s only when you fight against a truth that you know how true it is, how far it …
- Mindful & Grateful for Lessons in Freedom… In that moment when you’re generous, you’re free from your greed. You’re free from your attachment. You’re able to rise above these things. You get a sense of your worth as a person and that there’s a higher level of happiness that comes when you don’t simply give in to your appetites. You see the benefits of sharing …
- The Buddha’s Rules of Order… When your thoughts involve anger, greed, or lust, remind yourself of the drawbacks of those attitudes, where they would lead you. If you kept with that train of thought for 24 hours, where would it take you? And most of these movies are movies you’ve seen many times before. You know the plot; you know how Humphrey Bogart is going to say. The …
- Happy to Be Here… Those little movements of the mind—a little bit of greed here, a little bit of aversion there, delusion, jealousy, fear: You want to catch these things when they’re still new and weak so that you can begin to see, “Why does the mind go for them?” We know that some of these what the Buddha calls “defilements” are things we like. Others …
- Joy & Discontent… We talk about developing these qualities to help put aside greed and distress with reference to the world, but we’re also developing them so that when you do have to deal with the world, you’ll be able to deal with the world in a wise way. You can see the world best when you’ve been able to step out of it …
- Taming the Elephant… keeping track of the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That basically corresponds to the first jhana. Then when it settles down that way, and you don’t have to do so much negotiation, you can stop your internal chatter. You stay with a single perception of breath. As the Buddha says …
- Right Effort & Right Mindfulness… Any greed or distress with reference to the world, any desires you have for the world, or any thoughts where you’re upset with the world, you just put them aside. Now, to these two activities—keeping the right frame of reference and putting aside any thoughts that go into the reference to the world—you bring three qualities. One of them, of course …
- Mindstorms… No matter what else comes into the mind — greed, anger, delusion, despair, depression, regret, or fear — it’s just part of the mind. There’s also another part that’s just aware of these things, but it tends to get blocked out when strong emotions come in. Still, it’s always there, like the hum of the refrigerator always there in the background. Or …
- It’s Good to Talk to Yourself… where your greed is, where your aversion is, where your delusion is, where your lust is, where your fears are. You get to the point where you’re not driven by those things because you can step back. That’s an even greater level of calm. So we’re pursuing both calm and insight because you find them together. The important thing is that …
- A Mind Without Inertia… Your greed, your aversion, and your delusion, identifying with your body, identifying with your feelings, your perceptions, your thought fabrications, even with acts of consciousness: These things weigh the mind down if you hold on to them. This is the Buddha’s ultimate mode of attack when you see the mind holding onto something. The phrase, “holding on,” here, is metaphorical. The mind doesn …
- Minding Your Own Business… At the very least, make sure there’s as little greed, anger, and delusion as possible in your intentions. The impact of your actions will have to be a good impact. Whether you’ve worked out all the channels through which that impact is going to go—and of course you can’t work through all those channels, you can’t anticipate them all …
- Elemental Energy… They’ll keep you in the present, give you a handle for dealing with anger as it arises or greed or lust or fear or whatever the emotion may be, and if nothing is arising, you’ve got the breath. It gives you a good place to stay. It’s a home for the mind. In Pali, they use the word *vihāra-dhamma, *which …
- Focus on What You’re Doing… that we can get good at fabricating a good state of mind and get more conscious of what it means to engage in fabrication. We’re always fabricating different mental states: greed, aversion, delusion—all kinds of things. We’re doing it all the time, to the point we’re not really conscious of what we’re doing. So when we sit down to …
- Grasping the Snake… To what extent do you allow anger to come in and take charge? To what extent do you allow greed to come in, or feelings of being slighted, or of not being respected? Those feelings, the Buddha said, come under restlessness and anxiety, which are hindrances. So as you go through the day, watch out for them. If they’re allowed to take root …
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