Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. Disposable Worlds
     … And after getting the mind to settle down, he said, “Aren’t we creating a state of becoming?”—which is another technical term for these worlds in the mind—“I thought we were supposed to practice to let go of becoming.” And Ajaan Lee said, “Well, if you’re going to let them go, the first thing you have to do is learn how … 
  3. A Refuge from Karma
     … It’s as if you’re taking the qualities of the Buddha, the teachings of the Dhamma, and you’re steeping your body, steeping your feelings, steeping your mind in those qualities, so that each time that you sense yourself breathing in, breathing out, you can remind yourself, “Oh right, there’s the Buddha, there’s Dhamma, there’s the Sangha.” These things become … 
  4. Noble Right Concentration
     … The mind can go through various stages as you let go of the directed thought and evaluation, and are simply there with the breath, becoming one with the sensation of the breath. If the sense of rapture becomes too intense, you drop that. Go for a sense of pleasure. Finally, even the sense of pleasure becomes gross. You settle down with a sense of … 
  5. Learning from the Precepts
     … You become strong, and your strength doesn’t become a burden or an actual hindrance. So. What do you learn? Well, one thing: You learn about being mindful. You have to keep the precept in mind. And you have to be alert, because things are going to come up fast, both inside and outside. I find this particularly relevant in the case that the … 
  6. Understanding Aggregates
     … Because there’s so much that you have to do in order to take the raw data from splotches of color coming into the eye and building them into a three-dimensional world that you can actually move around in, and the question sometimes becomes, “Does that world actually exist? Are there any things out there that really lie behind, say, your visual image … 
  7. The Pursuit of Pleasure
     … We’ve all known instances of pleasure that carried a high price, and there are times when we even become afraid of them. There’s the story of the Buddha, going through those six years of austerities before his awakening, doing everything he could not to let his mind get overcome by pain or by pleasure, submitting himself to an awful a lot of … 
  8. Discerning Actions
     … It’s through the practice of concentration that restraint becomes possible— and it doesn’t feel like a burden. It becomes something that you can do and not feel strung out. The other healthy ego functions—compassion or altruism and humor—have to come in as well, so that the path is not a burden. It doesn’t become something really hard to take … 
  9. Concentration Food
     … Tell it to be shorter, it becomes shorter. Deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter: The breath responds. You can tell it to go to different parts of the body. Here, of course, we’re not talking about the air coming in and out through the nose. The Buddha classifies the in-and-out breath as part of the wind property in the body itself. It … 
  10. The Sport of Wise People
     … But if you can keep a light spirit about things, a long trail becomes shorter, and a heavy load becomes light. So do what you can to keep your spirits up and to enjoy the meditation as a game. Building a Home for the Mind November 25, 2015 The texts often talk about concentration as being a home for the mind—vihara-dhamma—the … 
  11. Who’s in Charge Here?
     … the person you become; the world you experience. So you’d better be careful about what you do and say and think. As the Buddha said, this principle of heedfulness is what underlies all skillful activity, all skillful qualities in the mind. Then, based on that, you can develop other skillful qualities, too. One is compassion for yourself, compassion for people around you, realizing … 
  12. Overcoming Complacency
     … What we’re going to do with it? And the first thing you have to do is just become sensitive to that fact, to exactly how much you are creating things, how much you’re adding on to experience, all the time. So you need to create is a state of mind where you can see these things clearly. That’s what the beginning … 
  13. The Particulars of Your Suffering
     … And because they’re simply okay they may not demand a lot of attention, but if you learn how to give them attention and space to grow, to develop, then this sense of okay-ness becomes more than just okay. It becomes positively pleasant. There’s a sense of fullness and refreshment that can come when you give these areas of wellbeing in the … 
  14. When You Don’t Like Your Selves
     … This is how we create states of becoming. The desire requires not only a self but also an object that’s going to be in a world. You have to figure out how to negotiate, how to navigate that world. Then you figure out which of your senses of self is going to be useful. Now, the problem is sometimes that they just come … 
  15. When Ill Will Is in Fashion
     … That’s when it does become a brahmavihāra. This is something you have to develop. Some people say that goodwill is natural to us. All we have to do is forget about our poor social conditioning, get beyond that, and our natural goodwill will arise. Well, we do have goodwill naturally, but we also have ill will naturally. If ill will were not natural … 
  16. Putting out the Flame
     … As long as there’s that narrative of you as a person, remember that being is related to becoming: You’ve got an identity in a world of experience, and if you have to leave this world you’re going to go looking for another world—as long as there’s the narrative of you. You and your friends, you and your relatives, you … 
  17. Training Your Selves
     … Your sense of not-self is also an action—because after all, how does self happen? It’s part of becoming. You have a desire, and then around that desire there develops a sense of the world in which the object you’re desiring can be found, and then you as a being within that world. You take on many roles. You’re the … 
  18. A Strong Sense of Self
     … Your attention becomes more constant. There’s a sense of ease and well-being. And it’ll take a while to get a sense that you’re able to control this, to maintain this balance, but with time and with persistence, you find that this becomes more and more your natural home. There’s a sense of the breath not only in the body … 
  19. Make the Most of Right Now
     … What am I becoming right now?” Are you becoming a better person, someone who’s less reliant on the pleasures of the senses, and more reliant on the pleasures of the path? Or is it the other way around? You’re the one who has to judge. As the Buddha said, the Dhamma is found through a combination of commitment and reflection. You commit … 
  20. Visakha Puja – Shaking the Earth
     … That becomes our karma. That shapes the world in which we’re going to live. So, with the concentration practice, we can shape the mind so that it’s not so hungry for things outside. And it can gain a sense of detachment. You’re putting yourself in a better position to do what is wise, to do what is skillful, to do what … 
  21. Your Goodness is Your Protection
     … In other words, you decide that life becomes so hard that you’re going to abandon the Dhamma to survive. But otherwise those inner qualities are there. As the Thais like to say, fire doesn’t burn them, water doesn’t wash them away, the wind doesn’t blow them away. Nobody can steal them, or in the phrase of the Canon, “Kings and … 
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