Search results for: "Attachment"

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  2. When You Practice on Your Own
     … As for the people who are attached to their stillness—who find stillness easy and don’t want to be bothered—they’ve got to learn how to think, because the stillness isn’t reliable. It’s like hiding out. You can hide out only for so long. You have to come back out again. If the affairs of the world disturb you, it … 
  3. Full-Body Breath
     … We’re not so much attached to objects outside as we are to the mind’s fascination with them, wanting to think about them, fantasize about them, plan for them, figure out how to gain that particular pleasure. Often there’s a lot more pleasure involved in thinking about a piece of chocolate cake than there is the actual eating of the chocolate cake … 
  4. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … What would those dangers be? Well, you can get attached to these things. On the other hand, if you’re content with very little, you might start getting proud of the fact that you’re content with little, and you might look down on those who are living more luxuriously. So there are dangers in both directions, and you have to be watchful for … 
  5. Lessons from Jhana
     … Some people slip very easily from one level to the next, while others find that it’s pretty wrenching and threatening, because there’s some aspect of the way they construct things that they are very attached to. You see this as you move from the first jhana—where you’re talking to yourself basically about the breath, about how things are going—into … 
  6. Always in Training
     … This way, the various defilements that would come about are being nurtured by too strong an attachment to the body, have less and less to hold onto. That’s because this kind of reflection is not just an antidote to lust. It’s also an antidote to pride around the body, an antidote to states of mind where you’ve made the mind a … 
  7. The Raft of Concepts
     … Then, because it teaches you to recognize all your attachments wherever they are, it teaches you how to turn around and let go of right view itself. People often come to the Dhamma thinking that we’re here to get beyond concepts. But they run into concepts in the Buddha’s teachings, and therefore they feel that the Buddha’s being inconsistent. What’s … 
  8. The Uses of Right Concentration
     … Your ability to tap into a sense of wellbeing inside is what makes it easier to follow the precepts, easier to pull yourself out of sensual attachments, easier to do whatever is required. So, as the Buddha often says: Settle in and indulge in the pleasure or the equanimity of that particular state of concentration. Learn to enjoy it. You’ll find that this … 
  9. A Sense of Yourself
     … And it provides you with a fulcrum that you can use to pry your attachments away from those other things. When the work is done, you can let everything go. It’s like finishing any job. You’ve worked on a piece of furniture, but now that it’s done you can put down your hammer and saws. You’ve finished the dish that … 
  10. Rebirth is Relevant
     … by our attachments, our clingings, and our cravings. This happens not only psychologically right now, but also in the way we define the new identity we assume after death, at rebirth. So because this act of self-definition is an action—and that’s how the Buddha primarily looked at it, as an action—you want to learn how to do it skillfully. You … 
  11. But Not Sick in Mind
     … If you’re attached to your body, feelings, perceptions, thought fabrications, or consciousness, then as soon as these things change, you’re going to suffer. As long as you see that they’re yours—or that they’re you, or in you, or that you’re in them—you’re going to suffer because they’re sure to change. What you’ve got to … 
  12. Do Jhana
     … If you start getting overcome with attachment to your body or lust for someone else’s body, you have to stop and think: What are bodies made of? We had the list just now. There are 32 parts in the list, and there are actually more parts than are on the list. I’ve always thought of eyes as being a particularly weird thing … 
  13. Factors for Awakening
     … You then use this sense of well-being to pry away your attachments to other things. Because you can see: When you do this sort of action, bodily or verbal, you get these results; when you foster this quality of mind, you get these results; and when you foster that quality of mind, you get other kinds of results. You get more and more … 
  14. Feelings of Pain
     … It just makes you want to give up all your attachment to the body. You become more and more inclined to want to stay with your meditation, to stay with concentration. Or you could think, “Buddho, Buddho.” Or you could think thoughts of goodwill for all beings. See what works in getting the mind to settle down. If you’re working with the breath … 
  15. Nuts & Bolts
     … You can step back from a lot of your attachments and see, “I really don’t want to believe that anymore. I really don’t want to go there anymore.” As the mind gets more and more quiet, you’ll see things a lot more clearly, and a lot of the allure that was hidden from you becomes more apparent. These things come very … 
  16. Why We Practice the Way We Do
     … So much of our attachment to the body is determined by these five things. You think about this to get a sense of dispassion and saṁvega, a sense that you’ve been looking for happiness in the wrong places—and that if you don’t change your ways, you’re going to keep on going to the wrong places. So you choose one topic … 
  17. How Much Concentration Is Enough?
     … When you’re dealing with lust and developing perceptions of the unattractiveness of the body, it’s not the case that you’re finally going to come to that golden perception that’s going to totally eradicate all lust or attachment or pride in the body. The important issue is that you want to observe the mind as you’re trying to fight your … 
  18. Mind Control
     … We know that ultimately you have to let go of your attachment to the body, but in the meantime, learn how to inhabit it purposely. Be fully aware of the whole body. This is part of the path. Breathe into the body. Think of the whole body breathing. Every cell in the body, your whole nervous system, is engaged in the flow of energy … 
  19. The Power of Your Actions
     … So these are the strengths that keep us going, based on our conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, that what he learned about human action is true, and that we can actually apply it to our own attachments, our own clingings. Then when we let go of the things that are weighing us down—the areas where we think we’re finding happiness—we … 
  20. Thinking About Rebirth
     … When you think about that, your attachment to your body gets a lot weaker. Think about all the tears you’ve shed: greater than the oceans. Or even the blood that’s been shed when you’ve had your throat slit. For what? For being an animal that they wanted kill, for being a thief that they caught and punished. That kind of thought … 
  21. Recollecting the Devas
     … That relentless cross-questioning he imposed on himself to root out any unskillful behavior, any attachments: That’s how he gained his awakening. To have conviction in that means, of course, that that’s the path that you want to follow, too. Look at your behavior carefully. Do it with a sense of compassion, do it with a sense of honesty, and you’re … 
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