Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. Fabricating Goodwill
     … That’ll give you practice so that you can breathe calmly when the situation actually arises, and then that calm breath will become a key to the doors of your memory so that you can remember, “Oh yes, I did think about this already, and this is what I thought might work.” Then you try it out. If it doesn’t work, you go … 
  3. The Good We Already Have
     … But after a while, you get so that you can stay on, keep your balance for longer and longer and longer periods of time until it becomes instinctual. You get a more and more instinctive sense of how to maintain that balance. So this is what the practice is: practice in sharpening our tools for tuning the mind in and letting it stay there … 
  4. Right Questions in the Right Order
     … for sensuality, for becoming, for non-becoming. There’s a place where the Buddha equates clinging with passion and desire. There’s another place where he equates craving with passion and desire. So, what’s the difference? The difference is indicated by the Pali names for these truths. Craving, taṇhā, can also mean thirst. Clinging, upādāna, can also mean feeding. So you’re thirsting … 
  5. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … As you put energy into the polishing the mirror, your reflection in the mirror becomes brighter. The Buddha talks about four qualities that are important to bring to your relationships with other people that are helpful to you. They’re endurance, harmlessness, goodwill, and a mind of kindness or sympathy. When you develop these qualities in your treatment of other people, those qualities will … 
  6. Doing Favors & Making Merit
    I knew an elderly Thai couple who came to the Dhamma late in life and became so dedicated to the practice that Ajaan Suwat had the husband become the lay chairman of the monastery up in suburban LA. They were new to the whole idea of monastery life, monastery etiquette. One Sunday, as people were leaving after having come to make merit, the wife … 
  7. The Carpenter’s Adze
     … You focus on the particulars of the skill, and the larger picture will begin to become clear. You can see this in his instructions on breath meditation. There was that one time when he was telling the monks to be mindful of the breath, and one monk spoke up and said, “Oh, I already do that.” The Buddha said, “Well, what kind of breath … 
  8. The River Gauge
     … Even though it may feel artificial to begin with, as you do it more and more often, it becomes more and more habitual. It’s like the people who come to the monastery. Often when they come the very first time, they say, “My gosh, that road is impossible. There are no guardrails. How can anybody drive down there without fearing for their lives … 
  9. Peace of Mind
     … Then learn the wisdom to realize that there’s a certain point where worrying becomes counterproductive. After all, the best thing you can do to help other people is to have your mind in good shape, because when bad things do come, as they inevitably will, you’ll be in good shape and a good position to be of help. If you wear yourself … 
  10. Heart & Mind
     … This way, the training deals with the whole of your heart and mind, and not just one part, so that your mind becomes your friend and not your enemy; your heart becomes your friend and not your enemy. That’s because you’ve learned to understand them from all sides.
  11. Path & Raft
     … There’s sensual passion, views, becoming, and ignorance. These are the things we have to deal with—the currents that sweep us along. If you’ve ever lived near a river, you know how dangerous they can be. I knew a family in Thailand one time. The kids had been orphaned early on because they lived in a house on a raft, right at … 
  12. Positive Right Speech
     … If you expect perfect people, and accept only perfect people into the community, you become part of the problem. It’s like expecting everybody in the hospital to be healthy. People come to the hospital because they’re sick. In the same way, people come to the practice because they’re causing suffering. So try to think of your words as medicine, that soothes … 
  13. Thinking & Evaluating
     … There becomes a point where you have to take them off. In other words, you have to learn how to depend on your own powers of evaluation, to see what works, to see what doesn’t work. You may fall down a couple of times, but after a while, as your sense of balance gets more and more steady, more and more reliable, you … 
  14. Don’t Be Afraid of Mistakes
     … It means exercising your powers of discernment so that they become strong, through exercise, to the point where you can really learn how to trust them. Trust becomes one hundred percent at the time of stream-entry. Up to that point, there’s going to be a little bit of wariness. But stick with what seems best, and, as I said, give it a … 
  15. Happily on the Path
     … Everything becomes gray and equanimous. But that’s not the path the Buddha described. He does talk about equanimity—that’s the closest he gets to talking about acceptance, accepting things as they are—but equanimity is never taught on its own, and the lists of qualities that lead up to equanimity always contain something having to do with joy, pleasure, happiness. In other … 
  16. Breath Meditation
     … Otherwise, they become abstractions. Words. I once heard some people talking about the problems they had with equanimity, but what they were actually talking about were the problems they have with the idea of equanimity. But if you can learn how to embody equanimity along with friendliness, compassion, and empathetic joy with the breath, then you don’t have to worry about your reactions … 
  17. The Rivers of Karma
     … Pain becomes a tool an opportunity to learn about how the mind creates unnecessary suffering for itself around the pain. Pleasure too becomes a tool, part of the path. You don’t want to see pleasure and pain as things to run away from or to run toward, but as tools you can use to give the mind more and more freedom. That way … 
  18. In the Present
     … What am I becoming right now?” You become, of course, through your actions, so what are you becoming by the way you act, what kind of person are you turning into by the habits you’re following, and is that the direction you want to go? This, too, points to the fact that the present moment is not an isolated moment. It builds on … 
  19. Hold onto the Breath
     … That’s when the refuge really becomes powerful. That’s when the path becomes powerful, as you hold onto it not just as one of many options but as *the *option that’s going to get you out. Whatever stress, whatever difficulties there are in holding onto the path, it’s all to the good. It’s better than the needless and pointless stress … 
  20. Dhamma is Timeless
     … Your search for happiness becomes a noble search. So always keep these principles in mind. These principles make sure that your path is on the path—let’s put it that way. What you’re doing is actually leading to where you want it to go, and not wandering someplace else. We chant every night: The Dhamma is well taught. Timeless. To be seen … 
  21. Safety in Awareness
     … From that perception, you can go directly to the awareness that’s aware of this, and that becomes the object of your concentration. You learn how to trust in that. That becomes more and more your sense of home, where you belong. It comes with a very, very strong sense of oneness and of stability. Now, you don’t want to go jumping to … 
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