Search results for: "Becoming"

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  2. Truths That Are Noble
     … As we practice, we’re becoming more noble to the extent to which we’re following in line with the noble truths. If we keep slipping back to our old ways, claiming that we’re suffering because this person is misbehaving or that person is not quite right, we fall below the noble level. We’re back to where everybody else is in the … 
  3. We All Start with an Impure Heart
     … The more you can act on it, the more it becomes a tendency of the mind. In his terms, it “bends” the mind in the right direction. The intentions that you act on are the ones that bend the mind. So even though it may be a struggle, when the skillful desire has the last word, that’s what’s going to bend the … 
  4. Generating Power
     … You try to keep the mind at one with its object, make it become one with its object. All of this takes effort, and sometimes people will sit in meditation, put a lot of effort into it, and at the end of the period say, “Well, the meditation didn’t get any results. It was just constant effort.” However, it’s a normal principle … 
  5. Possessiveness
     … Why? Are people not worth sharing things with? And what happens if you don’t let go? There are many, many stories in the Buddhist tradition of people who couldn’t let go of something, and then they come back and become spirits hovering around those places, trying to hold on. That’s a miserable state to be in. That’s why the Buddha … 
  6. Friends with the Breath, Friends with the Buddha
     … The breath becomes even a better friend if you make friends with it. You do it in the same way that you make friends with someone: You have to listen, you have to ask questions, notice. People don’t tell you all about themselves all at once, and often the things they don’t tell you are most important for establishing a friendship. So … 
  7. A Room of Your Own
     … It’s when the mind is still and at ease that it can start becoming more honest. This is why you can pour everything into your diary—be really open with yourself about your feelings, about your thoughts—not just for the sake of self-expression but because you really want to see what’s going on and to straighten it out so that … 
  8. Samvega & Pasada
     … through relationships, through sensual pleasures, through the desire to gain this, to get that, become this, become that. You realize that you can get a lot of the sense of well-being you were searching for in those other ways simply by sitting here breathing. Then you can turn and look at your other forms of pleasure: pleasure based on greed, pleasure based on … 
  9. Stepping Out of Truth Games
     … This is the process the Buddha calls becoming, where, based on a particular desire, you take on a particular identity around that desire. And there’s a relevant world around that desire as well. They all go together. And the fact that we have so many different world, so many different desires can work against us. Like right now, the desire for thinking about … 
  10. Squeezing Goodness Out of the Aggregates
    Our sense of self is a strategy for finding happiness in worlds of becoming. It answers two questions: Who’s going to be able to put forth the effort to bring that happiness about? And who’s going to benefit from it? And depending on how we define ourselves in terms of either of those questions, we decide what’s worth doing and how … 
  11. The Beginnings of Wisdom
     … That search for a way out becomes wise when we look for someone who’s practiced—as the Buddha says, a contemplative or a brahman, by which he means a noble disciple or at the very least somebody who knows the Dhamma—and we ask that person, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This is the … 
  12. Merit & Skill
    Years back, when I returned to Thailand to ordain, Ajaan Fuang told me that I would have to become skillful in everything in my life as a monk. He said, “It’s not just a matter of getting good at sitting with your eyes closed. There are lots of other skills you have to master, too.” And it was true. In addition to meditating … 
  13. May You Forever Be Well
     … If you lose right view, ill-will becomes something that’s okay, careless actions become okay, and that leads in a downward spiral. So these two qualities, virtue and right view: Regard them as treasures, treasures that you want to hold onto always. Because they can lead to other good qualities in the mind. And they protect you. They’re part of that grounding … 
  14. Adolescent Practice
     … Just let it come in and go out at its own rate.” You may get the basic idea that the less you interfere in the present moment, the better; the more passive you become, the better. But that makes it difficult to integrate meditation with your life. Are you going to go through life totally passive in every situation? That doesn’t work. It … 
  15. Full, Focused Attention
     … Once you find a comfortable rhythm of breathing, you have to be careful not to become mechanical with it. Be alert to the possibility that what may have felt good two or three breaths ago may not be so good right now, and make whatever adjustments are necessary. That’s all you have to do, but you have to give it your all for … 
  16. Cheerfully Ardent
     … You’ll become a skilled cook only if you want to learn the skills. The path is a combination of both. Some things about yourself you simply have to accept. Other things you’re going to be able to change through your desires. It can hard to figure out which is which, but that’s what skills are: figuring out what you can do … 
  17. Wealth Worth Holding Onto
     … If I let go of it now, the banana would become mush in my hand.” It’s the same way with your mind. If you let go of the precepts, you let go of your concentration, your mind becomes mush. If you let go of discernment, your mind becomes mush. So you hold onto these things as you need them. Because they’re your … 
  18. Only Natural
     … Giving in to them quickly has become an old habit we’ve learned for who knows how long, how many lifetimes, to the point where it’s natural. We have that phrase in English where we say, “Well, it’s only natural.” That’s just an excuse for saying, “Well, that’s just the way it’s got to be.” But think of it … 
  19. Feed the Hungry Mind
     … Instead of clinging to the aggregates just for their own sake, for the sensuality you can get out of them or the states of becoming you can create, you turn them into a path. You feed on them as you turn them into a path. But then the path takes you to a place where you’re no longer hungry. You no longer need … 
  20. To Excel
     … If you’re following your laziness, your laziness is going to become strong. If you follow your conceit, your conceit becomes strong. These things then take over. And when they take over, it’s not in your best interest. So remember, you are in competition. There may not be anyone trying to pull you away from your nose so that they can get in … 
  21. Remorse
    When you sit down to meditate and settle down with the breath, the mind becomes very sensitive. Sometimes things you did in the past that you don’t feel right about will come up. And they hurt. At times like that, it’s all too easy to start feeling remorse. Remorse is not an attitude or a feeling that the Buddha recommended. Because, as … 
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