Search results for: "Greed"
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- Infinity… It was through your intentions based on your views, and your views based on who you respected—whether you respected the noble ones or respected your greed, aversion, and delusion more. That was how you determined the course of your lives. But the power of your views at the moment of death alerted him to the fact that mental actions in the present moment …
- Skills to Make a Difference… Unskillful mental conduct would be inordinate greed, ill will, and having wrong views. Those are things you avoid. You abandon them if you find that they actually exist in you. Then you try to develop their opposites, which you have to approach as skills. Learning how not to lie at all is a real skill—one, because it’s so easy to just say …
- Asalha Puja… Is it really worth it? Look at the pleasure you get out of greed, aversion, and delusion. Then look at the drawbacks. The human mind is generally very poor at weighing drawbacks and advantages, drawbacks and benefits. We tend to go for the short term and forget about the long term. Then we complain about our suffering, forgetting that, well, we made the choice …
- You Can Make a Difference… That’s what his teachings are all about, why he called his goal *nibbāna, *which means the extinguishing of the fires of greed, fires of aversion, fires of delusion. The fires are burning, and we can put them out, so don’t just sit there burning away. Adjust the flame. That’s what the image of jhāna is for. *Jhāyati, the verb for doing …
- Antidotes… the question, “I’ve been meditating all this time, and I still have a problem with anger,” or “I still have a problem with the lust”—or fear, or greed, or jealousy, whatever the unskillful emotion may be. The expectation seems to be that sitting and meditating is going to take care of everything else. You have to remember that the concentration, the mindfulness …
- Self-Reliance… If there’s any greed, anger, or delusion—passion, aversion, harmfulness, ill will, any of these things—then once you know how to sense that, you can know right away: This is not a thought you want to follow. You’d better drop it. Other times, it takes time to watch. After all, you’re learning about a person here. Even though you may …
- Four Steps for the Heart & Mind… When greed, aversion, or delusion arise, you can’t blame things outside. They may be the focal point, but the real cause is inside. What makes you want to go for these things? Notice also that these mind states pass away. They’re not a constant tone. They come for a bit, then they stop. Then they come again, and they stop. They come …
- Two Guardian Meditations… That means that the teaching he gave wasn’t influenced by any greed, aversion, or delusion. That’s one of the reasons why we can trust that teaching. Then there’s the bull, which is a symbol of his strength. As he said, as he was practicing different practices while trying to find the way to awakening, he developed qualities of conviction, persistence, or …
- Honoring the Noble Ones… Focus on the body in and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. So right now you’re focusing on the breath. As for any thoughts that have to do with the world, you put them aside. And you bring three qualities to this exercise: The first is ardency. Of the three qualities, this is …
- The Seven Treasures… When greed, anger and delusion come, when lust and fear come, you don’t believe them. You realize that these defilements focus on only a very narrow picture, a very narrow slice of life, and they almost willfully block out everything else, so that whatever you desire looks really good or whatever you hate looks really bad. But discernment is a quality that opens …
- Harmless & Clearheaded… Our greed, anger, delusion, distraction, or pain all get in the way. These are obstacles or hindrances. So we have to do our best to overcome them and not get discouraged when we see them. I don’t know how many people give up their meditation and say: “I can’t meditate. My mind is too distracted.” It’s like saying, “I can’t …
- Actualizing Your Potentials… When you keep that sense of distance, you can deal with setbacks a lot more effectively, remembering that the most important thing is to learn and act in a skillful way, i.e., with a minimum amount of greed, anger, and delusion, trying to be as harmless as possible. After all, whatever responsibilities we take on, whatever jobs we take on, there’s a …
- Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas… When you’re more centered inside, other people are less subject to your greed, aversion, and delusion. When you’re more solid inside, people can rely on you more. At the same time, you begin to realize there are opportunities for well-being that you may not have thought of before. For me, Ajaan Lee’s method of breath meditation was very different from …
- One Point, Two Points, Many Points… As for the other leaves, if they’re not helpful for your disease, why bother with them right now? The mind has this disease of ignorance, craving, greed, anger and delusion. And if we don’t take care of it, it’s going to fester, going to cause a lot of suffering for a long time to come. So focus on the leaves that …
- Multi-Dimensional Dhamma… That’s because we all tend to view our unskillful qualities as our friends—we like our greed, aversion, and delusion—and only by developing dispassion for them can we see through that supposed friendship. The second inner attitude is contentment with the physical conditions surrounding you. Contentment fits in with being unburdensome and finding seclusion. You learn to be content with the food …
- A Sense of Yourself… You can’t just give in to your greed, aversion, and delusion. You need to have a sense that you are competent to take them on. You have the tools you need. If you don’t have the tools you need, you’re going to work on them. This is where having a sense of yourself comes in: knowing what inner tools you have …
- Establishing Priorities… Is it greed, anger, delusion, lust, fear, jealousy? What are the things that spark these emotions? You see the defilements in real-time. If you’re able to do this, then the next time you sit down it’s going to be a lot easier to stay with the breath more continuously. But if you develop the habit of throwing away your concentration as …
- Setbacks… Otherwise it all gets too facile—you know this and you know that—but do you really know it? Have you ever been in the middle of trying to figure out your greed or figure out your anger or figure out your delusion? Have you really wrestled with these things? It’s only when you wrestle with them that you learn what their weak …
- Catch Yourself Lying to Yourself… So when there are times, as he says, that telling the truth would give rise to greed, aversion, or delusion, either in your mind or the other person’s mind, so you avoid talking about those things. In avoiding them, you sometimes have to avoid them in a way that the other person doesn’t catch you avoiding them, because then they’ll know …
- To Delight in the Path… In other words, you delight in abandoning your greed, your lust, your aversion. You see it as a victory in the mind when you’re able to pull yourself out of these things. As for delight in developing, of course, that means delight in developing skillful qualities—things like mindfulness and alertness, based on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. There are lots of …
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