Search results for: "Greed"
- Page 44
- In Line with the Dhamma… Talk yourself into seeing why it’s a good thing to put an end to it, why you don’t want to side with your moments of greed, anger, and delusion, so that you actually have some enthusiasm for the path. The same with working on developing mindfulness, concentration, and discernment: Develop enthusiasm for these things because they’re good things. They’re useful …
- Not-self, Not No Self… If they come from greed, aversion, and delusion, you can tell yourself, “If I act on these thoughts, if I follow through with them, it’s going to cause trouble. I don’t want that.” So it can say No to those thoughts. As for thoughts that’ll lead to true happiness, you want to identify with them for the time being. So when …
- Top Priorities… Nobody’s going to mind the fact that you have less greed, less aversion, less delusion. And it’s a job that really can come to an end. This is one of the reasons, I think, they talked about the paramis of the Buddha. There are lots of disagreement on what the word parami comes from, but one of the possibilities is that the …
- Seclusion… If you look for the sake of greed or for the sake of anger, you’re nourishing those defilements in your mind. They get strengthened, and then that’s going to have a bad effect on the mind. It’s not the case that you can just look at what you like and listen to what you like. You have to ask yourself, “These …
- Alone with Your Mind… This is what he discovered after having fought the mind past greed, aversion, and delusion. We’re so fortunate that we have a teaching like that. You can think about his wisdom, you can think about his purity, you can think about his compassion and remind yourself that this is what a human being is capable of. That’s uplifting because you can look …
- Purifying Gold… You’re trying to clear the mind of any greed, ill will, or wrong views, so check your views right now. Remember that right view says that some of the things you’re going to experience right now come from your past actions, and you have to accept them. But a lot comes from your present actions. In fact, when the Buddha gave the …
- All-around Eye… When the arguments for your greed, aversion, and delusion come in really strong, you can have a quick and effective response. One of the principles of his teachings on protection was that you have to protect yourself all around. All too often, you hear the teaching boiled down to a few short phrases: let go, accept, don’t be reactive. Even though simplifying your …
- Beyond Nature… After all, as the Buddha points out, even little babies have their greed, anger, and delusion. It’s just that their faculties and bodies aren’t strong enough to act on those defilements very powerfully. But they suffer powerfully: You can see that very clearly. As soon as a child comes out of the womb, it cries. A lot of the child’s early …
- Right Resolve in Real Life… Otherwise, your greed, aversion, and delusion hijack the breath and hold it hostage. They say, “Okay, we’re going to be making a lot of unpleasant feelings here in your body until you do something in line with what we want. And only then will we let it go.” That’s a pretty high price, because what they want you to do can often …
- On Not Twisting the Cow’s Horn… You’re sorting things out in here, whether they’re involved with greed, aversion, or delusion, or with things past, present, or future. Step back from them for a bit and try to identify, “Well, what’s the problem here? What does my mind latch onto? Is it habitually angry, or greedy or lustful or fearful?” Get a sense of what precisely the problem …
- Endurance & Restraint… The Buddha didn’t believe in burning away karma, but he did believe in burning away your greed, aversion, and delusion. And you do that through patient endurance. But the trick to patient endurance is not just putting up with things. You learn how to talk to yourself in a way that makes you eager to be enduring, eager to have that strength, because …
- Shaping the Present… You’re trying to calm it down so that the mind can let go of some of the tension around any greed, anger, aversion, jealousy, fear—whatever unskillful emotions are keeping the mind from settling down. We work with the breath here because often the problem is not so much with the mental side, but with the physical side, which aggravates things. When you …
- A Larger Perspective… Then you can come back to the present moment with a better perspective—the perspective that makes it easier, as the Buddha said, to put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. Otherwise, your concerns about your personal world, the world of your narratives, are going to come creeping back in again. So make use of this larger perspective. This is why …
- The Meaning of the Body… He said, “How do you do that? Take the body in and of itself as your frame of reference, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with regard to the world.” That’s one of the four ways of creating your island. In other words, you take the body just as it is, as you’re immediately experiencing it. And one way …
- Ironies… At first, you’re a slave to your emotions—a slave to your greed, anger, and delusion—but you also have this way of developing your own inner wealth, the wealth of mindfulness, the wealth of concentration, the wealth of discernment. And through that wealth, you can buy yourself out of slavery. That requires patience, requires dedication, the kind of patience and dedication we …
- Metta Metacognition… And when you meditate, you’re reducing the number of times you give into greed, aversion, and delusion. You benefit; the people around you benefit as well. And you benefit not only now, but also in the long term. These practices get you to think in the long term. That’s another important part of spreading thoughts of goodwill. As the Buddha said, this …
- Effective Self-Discipline… We see horrendous people give in to their anger, give in to their greed, give in to their fears, and they end up doing things that they regret for the rest of their lives. That’s simply because they had no control over their minds. They often knew that what they were about to do was going to have bad consequences, but they went …
- Distractive Thoughts… Especially if it’s an obvious defilement, like greed, anger, delusion, or lust: If you thought about it for a while, you’d develop ruts in the mind that would be hard to get out of. Like driving through snow: You suddenly find yourself falling into some ruts, and the ruts take you right into the back of a parked car. So think about …
- Equanimity Isn’t Everything… You’ve got to learn how to keep these perceptions in mind to help wean yourself away from the defilements of lust, anger, or greed. To bring the mind into concentration requires perceptions as well. You need to have a certain perception of the breath, a certain perception of the body to get into concentration and stay there. At the very least, you need …
- Interdependence & Death… Even if you’re not consciously thinking about contemplation of death, the fact that you’re trying to get the mind settled with the breath, using the proper perceptions, the proper ways of talking to yourself, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world, putting aside any reference to who you think you are, and just looking at the problem of suffering …
- Load next page...
