Search results for: "Nibbana"
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- Working Hypotheses… He says that if the Buddha could have taken nibbana out and put it out on the market for everyone to see, nothing else would get bought in the world. Everybody would want just nibbana. It’s that amazing. But it’s not the kind of thing that the Buddha can take out or that any of the noble disciples can take out and …
- Getting Your Head Around the Goal Getting Your Head Around the Goal October 20, 2023 I know a lot of people who complain that they can’t get their heads around what it would be like to be awakened, what nibbana is like. But we have to remember that that’s not the duty with regard to nibbana. We’re not here to get our heads around it. We’re …
- Brahmaviharas on the Path… So on their own, the brahmaviharas can’t take you all the way to nibbana. Still, they can play a role in the path. And the major role is the one I pointed out just now: motivation. In the path, this fits under right resolve. We see that there’s suffering that comes from sensuality. There’s suffering that comes from thoughts of ill …
- Treasure Island… These are the treasures you can exchange for nibbana, although the final result is that even when you attain nibbana*,* these things don’t leave you. They’re part of the mind as well. As long as the mind is still with this body, it’s got these treasures to use, and you can share them with other people. That’s the best kind …
- Heirs to Our Actions… That’s what nibbana’s all about. That’s the meaning of the symbol of nibbana, the flame that’s gone out. It’s not going out of existence. The image there is of being totally unlimited, no longer caught up in anything. Total freedom. That’s the one thing that can provide real satisfaction. So keep both sides of this reflection in mind …
- What’s Real… The solution ultimately will be not to fabricate anything, but in the meantime we have to fabricate a path, because you can’t take nibbana and use it as a tool to gain nibbana. We take these things that we normally do—bodily fabrication, or the breath; verbal fabrication—directed thought and evaluation, i.e., the way you talk to yourself; and then mental …
- The Desire for Things to Be Different… I saw recently someone quoting Ajaan Maha Boowa saying that, “Nibbana is a place of enough.” Their idea was that teaching people to have a sense of enough would take them to nibbana right now. That’s got things backwards. When you get to nibbana, then things are enough because they really are enough—because you’ve made a difference. You’ve seen how …
- Right Effort… Brute force is not going to take nibbana by storm. As Ajaan Fuang once said, if you could get to nibbana simply through effort, we all would have been there by now. You have to make the effort, right effort. This involves an element of wisdom and discernment. There are several ways of applying discernment to right effort. One that we’re probably most …
- Long-Term Welfare… They said they were afraid that if they focused on the breath, they would get stuck on jhana, and when they died they would be born as Brahmas, and wouldn’t make it to nibbana. He took one look at them and, I think, he realized there was no way they were going to get to nibbana the way they were practicing. I don …
- Good Eating… The Buddha’s ultimate answer, of course, is nibbana. When you reach nibbana, there’s no more hunger, there are no more questions, just total satisfaction. But how do you get to that point of no hunger? You watch the mind to see how it’s feeding. Where does it look for gratification? Does it look for gratification in the approval of other people …
- The Safety of Jhana… The Buddha once talked about the happiness of nibbana, and some people complained, “How can it be happiness when there’s no feeling in nibbana?” He replied that there are forms of happiness that are not related to feeling at all. It’s a different kind of happiness, a different kind of pleasure or bliss or however you want to translate the word sukha …
- From Grief to Compassion… The idea that samsara and nibbana are the same thing is totally ridiculous. Samsara is the process by which pain is created; nibbana is the end of that process. And by taking the path you’re showing other people that, yes, they can take the path, too, if they ever get around to realizing that the cause of the problem lies inside. As the …
- Heedful of What’s Precious… But there’s also a passage where the Buddha says that truth should be protected and goes on to define the truth as nibbana. How do you protect nibbana? In and of itself, it doesn’t need protection, but you want to protect your access to it, to make sure you don’t close off the way. Which means that you protect the qualities …
- No One in Charge… That was how he was able to enter total nibbana. We don’t get to haul anything along with us into nibbana. We create goodness to leave it behind as our gift. And the leaving behind, when it’s done from a position of strength, becomes a gift to ourselves as well. Everyone benefits. So when the Buddha says that the world is aimless …
- Freedom through Restraint… In this case, “dhammas” mean all phenomena, except for nibbana. Nibbana is beyond dhammas. So what is desire doing in your mind right now? Where’s it heading? Where’s it going? You want to see this clearly. This is why we focus our desires on getting the mind to settle down. That’s a good desire to encourage, because it’s part of …
- Two Roads to the Grand Canyon… They seem to be far away from nibbana, but going to nibbana requires that you be observant. As Ajaan Lee once said, “When you live in a monastery, your eyes have to be as large as the monastery.” In other words, you have to see what’s going on. Not that you make it a burden on yourself, but you have to be observant …
- Comfort Dhamma… There’s the ultimate happiness of nibbana, and along the way in the practice there’s the well-being of concentration. This is what we’re working on right now so that you have a sense of being at home in the present moment. You feel like you belong here. The mind fits with the breath; the breath fits with the body. Everything fits …
- Meditate Because You Have To… This is why the Buddha talks so little in the Canon about nibbana, and talks so much about the path. He talks about nibbana just enough to give you encouragement. And he warns you about the things that can come up if you wander off the path, but his main emphasis is on getting those causal factors right. These are the causes leading to …
- The Raft of Jhana… They can’t become totally easeful—after all, if they were totally easeful they would be nibbana. There will be some stress in there. In fact, one of the big insights once you’ve gotten used to really appreciating the pleasure of a concentrated mind is coming around to the fact that even here there are ups and downs, there is some inconstancy. Even …
- Generating Desire… But then nibbana, the Buddha said, is the ending of all dhammas. It’s the one thing that’s not rooted in desire. But to get there requires desire. This is why desire’s one of the bases for success. The image that Ven. Ananda gives is of going to a park. To get there, you first need to have the desire to go …
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