Search results for: "Impermanence"
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- Up for the Challenge… Sometimes we’re told that we suffer because we cling to impermanent things. But it’s possible to cling even to permanent things and still suffer. You have to learn how to let go of everything at some point. That’s the duty with regard to the cause of suffering. Wherever there’s craving that leads you to cling, that’s to be abandoned …
- Dreams & Voices… When that’s a possibility, then a lot of the things that otherwise would seem worth the effort even though they’re impermanent and inconstant, suddenly don’t seem so worthwhile after all. This is why the meditation is not simply a matter of noting what comes and goes. There’s going to be some arguing back and forth, some reasoning back and forth …
- Educating Equanimity… We hear so much about insight being insight into how things are inconstant or impermanent, stressful or suffering, or not-self. And that is one aspect of discernment, but the Buddha teaches many other aspects as well. It’s in working our way through those other aspects that you begin to realize exactly where the teachings on inconstancy, stress and not-self really function …
- Strategies for Happiness… If you identify with things that are impermanent, things that can be changed by causal conditions beyond your control, you’re putting yourself in a weak position, an exposed, dangerous position. And this is where the teaching on not-self comes in. Ajaan Maha Boowa compares this teaching to a stick that you use to hit the hand of a monkey that’s always …
- Mindfulness Aims at Concentration… You’ve gained an important insight, that even concentration is impermanent.” But that’s not what you’re supposed to do with concentration. You’re supposed to develop it. Now, it is true that there are passages where the Buddha says, “Before you do breath meditation, contemplate inconstancy.” But, that’s for the sake of putting aside greed and distress with reference to the …
- An Examined Life… Everything is very, very impermanent. The passage comes from a sutta where an old king is asking a young monk, “Why did you ordain?” The young monk says that the first thing he reflected on was that the world is swept away. The king says, “What do you mean?” The monk asks him a question in return. “When you were young, were you strong …
- Meaningful Freedom… Eventually, every tree will have to die, because the seeds are impermanent. But it may take a long time. As for things that happen together, you can think of putting your finger in a flame. It burns right away. You don’t have to wait until your next lifetime for it to burn. You take it out, there’s some pain that remains, but …
- Mastering Causality… When you stop clinging to these aggregates, then even though they’re still impermanent and there still may be some stress in them, it doesn’t weigh on the mind. The bridge has been cut so that it doesn’t connect. You stop lifting things up, as in Ajaan Suwat’s image: The mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you …
- Mature Strategies… It works to some extent, but then there are areas where it breaks down because the things we latch onto are all impermanent. No matter how much time we try to dress them up, fix them up, keep them going, they ultimately break down. Form, feeling, perception, thought constructs, even sensory consciousness: They all break down. But we’re strongly addicted to this approach …
- Layers of Selves… We sometimes hear that the reason that clinging is bad is because everything you try to cling to is going to be impermanent. And when the Buddha has you reflect on the drawbacks of clinging, that’s one of the main reflections he has you engage in. But even if you try to cling to something that you think is permanent, and it seems …
- Admit Your Stupidity… To think that you can simply give up feeding by realizing that food is impermanent is not very realistic. You have to understand why the mind is feeding on things that are unhealthy. You have to give it better health food, and then you strengthen it to the point where it doesn’t need food anymore. That’s where we’re headed. But first …
- The Pursuit of Excellence… We understand that things are inconstant and impermanent, but we also have a desire for happiness. If you put the inconstancy first, then that means you have to learn how to scale back your desire for happiness, to realize that whatever you may want is going to be inconstant, stressful, and out of your control, so you have to learn to be okay with …
- Breathing Skillfully… So however you define yourself at that point—permanent, impermanent; individual, separate, interconnected, whatever—you’ve got to let it go. But before you let it go, try to use your sense of self, in the sense that you are responsible for what you’re doing right now, you’re capable of doing it, you’re going to benefit from it, and you can …
- Tranquility & Insight… We need both because you can know things are fashioned, and yet you can still say, “What the hell, I like what I’m fashioning, it’s worth it.” Even though you may know that it’s impermanent and stressful, you can say, “I still get that little bit of honey on the edge of the knife, and that’s enough for me.” At …
- Do, Maintain, Use… We also don’t like to hear that we have to maintain it—when it comes and it goes, we think that we’ve learned something about impermanence. As for using it, we get lost. We think that if you’re going to do insight practice, you have to drop the concentration and then start on square one and do insight—but actually, insight …
- Samsara… Once the mind has settled down, then you use the perception of inconstancy or impermanence, the perception of stress, the perception of not-self to pry away your attachments. In other words, notice the places where you tend to cling and analyze them to see that they really aren’t lasting, they’re really not as pleasurable as you thought they were. You don …
- Fears… And the clinging is threatened by impermanence, by stress and suffering, by the fact that these things are beyond your control. The purpose of our training here is to learn how not to let our happiness be based on things beyond our control, because as long as we entrust our happiness to them, we’re setting ourselves up for suffering, setting ourselves up for …
- Pissing on Palaces… As Ajaan Mun said, you see a leaf fall, and it teaches you the principle of inconstancy, impermanence. You hear a monkey call, and what you hear is its pain and suffering. It’s all around us. When the Buddha referred to his teaching of the Dhamma and the Vinaya, he’d use different words for how he taught. The Vinaya was something he …
- Take Time to Evaluate Your Life… Sometimes that’s translated as impermanence, but your direct experience of it is not whether something’s going to be permanent of not. The direct experience is: Is it a constant sensation? The level of stress, the level of pleasure in the body, you begin to realize, are not constant: They go up and they go down. And the up and the down have …
- Comprehending Pain… It’s not simply a matter of watching a concentrated mind state coming up and saying, “Oh, there’s concentration,” or watching it go and saying, “Ah, I’ve gained insight into inconstancy or impermanence. These things come and go.” It’s like trying to travel from one city to another. A bus that’s going to take you there comes by. If you …
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