Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 60
  2. Faith in Present Intentions
     … This is one of those truths that *becomes *true because you believe in it and act on that belief. There was an American philosopher, William James, who said that there are basically two kinds of truths. There are truths of the observer, say, where you’re trying to watch the movement of the planets: Wanting them to be a certain way actually gets in … 
  3. Directed Thoughts, Random Thoughts
     … But when the mind is focused on one thing, directing its thoughts to an object, then its other thoughts, its random thoughts, become clear. So try to stay anchored in this one object. Get to know it really well. The breath has lots of ins and outs. If you have parts of the body that tend to have chronic pain, see if you can … 
  4. Possessed by Emotions
     … Learn how to use them skillfully, so that you, too, can become professional in driving out the defilements that have possessed you. Make sure that this is your territory, where nobody else can come in. In that way, this weak point, which has been so easily taken over in the past, becomes your strong point: Nobody else can use you, nobody else can move … 
  5. Fear of Death
     … You’ve learned to pry yourself loose from sensual cravings that pull you by a string Then if you develop discernment, you can get past even craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming. Otherwise, there’s a passage we chant often which says we’re a slave to craving. Think about that passage in the Canon. Ratthapala is talking to King Korayva and … 
  6. Fear of Letting Go
     … Some people say, “I just can’t imagine myself having all those qualities.” But if you work on them, you become a different person. It may take a while. Sometimes the steps are baby steps. But if they’re steps in the right direction, you find, after a while, that the things you couldn’t do in the past—you couldn’t even imagine … 
  7. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … As you do this, you become a good example to others, too. They can see that it really is possible to work on yourself and make some important changes, make some radical changes, inside. There’re some teachings where you’re stuck with a particular self and your particular self is defiled and so you can’t help yourself, you’ve got to have … 
  8. Delighting the Mind
     … The mind is basically getting into a state of becoming. Any kind of thinking that promotes more states of becoming counts as objectification. But you can learn to work in the direction of non-objectification by simply seeing things as events, without building a “me” or a world around them. Just simply: These events are happening; this event causes that event, this action causes … 
  9. Respect
     … They become the context themselves. Then you’re ardent, alert, and mindful. This is where the quality of respect comes in. You’re ardent in trying to do this well, trying to do it skillfully. If anything unskillful comes up in the mind, you want to abandon it. If you notice any skillful qualities, you try to develop them. You don’t just simply … 
  10. The Buddha’s Conventions
     … When you come to the Dhamma, the question becomes not how to get rid of your social conditioning, but: What purposes do you want to serve with your conditioning? In what ways do you need to be re-conditioned to serve those purposes? Because our idea of a perception that’s true basically comes down to: Does it work well enough? For a lot … 
  11. Three More Recollections
     … As Ajaan Lee once said, when you’re generous, the whole world becomes your home. The people you’ve shared things with become your relatives. This is one of the reasons why, in Thailand, when monks speak of the supporters of the monastery they use the term yaat yom, which literally means our relatives. When you give a gift it breaks down barriers. One … 
  12. Generating Energy
     … refreshment, a sense of well-being that then becomes food for the concentration. This is when the kite finally catches the wind. You’re focused on the breath in the way that gives rise to a sense of fullness, and then you feed off of that, so that you can stay with it more consistently, with a greater sense of solidity, stability. So remember … 
  13. Choiceful Awareness
     … That’s how you become sensitive to them. If the mind seems to be totally placid, accepting everything that comes along, give it this choice to stay with the breath and see how accepting it is. If it’s not accepting of this choice, you’ve got a problem. When you recognize that the problem is something you need to solve, you can begin … 
  14. Like a River Full of Water
     … After you’ve tried to make a difference and find you can’t, you simply have to accept that that’s the way things are, not so that you become defeatist, but simply realizing that if you pour a lot of energy into an area where you can’t make any difference, then you’re wasting your time. You’re wasting your energy, energy … 
  15. Terror & Revulsion
     … If you focus only on the *how, *it becomes mechanical, simply a matter of technique: something you do while you sit here with your eyes closed and then you drop it to go off and do something else. But the why helps the practice to seep into the rest of your life, to give you new perspective on what you’re doing with your … 
  16. The Wear & Tear of Life
     … If you were just becoming more sensitive, if you’d be at a loss. The world would weigh even more down on you. But when you can create a sense of strength inside through the breath, a sense of well-being through the breath, a sense of well-being that comes from just being steadily with one thing, the mind’s not forced to … 
  17. Thinking About Rebirth
     … It becomes a mind that depends on things being a certain way in order for it to be happy. The same pattern of thinking applies to other areas of life as well. You think about your relatives. They’re your relatives now, but they won’t be forever. As the Buddha once said, it’s hard to find someone who has not been your … 
  18. Negotiating with the Committee
     … the breath, your ability to stay mindful of one thing over time, the ability to stay concentrated on one thing over time, so that the mind has a chance to rest, settle down, and so the physical elements in the body can become balanced, giving rise to that sense of ease, well-being. As things get more and more still, there comes a sense … 
  19. Analyzing the Breath
     … So look at the body in a new light, from a new perspective, and see if it becomes more interesting to be sitting right here, not doing much of anything else, just staying with the body, exploring how it feels to be right here and not traveling around outside. If you try to lock the mind into the body, it’s like locking a … 
  20. Getting Untangled from Thorns
     … This is where the discernment becomes your own because, after all, it is your stress, it is your suffering that you’re dealing with, along with the fact that you’re causing it and that these are things you experience from within. You can read about these things and have all kinds of theories and have everything all correct so that you can explain … 
  21. In the Mood
     … There’s another story of a former king who had become a monk and would go sit under a tree, exclaiming, “What bliss! What bliss!” The other monks were concerned that he was missing his pleasures as a king. So they go and inform the Buddha, and the Buddha asks for the monk to come and see him. The Buddha asks him, “What do … 
  22. Load next page...