Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Strengthening Conviction… So when you start to have doubts about the practice or become uncertain about the practice, you have to ask yourself: Whose values are speaking? And what’s the quality of the mind that’s speaking here? You want to step back from these things. It’s not that you don’t listen to your doubts at all, but you do want to figure …
- The Karma of Self & Not-Self… So our question sometimes becomes, “Who’s the real me in here?” But the Buddha saw that that was not the right question. The right question is: How can you create some order among your different senses of self and not-self so that you can find true happiness? That was the whole purpose of his teaching. We have this power, through our ability …
- A Good Independent Self… Every becoming has a sense of self, or more accurately, three senses of self playing three roles. The first is the self as the agent who’s going to do the work that needs to be done to find the happiness on which that particular state of becoming is centered, or the desire on which it’s centered. Then there’s the self as …
- Metta… If you let yourself have ill will for certain beings, it’s very easy to mistreat them, and then that becomes your karma, and your happiness gets spoiled. So it’s primarily for you that you should be developing goodwill as a protection for yourself. The Buddha also said it’s a resolve, a part of right resolve. It’s also a determination. You …
- Attachment vs. Affection… That ability should be developed to become unlimited as well. In other words, you see that there are times when your partiality toward a particular person is going to cause trouble not only for you but also for that person and other people as well. If somebody is really sick, and all you can do is get upset about the sickness, you’re going …
- All Fabrications Are Stressful… So, reflecting on the fact that your life is marked by these things, you want to become more skillful, more heedful. But then, when you reflect that it’s everywhere—everybody is subject to these things, even the devas and Brahmās—that’s when you get on the path, realizing that you’ve got to get out. So we look directly at the processes …
- Think Outside the Ruts… There’s that whole issue of, “I do everything just for me, me, me, me, me”—and it becomes a very horrible “me,” and, as long as you think there’s only one “me” in there, it’s really difficult to figure out exactly what is it that the “me” wants. But when you start dividing it up, you see that there are lots …
- The River of Karma… This is where meditation becomes very important. You don’t have much control over what you did in the past. In fact, right now you have no control. But you can control your state of mind here in the present moment. And that will make all the difference in how you experience the fruits of past actions. Here, there are two things in particular …
- A Good Dish of Concentration… These other things that you feed on, are they really worth it? Is it really good food? What do you have to do in order to find that food? And what happens to you as a result? What kind of person do you become? It’s like eating a lot of junk food: You find that after a while you become fat; your heart …
- Insight from Jhana… This allows us to become more and more sensitive to what the mind is doing in the present moment. In fact, the process of getting the mind to settle down is like peeling away the layers of an onion. First you deal with the really blatant distractions—the blatant things that are irritating the mind: thoughts about your work, thoughts about home, thoughts about …
- Remembering Ajaan Suwat… That’s when the precept really does become a training rule. It trains you in new ways. It forces you to make choices, make sacrifices for the purpose of seeing: What does this do to the mind? Does it lead to the end of suffering, as the Buddha promised? The Buddha made virtue—in the factors of right action, right speech, and right livelihood …
- The Source of Goodness… As you develop the qualities we’re working on—mindfulness, alertness, concentration, discernment, tranquility and insight—you find you become a steadier person. Your mind has a good grounding and a good home. You’re not so open to influences from outside, especially negative influences. In that way, you develop a greater solidity. And the solidity is in and of itself a gift to …
- The Image of the Raft… This is how the mind can become one. Once you’ve chosen the breath as your object, you try to stick with it. You hold on. We hear so much about the path being a path of letting go, but there are a lot of things you have to hold on to. You have to hold on to the basic principles that the Buddha …
- A Happiness Without Boundaries… It becomes a much more expansive mind. It doesn’t have that narrow, fearful quality that it has if you’re just concerned about what you’re going to gain, being afraid that other people will take away what you’ve got. You realize that you have more than enough to share. It’s one of the amazing features of the human race: Often …
- The Story-telling Mind… Let all the ways that the mind relates to itself in terms of past, future, narratives, stories, worldviews, cosmologies — all your views — become skillful. Let them no longer be a cause for suffering. Think of the practice as an all-around way of training the mind. You’re not here just to get very skillful at noting or at being with the breath. You …
- The Duty to Understand… It becomes your object of meditation, simply for the purpose of concentration. They say that concentration isn’t fully mastered until the state of non-return, which is also the point where the fetter of sensual desire is cut. So this contemplation is very useful. If you really want the mind to settle down, and you notice the things that obstruct you from settling …
- Concentration Nurtured with Virtue… But if you see them as an opportunity to develop discernment and then apply your discernment to them, they become useful tools in the path. It’s not the case that once you’ve reached the level of stream entry you don’t need the precepts anymore, in letting go of that fetter of groping at habits and practices. Actually, at that point, your …
- Separate… That, he said, is how you become pure. When you become pure in your actions, you’re very careful—so there are no regrets. When there are no regrets, your mind is more independent. There’s nothing that the world outside can grab hold of to make you suffer. So, in independence there’s freedom, and then, in that freedom, you’re free from …
- The Six Properties… That’s where the teaching really becomes useful, because it allows you to see how the way you focus on the body has an impact on how you perceive the body, how you actually sense the body. We think of sensations as being primary, the raw material, the basic building blocks of experience, but there are conscious decisions being made that precede the sensations …
- Love for the Dhamma… We tend to have a romantic idea of the forest — peaceful, green, beautiful forest — because our idea of forest life has become awfully sanitized. Actually, there are a lot of difficulties there. There are dangerous animals — not just the tigers that seem romantic and exciting, but also the day-to-day things: the bugs and snakes and other animals that carry diseases. When you …
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