Search results for: "Becoming"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Levels of the Breath… Your perception can become steadier. At first it’s not all that steady because you’re exploring: This is directed thought and evaluation. You’re exploring how the breath energy affects different parts of the body: which parts you tense up as you breathe in, which parts you squeeze as you breathe out. Then you work through those parts, section by section, clearing out …
- The Skill of Patience… And when you think about people you resent or people you’ve had really bad relationships with, the idea that if they could become skillful in their actions is not such a bad idea. Now, part of your mind may say, “Well, I’d like to see them suffer a little bit first, so that they could have a taste of what they’ve …
- Why It’s Good to Know Why… But for that to become genuine knowledge, we have to follow the directions ourselves, commit ourselves to what he’s taught us, reflect on what we’re doing, so that the path becomes our path—because we’ve done our best to take his explanation of why and use it to our advantage—coming to understand why there’s suffering, and how we can …
- Potentials Past & Present… Another thing we’ve learned is that some things become true because we imagined them first. William James, an American philosopher, noted that there’re two kinds of truth. There are the truths that simply are the way they are regardless of whether you want them to be that way or not, like the motions of the planets and the stars. But there are …
- Patience & Urgency… How does the mind approach that issue? How does it relate to that issue? At what point does it move into it and take it on as a state of becoming? What are the attractions of that issue? Why do you feel compelled to keep going back to it? What are the drawbacks of holding on to that issue? If it’s something bothering …
- Respect Opens Possibilities… Craving for becoming: Taking on an identity in a particular world of experience, your sense of who you are in the world you inhabit. You want to take on an identity in a world because there may be something you desire in that world that you might be capable of finding. And then, craving for non-becoming: You’ve decided that the world you …
- The Noble Truths of the Breath… And as he traces it back, one of things that he points out is that if you fabricate your experience—and fabricate here means not that you’re totally making things up, but that you do have a role in shaping things—if you do it in ignorance, you’re going to suffer; if you do it with knowledge, it becomes the path. And …
- Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt… Try to work on your goodwill and your gratitude, and in that way your goodness becomes healthy. And it really does act for the benefit of you and those around you, because it becomes a good example. They, as active beings, can act in wise ways, too. That’s how goodness spreads through the world from one person to the next: through the example …
- Getting the Most Out of Now… This is how meditation becomes a skill. And there’s a lot to be learned about the mind simply by getting it to settle down. There are two purposes in the meditation: One is to gain some tranquility, and the other is to improve your insight. A lot of insight can come, though, simply by dealing with all the issues that prevent the mind …
- Loving Yourself Wisely… Think of the reflection the Buddha has you make every evening: “Days and nights fly past, fly past, what am I becoming?” What you’re becoming, of course, comes from your actions, from the habits you develop. So what kind of person are you creating through your actions, through your thoughts, through your words, through your deeds? You want it to be a good …
- Joy in the Process… You’ve done a lot of good things in order to become a human being. You don’t want to have this human state go to waste. You want to make the best use of your human capabilities. At the same time, you realize you’re born with this problem: that the mind knows how to create suffering for itself and is very good …
- Equanimity… These are wishes we can have for all, but it’s not the case that everybody is going to become happy. After all, they have to choose the path that leads to true happiness. It’s not that you can touch people on the head with a magic wand and make them happy. They have to behave skillfully in their thoughts, words, and deeds …
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