Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Understanding Pain… After all, the body is solid, so the solidity of the body gets glommed together with the pain, so that it becomes solid pain. Learn how to question that. Is the body the same thing as the pain? The body is something physical; the pain is something mental. They may lie in the same spot, but it’s as if they’re on different …
- Multi-Dimensional Dhamma… If the body gets diseased, it becomes a burden to other people, especially now that medicine and treatments are so expensive. One of our responsibilities as practitioners is to make sure that we stay healthy, although we have to fight the tendency to get passionate about perfecting the body and being really fit. That’s one way you have to look for a balance …
- Mature Strategies… Our standards for what counts as true happiness have become more refined. Particularly as we develop our powers of concentration and get used to a more and more refined sense of ease, a more expansive sense of ease, we grow more discriminating in our taste, in our appreciation for what true happiness can be. And there comes a point where we’re willing to …
- The Questions of Suffering… All the four noble truths become clear. And you see why they’re called “right view.” They form the view that’s right for solving that original problem. So when questions come up in your mind, remember that the really important ones are those that relate to this question: What is the suffering? What causes it? What can be done to put an end …
- Establishing Priorities… It becomes a lot more interesting. You begin to realize that this breath work we do in the body is a useful way of getting the mind interested in the breath, so that you don’t have to force it to stay here. You’re here through the power of your curiosity. At the same time, you have to keep an eye on the …
- Taking Responsibility… It just becomes plain technique without any real insight. This is why Ajaan Fuang always said to observe, to watch. And his attitude when he gave meditation instruction was not, “Just do this and don’t think, and come back when you’ve got guaranteed awakening.” He said, “Try this out. If it doesn’t work, we can work with it.” He wanted you …
- Setbacks… It’s also not necessary that when you’re virtuous, the mind becomes concentrated or when you’re concentrated, you gain discernment. These things are not billiard balls, where you hit one and that goes to hit the next and that goes to hit the next and you get the last ball into the pocket. It’s not that neat a process. The mind …
- Eyes in the Back of Your Head… After all, this state of concentration is a form of what they call bhava, or becoming. It’s a state of being. Every state of being is usually focused on something. There’s a craving, there’s delight, there’s an attraction to one thing that becomes the focus for a whole sense of who you are and of the world around you. You …
- Heedfulness is the Path… When you’re choosing a teaching to follow, you can become the best judge of whether the teacher is good or his teaching is good when you yourself become more and more a person of integrity. As the Buddha said, a person of integrity can tell when someone else has integrity or not. People without integrity can’t tell. They themselves are used to …
- More than a Sliver of Mindfulness… It’s not the hungry equanimity of just telling yourself, “I’ll be okay with whatever comes up.” It’s equanimity that’s been well-fed, that’s at peace, what Ajaan Fuang would call large-hearted equanimity, as opposed to the small-hearted equanimity that just grits your teeth and says, “Okay, I’ll bear with it.” You’re becoming equanimous because the …
- Three Recollections… If he was going to become Buddha, he had to test his awakening to make sure it was the real thing. So he tested it again and again. You read in the Canon about the different standards against which he tested it. What was his knowledge of the devas? What was his knowledge about suffering? What was his knowledge about different states of being …
- To Discern Suffering… Sometimes the sense of rapture or refreshment gets really strong to the point that people feel threatened by it, in which case it becomes unpleasant. But if you can learn to accept it simply as a sign that the mind is settling down, then your perception of it is going to change. It becomes pleasant again. And then you’re aware of all these …
- Lust… It becomes a way of nurturing, of training the mind in that particular direction. But when we come to actually developing the factors of the path, somehow it seems awfully hard. This is where we have to generate desire to abandon what’s unskillful and develop what’s skillful. Right effort is, in part, the ability to generate that desire. Try to think about …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… This is where playing with the breath becomes important, because if you can come to the practice with a sense of energy, a sense of well-being, it’s a lot easier to delight in developing and to delight in letting go. It doesn’t feel like an onerous task at all. In fact, it becomes your sport, to see how you approach the …
- Nobility Through Inner Strength… They don’t become our wisdom until we realize, “Okay, if I can change the way I act in a positive direction, that’s wisdom in action.” Whatever skills you need in learning how to talk yourself into doing the skillful thing and abandoning the unskillful thing, that’s all discernment. It’s a strength because you can carry that with you wherever you …
- If These Walls Could Talk… There’s that line of thought that says, “If you try to get rid of your unskillful mental qualities, that’s engaging in craving for non-becoming. It’s showing aversion.” Well, there are times when you have to be averse to things that are unskillful. If you let unskillful qualities stay, they’re going to take over. And you’re missing out on …
- Standing Outside Your Thoughts… This way, you take on different roles with regard to your thinking instead of just jumping right into a thought and allowing it to turn into a state of becoming where you take on an identity in the world of that thought. These perceptions, these analogies, allow you to think of yourself standing outside. This may involve a sense of you, but it’s …
- Restraint… If you give in to them, they become more and more habitual. There’s that voice in the mind, say, when lust comes up, that tells you, “If you don’t give in to me, you’ll never be rid of me.” And we believe it, even though giving in to it means it’s going to come back. It’s the same with …
- How & Why We Meditate… As you’re working with the breath, you also become sensitive to two other kinds of fabrication the Buddha talked about. One is called verbal fabrication, which is the way the mind talks to itself. It directs its thoughts to a particular topic and then it starts evaluating the topic and deciding what it likes and what it doesn’t like, what it wants …
- Alone at Death, but Not Lonely… These can become your friends. The ardency is the quality of the will that goes into this, and the evaluation is the quality of the observer. William James once talked about two kinds of truth: truths of the will and truths of the observer. A truth of the observer is one where you can’t let your will get in the way. If you …
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