Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 67
  2. Observant & Ingenious
     … Two simple principles, but they work together to become complex: “When this is, that is. When this is not, that is not.” Then, “From the arising of this comes the arising of that. From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.” The first of those two principles is immediate causation—when the cause appears, the effect immediately appears; when the cause goes … 
  3. Examine Your Happiness
     … A lay person who becomes an arahant has to ordain because that person just doesn’t want to store food, doesn’t want to take from the world anymore. Such a person is willing to live off what is offered day by day. The idea of going out and taking things from other beings is repugnant. Only if those beings are happy to give … 
  4. A Refuge Inside
     … But if you realize you can’t look there for your gratification, that you’ve got to look into the mind and develop good qualities in the mind that become your home, become your refuge, then ultimately you can find the real refuge inside, which is release, liberation, *vimutti—*a state of mind that nothing can touch. But until you get there, you’ve … 
  5. The Real Thing
     … These states of becoming that you inhabit, that you are, are things you just create in this way. There comes a sense of real disenchantment with the whole process. A desire to get out. So if you see what’s arising along with the suffering and say, “Oh, this is the cause of suffering,” you see it directly. Then you let go. You don … 
  6. Analysis of Qualities
     … All those people in the past who were almost suicidal were able to turn themselves around and actually become noble ones, become arahants, to find true happiness, to find true freedom. It’s something that any human being can do. So it’s good to think in these larger terms. It takes the sting out of your personal pains right now, out of your … 
  7. An Auspicious Day
     … So when you learn how to think about death in this way, this is when it becomes auspicious. It augurs well for the present moment and for your future. Again, you might hear people say that we don’t practice for the sake of the future, that we don’t want to have any goals. But actually, everything you do has to have a … 
  8. Not What You Are, What You Do
     … To the extent the Buddha does talk about what you are, it’s far along the path of dependent co-arising, way up there in what’s called bhava or becoming. It’s not a question of what you inherently are, good or bad. Very simply, your being comes about from what you do. That’s the reverse of the way most of us … 
  9. A Heart Wider than the World
     … This takes you back to your discernment, so that what you’ve taken on as a working hypothesis becomes clear as you see what’s happening in the mind: where the mind grabs on to things, clings to them, thinking that it’s going to find happiness, and in the course of its search for happiness in that way, it’s making more suffering … 
  10. Three Levels of Evaluation
     … The sign that your evaluation is going well is that the sense of fullness in the body becomes more and more pronounced, with a sense of ease, wellbeing, pleasure simply in being here with the breath, being here in the body, letting all the different breath channels in the body connect so that everything in the body feels unified. All of this depends on … 
  11. Guardian Meditations
     … And in doing so, your discernment becomes *your *discernment. It’s not borrowed goods any more. It’s something you’ve learned how to produce yourself. And when that discernment becomes yours in that way, that’s when it’s really effective.
  12. Occupy Your Body
     … The fact that the mind is still means that the brain is using less oxygen, and so the need to breathe becomes more and more refined, more and more gentle, until it can stop. The first time this happens, it can be a little scary. You realize, “Oh, my breath has really stopped.” You can’t remember how long it was since you took … 
  13. Judging Your Meditation
     … Eventually, evaluation becomes part of the concentration practice. It’s one of the factors of the first jhana. As when you first sit down to look at your breath, you’ve got to evaluate: Does the breath feel good? Does it not feel good? What would feel better? When you choose a point to focus on, which spot is going to be most congenial … 
  14. Delight
     … Sariputta goes through the states of concentration, and how aspects of a lower state of concentration become afflictive as you go into a higher state of concentration. So even the joy of concentration appears afflictive as you get better and better at it. This inclines the mind to something that’s totally unafflicted, which would be the deathless: totally free from change, totally free … 
  15. The Ten Priorities
     … That becomes the motivating force for our discernment. As an element in determination, discernment is essential for two things: one, figuring out what kind of goals really are worth pursuing; and two, figuring out how best to go about it. Once you’ve set your sights on finding true happiness, the next question is, “How do you attain it?” When the Buddha sets out … 
  16. Endurance & Restraint
     … They were probably the 1,000 arahants who comprised the three Kassapa brothers and their followers, plus the 250 who had followed Moggallana and Sariputta in leaving their previous teacher and becoming students of the Buddha. All of these arahants were in the vicinity of Rajgir—Rājagaha—and they all came to see the Buddha that afternoon. Basically, he gave them an account of … 
  17. Refuge in an Admirable Friend
     … This is what it means to become a friend with the Buddha and to take refuge in the Buddha at the same time. You look for happiness that’s long-term. You take into consideration the happiness of others as you do that. And finally, there’s the quality of purity. As the Buddha said, you purify your actions by examining them. This is … 
  18. Tuning-in to the Breath
     … As you become sensitive to it, you begin to sense where there’s tension in the body, and where there’s not; where the subtle breath flows properly, and where it doesn’t. And, again, it’s not just a given. You can do things with that flow. You can improve the flow. If you notice tension in a certain part of the body … 
  19. The Best of a Bad Situation
     … And it’s interesting to see how people who were so complacent reacted with such terror to the fact that their lives might be threatened, their society might be threatened—as if it hadn’t been threatened before and if it had suddenly become a possibility. I mean, the immaturity of people’s reactions was amazing to see. That’s what happens when people … 
  20. The Buddha’s Last Word
     … We’re here to develop skills, to become consummate, to become masters of the skills. Always keep the Buddha’s last word in mind.
  21. Varieties of Mindfulness
     … Our ability to live together is an important skill in the meditation, for it’s in the changing of our frame of reference that a lot of the machinations of the mind become clear. We tend not to see them if we let our awareness blank out during the switch, but if we can learn to be conscious as we switch from one frame … 
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