Search results for: "Becoming"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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.
- 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 …
- Spread Goodness Around… That then becomes a meritorious act on their part. In other words, they appreciate goodness. And the more we can develop an appreciation of goodness in the world, the better off we’ll be. So as you’re meditating, it’s a good way of developing inner worth, which then becomes a happiness that spreads around. It’s the best way to look for …
- Off the Continuum… If you’ve been developing insight, analyzing things, but the mind can’t really settle down, he says to go find someone who has mastered the ability to get the mind to settle down and ask him, “How do you get it to settle down, how do you get it to indulge in this pleasure, so that you really do become settled in there …
- Fabricating with Awareness… This is how your knowledge becomes a skill. It’s interesting that the word the Buddha uses here, avijja, is the negative of vijja. Vijja can mean not only knowledge, but also the kind of skills that, say, a doctor or an animal trainer would have. And the Buddha often compares himself to a doctor and to a trainer. Basically, you want to become …
- Samsara… And all of them have a potential for becoming a path. With form: The word has many meanings, but one of them is your internal sense of the body, the shape you feel sitting here. Focus in on that as your object of meditation. There’s a breath moving through that shape. In fact, the breath is actually the basic point where you make …
- Strength in Humor… If you find yourself in a bad state of becoming, humor can pull you out. You can step out of it a bit. This is your survival technique. You need this. Look at all the great ajaans. One of things that they all have in common is they all had good senses of humor. They’re able to laugh at themselves. It’s not …
- Love is Conditional, Goodwill Is Not… And the idea of meeting up with that person again all of a sudden becomes something you’re afraid of, perhaps because of complex emotions when you were together. But even the fact that if you loved one another really strongly, now that the other person is dead and if you were to meet up with that person’s spirit or a vision of …
- A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness… You become a slave to those things. But if your happiness is independent, that gives you freedom. So it starts with little things like this, just learning how to breathe in a way that feels really good. This is going to require continued attention. The three qualities the Buddha recommends for this are mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. Mindfulness means keeping things in mind—in …
- Insight Is Seeing What’s Worth Doing… As you act in more skillful ways, life becomes a lot lighter. You feel a lot better about yourself. There are a lot of people out there who, when they’re feeling bad about themselves, go see a therapist. And what the therapist should tell them is, “Go out and do something good. Go out and help somebody. Try to be more principled in …
- Preparing to Die Well… Even though eventually we try to let go of all states of becoming, we do that first by developing a skillful state of becoming—right concentration of the mind—which gives a standpoint from which we can gain practice in letting go of grosser pleasures, grosser attachments. The main attachments you let go when you’re developing concentration are the hindrances, beginning with sensual …
- Taking the Long View… So by engaging in admirable friendship, you become an admirable friend to yourself, as you plan for your future lifetimes. You’re looking for wealth that doesn’t get wiped out when you die. Those four qualities of an admirable friend are also listed in what the Buddha calls the seven noble treasures. The other three qualities are a sense of shame, a sense …
- Empathetic Joy Is Ennobling… That way, the practice becomes ennobling. And in ennobling you, it makes your mind much broader and in a better position to settle down and say, “Each of us has our own happiness. There’s no reason to be jealous, no reason to be envious. But I’ve got my work to do.” The potentials for happiness are here inside. Just make sure you …
- Relationships… It becomes more and more an inward issue. And when you’re not leaning on your relationships, you’re not leaning on things outside, you’re putting less weight on them as well. The Buddha talks a lot about clinging. And when we hear those teachings, we immediately translate them into attachment. We start thinking about our attachments to other people, our attachments to …
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