Search results for: "Kamma"
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- The Buddha’s Questions… Again, he didn’t stop there and set himself up as an expert on kamma, teaching just that much about kamma. He said, “There must be some other use for this knowledge. What’s the most skillful use?” He applied it to his own intentions, the kamma of the mind in the present moment. He traced the suffering he was feeling—the aging, illness …
- Fear of Death… You’ll go for the first thing that comes, whatever your kamma turns up. That could be kamma in this lifetime, kamma in some previous lifetime—you never really know. But if you realize you have choices, you can stay with that sense of just awareness. Pains will come because you can’t stay in the body, but you’ll hold on to that …
- The Fourth Noble Truth… There’s another passage where the Buddha says the noble eightfold path is the path of kamma that puts an end to kamma. It’s composed of a series of actions, but it takes the mind to something that’s not an action at all. So the path is not a cause of the deathless. But it takes you there. This is why the …
- New Feeding Habits for the Mind… When you look back, you realize that the steps you were following along the practice were precisely that fourth kind of kamma: the kamma that leads beyond kamma, to the end of action, to the end of having to feed. If you’re observing the precepts, practicing concentration, and developing discernment into what the mind needs to feed on, what it doesn’t need …
- Recollection of Hell… Our kamma is very precarious. You have no idea what good and bad things lurk in the dark pool of your past kamma. But what you do know is that you’ve got this opportunity right here, right now. So do your best to fabricate it into a path, a path that really goes someplace safe, secure—a refuge where there’s no lurking …
- The Wisdom of Wising Up… Remind yourself that what other people do is their kamma; what you do is your kamma. You can’t ultimately be responsible for their kamma; however, you can be responsible for your own actions. So, you spread thoughts of goodwill: thoughts that they may be happy, and especially that they may understand the causes for true happiness and then really act on them. That …
- Beyond Imagination… There’s that chant that we often recite: “I’m subject to aging, subject to illness, subject to death, subject to separation from all that is dear and appealing to me.” What do we have left? We have our kamma. The Buddha says if you reflect on that, make sure to be skillful in your kamma: what you do, say, think. But then he …
- Broad, Tall, & Deep… The lump of salt stands for any past bad kamma you may have. If you can make your mind expansive through the development of limitless goodwill and the rest of the brahma-viharas, then if the results of any past measureable bad kamma come, they hardly even touch the mind, in the same way that a lump of salt thrown into the river wouldn …
- Bringing Daily Life into the Practice… There’s the kamma of how you watch, the kamma of how you listen, and so on, so you want to look at (1) the intention and (2) the result. Then, in line with the principle that the Buddha taught to Rahula, if you see that the way you engage is causing trouble—causing harm to yourself or others—you go back and figure …
- Think Outside the Ruts… So when a certain thought pattern comes up, try to look and see, when it arises, what’s coming up with it? What’s pushing it into or out of your mind? Sometimes these thoughts seem to arise simply because of the force of past kamma, but there’ll be a present-kamma addition. Look for that. In fact, the Pali word for “origination …
- A Dhamma Bucket List… All too many people feel that as death approaches, there’s nothing they can do, and they just give up and go wherever their past kamma may take them. In Thai, this is called yathakam: Whatever your past kamma is, that’s how you go. Usually, you slide down. Whereas if you can remember the Dhamma, it teaches you that even at the moment …
- Shame & Compunction… So it’s a combination of right view and right resolve—right view in the principle of kamma, and leading to the deeper right view of realizing what causes suffering in the mind comes from our own actions. But the way to the end of suffering also comes from our own actions. Then you have the right resolve of goodwill. Given that you have …
- Appropriate Attention… His teachings on kamma, which sometimes seem far away in dealing with past lives and future lives, are also relevant here, too. As I mentioned, he said that what you do right now can have an impact on what you’re experiencing right now. Your kamma coming in from the past is raw materials: the twigs and the branches. But what you’re doing …
- The Brahmaviharas Are Not a Complete Practice … In light of the principle of kamma, it means that you’re going to act in ways that lead to true happiness and that you’d like to see other people acting in ways that lead to true happiness, too. If you could get the whole world to do that, the world would be a much better place. But a lot of people don …
- A Divine Seat… He would say, “Look at these things in terms of your kamma, the things that happen to you that you felt victimized by. Maybe you did that kind of kamma in the past.” That thought changes the story. You realize that these issues go back and back and back, and there’s so much back and forth that we have no idea how things …
- Skillful Selfing… This is one of the reasons why the Buddha was so insistent on the importance of his teachings on kamma. He wasn’t the sort of person who would go out and pick fights with other people, but he would go out and debate with people who taught that kamma didn’t give any results, that everything you experience now is totally the result …
- Mindful & Discerning 24/7… It’s not that when they gain awakening, they have no more kamma from the past. They still have past kamma that they have to deal with. Negative things can still happen to them. But they’ve learned how to think about those things, to see those things, in such a way that they don’t suffer. So if your thinking is making you …
- Sense Restraint… This is where you have to pull back again and say, “Who’s doing the talking in here?” It’s not you and it doesn’t have to be you—think of it as the result of past kamma. What you’re doing right now is your present kamma, and you can say, “I don’t need to get involved.” Sometimes you can’t …
- An Island in the Flood… He saw that people and all beings would die and then be reborn in line with their kamma. And the kamma was pretty complex. It’s not the case that you do one bad thing and you go to hell, or one good thing and you go to heaven. After all, you’re doing lots of things all the time. Kamma is your intentions …
- One Thing Clear Through… But then when the goodness of that good kamma you’ve developed finally wears out, you fall. When you fall, it hurts. This is where the Buddha said you start thinking about the drawbacks, even the degradation, in sensuality. If you’re generous and virtuous simply because of the rewards you’re going to expect to get back in terms of sensual pleasures, those …
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