Search results for: "Nibbana"

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  2. Bases for Success
     … You can’t try to make an effort at nibbāna. You make an effort at the path, the various things you’ve got to do in order to get the mind to settle down based on that desire. There’s a passage where the Buddha says that all dhammas are based on desire. That means good dhammas and bad dhammas. This is one of … 
  3. At the Door of the Cage
     … When we got to the third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, the passages we were discussing contained descriptions of nibbana, and the general consensus in the group was that they didn’t like the sound of it. It seemed too alien, too foreign to be really appealing. Then we got to the fourth noble truth and we started talking about right concentration. That … 
  4. Happiness Without Conflict
     … You can’t use nibbana to reach nibbana. You’ve got to use what you’ve got. And what you’ve got, of course, is just a lot of desires. This is why the path has two factors that relate to desire. One is right resolve and the other is right effort. Right resolve is the resolve to renounce sensuality; to develop non-ill … 
  5. A True Person
     … All you have to do is just sit there and think thoughts of goodwill, and that should take you all the way to nibbana. This was from a scholar who’d studied Buddhism for many years, but who was more interested in reading between the lines than in taking seriously what the lines had to say: that the brahma-viharas, on their own, don … 
  6. Brahmaviharas & Noble Truths
     … He added, however it did not lead to dispassion, it did not lead to nibbana. The brahmavihāras, on their own, are not a path all the way. But they can be part of the path, and part of the motivation for following the path. This again, is where equanimity comes in: realizing that there’s more you’ve got to do, because the brahmavihāras … 
  7. A Complete Training
     … One was called the Buddhism aimed at merit, and the other was the Buddhism aimed at nibbana. The author presented them as two very different kinds of Buddhism. The first was all about the pleasures of samsara, and the other was focused on the drawbacks of samsara. They seemed to be heading in different directions. But as you start actually practicing the Dhamma, you … 
  8. Delight & Beyond Delight
     … As for the arahants, having gained nibbana, there’s nothing they have to delight in. They don’t need to add anything to what they’ve already got, because it’s perfectly sufficient. It’s totally satisfactory, so that even commenting on it doesn’t increase the joy, doesn’t increase the well-being of nibbana. That’s why they’re beyond delight. They … 
  9. To Be Sure
     … If it were easy, everybody would’ve glided to nibbana a long time ago. The Buddha saw that when people are born after they’ve passed away, it’s like a stick being thrown up in the air: Sometimes it lands on this end, sometimes it lands on that end, sometimes it lands splat in the middle. Even though rebirth is determined by your … 
  10. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … After all, nibbana is very, very subtle. And even though it’s immediately present, and the possibility of reaching it is theoretically available at any moment in time, our powers of perception are not up to it, our skills are not skillful enough, not subtle enough. So we have to raise the subtlety of our mind as we develop these skills until finally we … 
  11. Defeatism? - Anything But
     … You can’t take nibbana by storm. You need the remaining two bases for power, too, such as being intent. You focus really carefully on what you’re doing and what results you’re getting. You pay very careful attention. This is how the Buddha was able to find the path to begin with. He noticed that he wasn’t getting the results he … 
  12. Practical Wisdom
     … In other words, you can’t use nibbana to get to nibbana. You have to use fabricated things. But it works, just as long as you put them together well, you hold on tight, and you make the effort to go across the river. It can be done, it’s simply a matter of wanting to do it enough, and then being as wise … 
  13. Why We Bow Down
     … He never claimed that he could give you a logical proof of nibbāna, for example, or of the four noble truths—even of the principles of mundane right view, that your actions really are yours. In other words, you’re the one who decides what to do. It’s not some outside force acting through you. And they really do have an impact. Your … 
  14. Compunction & Awe
     … If there were no nibbana, the awe we feel about the fire element, the water element, the wind element, would be really unpleasant. But realizing that there is an escape, something even bigger, more amazing, makes the awe-inspiring things of the world not so scary after all. You look in the Apadanas, the section of the Canon that was added at the very … 
  15. The Middleness of the Path
     … The Buddha described nibbana as being immediately present, sanditthiko — right here in the here and now — but remember that time right after he gained Awakening where he reflected on whether he could teach or not. He was discouraged because nibbana was so subtle. He wondered how he could ever teach anybody, how anyone could learn what he had to teach. But he realized that … 
  16. The Need for a Purpose
     … When you get to nibbana, there’s no ‘for the sake of.’” So, the message of the Buddha is extremely optimistic. There’s a happiness that’s so satisfying and so reliable that you don’t have to do anything more once you’ve got there. But to get there requires that you do have a sense that you’re doing this for a … 
  17. Dichotomies
     … After all, nibbana is a really relaxed state, so I’ll find it in a relaxed way. I’ll reach nibbana by relaxing into it.” That doesn’t work. That’s not the way cause and effect works. You have to look at the quality of the intention behind a particular mind state and then see where it goes. That’s how the Buddha … 
  18. Safety in an Uncertain World
     … You get to the karma that brings an end to karma—because the only really safe secure place is nibbana. That’s why the Buddha listed safety, security, the secure, harbor, and refuge as epithets for nibbana. That’s when you’re going to be safe in all dimensions, in all ways. Up until then, you have to accept the fact that you’re … 
  19. The Power of Action
     … Of course, ultimately we’re working to a point where, as Ajaan Mun says, nibbana has no action. Each of the four noble truths has a duty, but nibbana doesn’t have a duty. There’s no action there at all. But you get there through acting skillfully and looking very carefully at your actions. And to act, you need strength. This is one … 
  20. Equanimity in Heart & Mind
     … He said that if the people who have attained nibbana could show it to everyone else, nobody would want anything else but nibbana. ** So always keep that possibility in mind.
  21. A Concentration Diet
     … The Buddha’s solution was eventually to find a state of mind—nibbana— that doesn’t have to feed on anything at all. There’s no hunger, no lack. And when you don’t have to feed, you don’t have to hold on to anything. You no longer count as a being. This is why when the Buddha was asked, “When arahants die … 
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