Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Skillful Judgment… Because then the judgment becomes the idea that anyone who’s passing judgment is judgmental, and that’s bad. You’re depriving yourself of the ability to learn. And you’re depriving yourself of the kind of community that comes when there’s a sense of trust. Trust isn’t something you can create by having people be nice and non-judgmental with one …
- Respect for the Precepts… You become alert. You become more mindful, more sensitive to things, and that’s pretty deep—a lot deeper than throwing abstractions around. It takes a certain amount of humility to submit yourself to a precept like this, to say, “I’m going to put my preconceived notions on hold and see what it’s like to really try to live by the precepts …
- Breath, Tranquility, & Insight… All too often, if there’s a pain in the body, it becomes a wall to your breath energy. You build up a little cocoon of tension around it, and the breath won’t flow properly. So try to perceive the breath in a different way, as something that can permeate through the wall of tension and not be affected by it. As you …
- Adbusting the Mind… This is how meditation becomes a skill. You see things through consistently from cause to effect, and then apply the lessons to the next cause, and then the next. As your attention span gets stronger like this—as you’re able to observe for longer periods of time and see the connections—it’s a lot harder for your defilements to come sneaking in …
- Chanting Before Meditation… The king had been mystified by the fact that this young man had become a monk to begin with, because he came from a wealthy family. He was young, healthy, his relatives were still alive, and the king was of the opinion that people would become monks only if they were suffering from poverty, from a death in the family, or from bad health …
- Wide-open Awareness… After all, you’ve created innumerable worlds already, so many that you’ve become addicted to the process. Now see what it’s like when you cut through that addiction; what’s there when you don’t create any worlds aside from the world of the breath in the present. Keep your curiosity here with the breath, and let the breath permeate the body …
- Remembering Ajaan Lee… Becoming is part of the problem, and yet you have to create a path, which is a form of becoming, to get beyond it. We’re trying to get beyond fabrication, but you have to fabricate the path. We’re going to be using the insights of what’s inconstant, stressful, and not-self, and yet when you’re developing concentration you’re trying …
- Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog… And it’s a good one to start out with because, say, anger arises, and the breath becomes our enemy. You start breathing in a way that aggravates the anger, on top of the perceptions that sparked the anger. And the various stories you tell yourself about the situation that can also aggravate the anger. Then you’ve got the breath uncomfortable, tight, constricted …
- Perceptions of Self & Not-Self… craving for sensuality, for becoming, for not becoming. The duty there is to abandon the craving—in other words, to develop dispassion for it. The third noble truth is the cessation of suffering, the fact that suffering does end when you abandon the cause. The duty there is to realize it—in other words, to have a direct experience of it. And finally, the …
- Deconstruct Your Emotions… Some people think of concentration as being a blocking out—and even though there are certain things that you’re blocking out right now, you do have to become very sensitive to the energy in the body. And that’s directly related to things coming up in the mind. It’s your first line of defense when a strong emotion suddenly appears. If you …
- In Cahoots with Your Defilements… When you’re really willing to look at suffering until it gives you that message loud and clear, that’s when you become your own friend. And that’s the most important friend there is. Because if you’re not your own friend, nobody else can really help you. Even if the Buddha were sitting right here teaching you, he couldn’t help you …
- Question Your Defilements… Someone else once asked Ajaan Maha Boowa an easy way to become more diligent in the practice. He said, “That’s a lazy person trying to find a lazy way to become energetic. It just doesn’t work that way.” You’ve got to have the attitude that Ajaan Fuang had when he was very young. He came from a poor family. His parents …
- Endurance with a Purpose… That way, what’s hard to endure becomes a lot easier to endure because you’re not creating unnecessary difficulties for yourself. As I’ve said, this is not endurance simply for its own sake. We endure with a purpose: the purpose of knowledge, the purpose of finding a true happiness, a happiness we can depend on, that doesn’t have to depend on …
- Questions in the Practice… What are you doing right now? Why are you doing it? When you bring your attention to the breath, these things become clearer because these intentions appear right next to the breath. So focusing on the breath is not simply a beginning exercise that you drop later for other things. It’s bringing the mind to the point where it should be: right here …
- Faith in the Practice… That’s when your faith becomes, as he says, verified. It becomes unshakable because it’s gone beyond just faith. You’ve actually seen: This really does work. The Buddha really does know what he is talking about Until you reach that point, there are bound to be times when you wonder whether this all works and if it’s worth it. But again …
- The Third Frame of Reference… As you let go of the thinking and the evaluating, you become much more snug with the breath, one with the breath. So in releasing the mind, you’re also making it more steady. There will still be a sense of rapture, but after a while the rapture becomes tiresome. So you try to focus on a more refined level of breath energy to …
- Unskillful Habits… Actually, you don’t have to count the times, just keep doing it for a while, so that it becomes second nature. That way, as soon as the mind starts cooking up an image that would get you attracted, you can tell yourself that there is this other side as well. Having a basis in the breath enables you to step back, so that …
- The Fourth Frame of Reference… This is where the two frameworks of the hindrances and the factors for awakening become useful. When you sit down and try to get the mind concentrated, it’s useful to figure out exactly, “What’s going on here? Which hindrance is bedeviling me right now?” Once you’re able to classify a disturbance as sensual desire, ill will, torpor and lethargy, restlessness and …
- Read the Breath… So we’re sitting here focusing on the breath not simply because the breath can become a comfortable place to stay—although it is a good place to hang out, with a sense of ease in the present moment. The Buddha said that is one of the rewards of concentration, but you can’t just sit there and eat up the rewards. Ajaan Lee …
- Breath by Breath… Meditation is a little thing that becomes big because you do it continuously. Just keep the mind with the breath. Try to make the focus of the mind just right—in other words, not too heavy, not too light. If it’s too heavy, it’s like holding a chick in your hand and squeezing it so hard that it dies. If it’s …
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