Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 73
  2. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … We have to create good qualities of the mind so that the mind doesn’t get frazzled and frayed, doesn’t become its own worst enemy. You want the mind to be its own best friend. This is one of the reasons why we practice the Dhamma. As we practice the Dhamma, it’s like providing food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for the mind … 
  3. Cleaning up Your Personal Environment
    Yesterday we were talking about becoming. It’s a very deep and sometimes abstract process. But the implications are very immediate: You do play a role in shaping your own identity and you play a role also in shaping the world around you. There are some limitations based on your karma, but there are also possibilities—for greater freedom, for greater happiness—and those … 
  4. A Network of Goodness
     … This is a way in which our goodwill becomes more expansive, because we have a sense of this network of goodness. It’s not something that’s naturally there on its own. It’s there because of choices. Remember kataññu: a sense of what was done. What was done was chosen. Somebody chose to do something good. They didn’t have to. It wasn … 
  5. Appropriate Attention
     … That’s how you can become your own best friend on the path.
  6. Stern Kindness
     … If you let the mind wander into those scenarios, they become more and more habitual, and it becomes harder and harder not to act on them. This is where that second function of mindfulness comes in, the threats, saying “Look, watch out! If you don’t train the mind, there’s going to be trouble.” Even if you don’t get involved in doing … 
  7. A Rare Gift
     … The value of the mind increases as it becomes more and more one. Don’t think that when the mind has just lots of stuff inside that it has more value. I remember in Thailand one time, I was going past a market and there was only one durian, which is a very highly prized food over there. There was one single durian in … 
  8. Dwelling in Emptiness
     … As the mind does settle down, then respect becomes a question of trying to gain more and more sensitivity. You move into a level of stillness. When you first get there, it seems like a huge release from where you’ve been. There seems to be no sense of stress or burdensomeness there at all. But when you stay there long enough, you begin … 
  9. A Skillful Heart
     … You become a skillful-hearted person. That’s when you’re generally trustworthy. You can trust yourself, and other people can trust you, too. In a world of a lot of doubts and uncertainty, a trustworthy person is genuinely a treasure. So make yourself a treasure by being scrupulous in protecting your goodwill. And it’ll protect you in return.
  10. Big Things in Little Things
     … If you do the processes of fabrication with knowledge, they become a path out. So keep your awareness focused right here. This takes time, and it takes focus and patience. Like the carpenter sharpening his saw: Each little tooth on the saw has to be just right. The difference here, of course, is that the carpenter doesn’t have to know the teeth more … 
  11. Feelings of Unworthiness
     … Even Mara is supposed to eventually become a private Buddha. So this is a story in which even the bad guys get their redemption. You’re not nearly as bad as they are, so there’s hope for you as well. So feelings of unworthiness are not encouraged in this tradition. In fact, they’re seen as defilements because we’re not groveling in … 
  12. Getting Out of Karmic Debt
     … Part of the repayment is that we become less of a burden on the world. Think about the customs of the noble ones. This was one of Ajaan Mun’s favorite Dhamma topics. The Buddha describes them as four. The first three have to do with contentment: You’re content with whatever food, clothing, or shelter you have. At the same time, you don … 
  13. Determined to Stay with the Breath
     … If you allow that ease to have some space, it becomes a sense of fullness, refreshment. The potential is here. But we’re too interested in other things—or at least some members of the committee are interested in other things. They want to go off someplace else. They say, “Well that’s nice. You can stay with your breath a little bit. But … 
  14. Past & Future in the Present
     … In cases like that, the desire actually becomes an obstacle. But if you really pay attention to the present moment, you’ve got things to play with here. You can play with the length of the breath, how deep it goes, how heavy or light it is. These are things you can do in the present moment. As for your memory of the past … 
  15. Lavish Goodwill
     … But often we’re challenged by other people’s unskillful behavior, and it becomes hard. Or, sometimes we have difficulty thinking goodwill for ourselves: looking at ourselves, seeing our drawbacks, and thinking that we’re not worthy of our own goodwill. But the Buddha certainly didn’t encourage that idea. Goodwill has nothing to do with deserving. It’s your free creation of the … 
  16. The Need for Goodwill
     … Practice extra hard so it will be for that person’s long term welfare and happiness.” They say that the arahants in the Theravada tradition are selfish, but one of your motivations for becoming fully awakened is that those who have given you gifts along the way will benefit greatly from that fact. So you’re doing this not just for you, but also … 
  17. Interdependence
     … That’s how our friendship with one another, our interdependence, actually becomes an asset on the path.
  18. Realities Right Here
     … If you begin to bring knowledge and awareness to them, it becomes part of the path. So try to look at your sense of the body in these terms. Look at you mind in these terms as well. What have you got in the mind on this level? You’ve got acts of attention, intentions. feelings, perceptions, contact. Learn to see them on those … 
  19. Switch the Context
     … That’s also an act of becoming. We were talking the other day about how dependent co-arising doesn’t happen inside you or inside the world. You and the world happen inside the pattern of dependent co-arising, which gives you a greater sense of the fluidity of all this: that your habits are not etched in stone. You’re not etched in … 
  20. The Cost of Happiness
     … When you realize that you have a choice, and you don’t have to look in ways that are causing harm, causing stress, that’s when you become more skillful. The whole trick lies in seeing these things. This is why the Buddha placed so much emphasis on seeing stress, seeing the inconstancy, the disturbances in the mind. Look for them. He said that … 
  21. The Easy Way Out
     … You’re becoming sensitive to the actions in your mind: things you’ve been living with all along but you don’t really see clearly because you’ve been looking at them in another way or just looking past them, looking through them. These events that come up in the mind: They’re like signs, a finger pointing someplace. And for most of us … 
  22. Load next page...