Search results for: "Becoming"
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- An Auspicious Night… Ask questions: “How can I use this teaching to help me along the path?” That way, your knowledge of the Dhamma actually becomes a help rather than a hindrance. The fifth quality is ingenuity. How ingenious are you in taking the basic principles of the Dhamma and applying them to your specific circumstances? You don’t have to look very far away: Look at …
- Calm… If you’re focusing on one that’s energizing and becomes unpleasant, then—after you’ve opened up all the escape channels—try to tune in to a calmer energy in the same spot where the excited energy is. It’s like digging a well. When I was living in Wat Asokaram, they had a constant problem because the monastery was right at the …
- Beyond Inter-eating… Once you’ve got those good qualities going, and the mind is in a good state of concentration, that concentration becomes your second kind of food. The Buddha compares the different levels of jhana to different types of food, all the way through the fourth jhana, which he says is like honey, oil, ghee, sugar. These things nourish the mind. In other words, even …
- How to Use the Three Perceptions… There’s craving for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming. Sensuality means the stories we tell ourselves about how great some sensual pleasure is going to be or how great some sensual pleasure was—the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations. Our fascination with all those stories: What does it get us? In Ajaan Lee’s image, he says that thinking about …
- Death Is All Around… But when you cut them, they just become dirt on the ground, something you want to sweep away. This shows you how arbitrary the idea of “me” or “mine” is. It’s good to reflect again and again and again: These things that you claim as yours, exactly how long are they going to lie in your power? And even before they leave you …
- Don’t Just Do It… So as you’re committed to the practice, as you’re doing it, you have to become more and more sensitive to levels of stress, levels of well-being. Ultimately, yes, you get to the point where you let go of all karma, and you let go of all feelings. You let go of all reflections. But don’t short-circuit the practice by …
- Simple & Basic… When you keep it basic, keep it simple, keep it down to earth like this, everything becomes very clear.
- Death Is Normal… When you think about this, then any ceremonies around death become auspicious. As the Buddha said, heedfulness is an auspicious sign for the mind. So, as the Buddha told the king, once you’ve expressed your grief, remind yourself that you have work that needs to be done. If there’s no work in the world outside, there’s still plenty of work inside …
- Customs of the Noble Ones… He, though, was interested in becoming a noble one, which meant that he had to follow the customs of the noble ones. That’s why he was very strict in his observance of the Vinaya and the ascetic practices—and it caused a lot of controversy. I was recently reading a conversation between Ajaan Chah and some lay people. He talked about how Ajaan …
- Toughen & Tenderize the Mind… That becomes ignorance—a big wall in the mind, which blocks off a lot of things so that we can’t really see what’s going on: what we’re doing or the results of what we’re doing. So you want to train the mind to be sensitive enough to see problems inside itself that it didn’t see before and to make …
- An Environment for Practice… One, you find that the more you look at things that are unhealthy for the mind, the more deeply ingrained they become. But more importantly, you get to see your intentions in action. As the Buddha said, if you see any unskillful mental qualities being developed by your looking or your listening, you can tell yourself, “Don’t look there. Don’t listen there …
- Objectivity… So even though the mind tends to be partial, you can find common ground among all your desires, and use that common ground as a basis for becoming more impartial, more objective, more clear-seeing, so that you can bring yourself to the point where you let go of the last attachment, the last bit of ignorance that stands in the way of total …
- Emulating the Truth… It’s in imitation of truthful people that we become true ourselves. The fact that we see their example and appreciate it gives rise to the desire to have that kind of truth as well, so that ultimately it’s not just imitation. They inspire us, but it’s though the honesty of our inner search that we find the honest truth for ourselves.
- Exploring Possibilities… Is it possible, as he said, to find true happiness, a happiness that doesn’t change? As we explore, all the answers we arrive at then become questions we use to keep the mind pointed in the right direction. As you sit and meditate, you often come up with interesting insights, uncover things about the mind that you never noticed before, possibilities that you …
- Mindfulness the Seamstress… The Canon talks about craving as being the seamstress—the seamstress that ties different thoughts together and turns them into a state of becoming. Here we’re talking about mindfulness as a seamstress, but that shouldn’t be strange, because there is an element of desire in your mindfulness. You have a purpose. This is what the ardency is all about: You’re trying …
- Anapanasati Day… As you allow the in-and-out breathing to calm down, you become more and more sensitive to this other level of breathing, which is always there. You get a clearer sense of these waves of breath energy going through the body. Then you allow those to calm down as well and you come to a subtle or profound breath that’s actually still …
- In Training… As he said, if you have no shame at telling a deliberate lie, then what’s to keep you from doing other things that you shouldn’t do? All kinds of things become open to you. You’ve really got to be on top of your precepts. The more you are, the more you learn about your own intentions, because we’re not following …
- A Doctor’s Strategies… The king said, “You can keep your wealth but stay on here as my doctor.” Eventually he becomes the Buddha’s doctor. One of the people he treats on the way back is a millionaire who’s got horrendous headaches. Doctors have come and looked at him, and some said he was going to live only two more days. Others say, “Well, he is …
- Audacious & Undaunted… We hear so much that the Buddha was against craving, and it’s true, as he said, that three types of craving—craving for sensuality, for becoming, and non-becoming—cause suffering. But the desire to be skillful, which is the desire that drove him on his path all the way to the deathless, is part of the path. So try to nurture that …
- Karma in the Present… The worst thing you can do to somebody is to persuade them to do something really unskillful, because that karma then becomes theirs. If you hit them, it may be something in their past karma but now it’s gone, it’s been paid off. It’s now your karma. But if you get them to do something unskillful, the impact of that on …
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