Search results for: "Becoming"
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- Compassion for People on Fire… It’s only when you can put the fires out—or at least adjust them so they become steady, cool flames inside— that you can be a good example to others. And it’s only through being a good example that you can make lasting change. At the very least, try to make a lasting change inside, and perhaps some of it will spread …
- People Who Think Too Much… That becomes your post. After a while, you’ll see other movements in the mind. Some of them will be other intentions that come sneaking in; others will just be plain movements. You really won’t know which is which unless you’ve stayed with your main intention for long periods of time and seen it in different contexts. So, when you’re told …
- Worlds… This “in-and-of-itself” frame of reference becomes more and more predominant as you develop an interest in the breath. It’s not just a matter of in-and-out. There are all kinds of variations in the flow of breath energy coursing through the body. As you explore them, you find that you’re learning not only about the breath but also …
- Looking in the Dhamma Mirror… We’re used to looking at our face and seeing it every day, every day, and it becomes perfectly okay, perfectly normal. But there are people who would be ashamed to go around with your face. Of course, in terms of external looks, there’s something wrong with those people. But try to think of your actions in the same way. Then it’s …
- Hurtful Memories… If it’s a memory of someone who hurt you, you remember that that happened, but now you’ve become the sort of person who doesn’t get overwhelmed by that, the sort who’s not going to let it ruin your life. You’ve learned how to move on, you’re now a meditator, you’re doing something good with your life. That …
- Keep It Simple… That’s how the meditation becomes a skill. You stay focused on the real issues. This is why it’s so important to understand what mindfulness is, just keeping all this in mind. Sometimes you hear mindfulness described as being totally aware of the present moment, being choiceless in your awareness. Well, choiceless awareness is fine when there are no problems. You’re free …
- Being Still… Once you have that reference point then even the most subtle movements become clear. But if you move around a lot you have no idea whether other things are still or moving around as well. So find a nice quiet spot to stay and then just stay there as comfortably and still as possible. And watch. Keep your mindfulness alert. Think of it as …
- What Focus? What Breath?… In that way, they become a force for the path. Remember, right effort includes desire, the desire to get rid of any unskillful states that are there, and to prevent unskillful states that haven’t come yet from arising; the desire to give rise to skillful states and then to maintain them and bring them to fruition. Without that desire, the practice doesn’t …
- Meditation as a Skill… It just becomes one more thing in your long list of things to focus on. Try to give the mind some experience in what it’s like to stay with one thing continually. If there’s any trouble, think of those four bases for success: You really want to do this, and the desire is not just a brute desire. It’s a skillful …
- The Gift of Spiritual Materialism… Ajaan Maha Boowa talks about becoming an inner millionaire, and he calls the state of mind that you gain with awakening a “Dhamma treasure.” So you hear nothing in the forest tradition about trying to get away from “spiritual materialism,” away from trying to acquire something in the practice. The ajaans, following the Buddha, are quite frank about the fact that you want to …
- Practice at Home… Where are you going to look for pleasure in life? What kind of pleasures, what kind of happiness are you going to look for? What are the things that have to be sacrificed, and what are the things that you sacrifice for? This point becomes especially clear when you’re trying to meditate at home, living a householder life. It’s not simply a …
- Patience Is a Skill… There’s no cure for impatience that lets you be impatient about how soon you’re going to become patient. When you meditate, you have to keep coming back, coming back, coming back to the breath, learning how to talk to yourself as you’re doing this. You’re trying to get the mind still, and it won’t get still. You give yourself …
- Factors for Awakening… It’s at the fourth where equanimity becomes pure. That’s the seventh factor for awakening. So this is how you get from beginning mindfulness practice up to the fourth jhana. The steps involve insight or discernment into what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, along with persistence, the factor of right effort. You try to energize things before you calm them down …
- Don’t Believe Everything You Feel… And when you’re feeling weakened by the temperature and tired from your work, your defenses are down, and feelings become very prominent. We talk a lot in the meditation about not believing your thoughts. The same principle applies to your feelings, and they’re even harder not to believe, because feelings have gotten into the body. They are thoughts that have provoked reactions …
- Mind in & of Itself… the concentration that allows you to do this work with more precision, in more places where you hadn’t been able to do it before, so that you can bring the path into your life, so that your life becomes the path. That’s when it gets results.
- Go Out of Your Way… Otherwise, living in a community becomes a burden. We’re getting in each other’s way. All we can think about is how we want to go off and just be alone and get away from everything. Of course, when you go to be alone, you’re not getting away from everything. You’re sitting there with your defilements. And sitting there, usually, with …
- A Gift of Strength… This way, you become more solid inside. And of course, you’re not the only person who benefits. The people around you who have been subject to your greed, anger, and delusion, subject your need to depend on them for your happiness, sense that you’re much less of a burden now. So think of this time—the time you meditate, the time you …
- Blessings… Otherwise, you become like the dock workers they used to have in the docks before shipping containers came into Asia, people who would carry huge loads on their backs up and down the planks of the ships. They were spending so much time carrying the loads that they became permanently bent over. Even when they went home, they would walk bent over. That’s …
- The Perception of Space… Of course, that becomes a burden—the stone itself is a burden, and the engraving is a burden. So it’s good to learn how to put those things down, to let them go, to have that mind like space. It’s larger than anything that anybody can do. Keep that quality in mind, and you’ll find that whatever happens in the course …
- Escape from Inter-eating… One of the obvious dangers of living in an interconnected world is becoming food for somebody else—like the virus right now. It’s decided that it wants to feed on human beings. But the Buddha saw there are other dangers. There’s the danger of being in a position where you have to feed. Part of it, of course, is the karma of …
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