Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 82
  2. The Dualistic Path
     … So this ability to discern stress and the ending of stress is something you have to develop over time until it becomes a skill. It requires all the powers of observation, focus, mindfulness, and alertness that any skill requires. It shows its worth in a temporary way as you catch sight of a particular habit in the mind that’s causing stress, and you … 
  3. A Boxing Lesson
     … So you don’t let their misbehavior become an excuse for your misbehavior. Another image is of your goodwill as being large and cool, like the river Ganges. Someone can come along with a torch and try to set it on fire, but it’s not going to catch fire. You want your mind, you want your sense of yourself to be that cool … 
  4. Endurance
     … But when you realize, “Okay their karma is their karma and it becomes your karma only if you pick it up,” then they can write as much as they want but they don’t leave a trace, because there’s nothing in your mind they can write on. If you have that perception in mind, that your mind is like space, it makes it … 
  5. Learn from Your Mistakes
     … As the Buddha says, people who were heedless in the past but then change to become heedful, brighten the world like a moon at night when released from a cloud. So don’t be ashamed of the fact you’ve made mistakes, in the sense of not letting them get you down. But at the same time, don’t deny them. They were mistakes … 
  6. Shame Yes, Guilt No
     … I’ve slipped every now and then, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn from the slips.” When that’s the attitude you bring, the training does become a joy, as you’re up for the challenges that come, both inside meditation and out.
  7. Be Observant
     … Start with the breath, and eventually the breath becomes a mirror for the mind. As you adjust the breath, there’s a sense of ease. Allow that sense of ease to spread through the body. Develop the potentials for happiness that you have here, because you’re going to need them as part of your path. After all, so much of the path requires … 
  8. Introduction to the Breath
     … The meditation gives you the energy, gives you the strength, so that the right thing to do becomes an easy thing to do. In this way, the people around you benefit as well. Meditation is not a selfish endeavor. It’s one of those few activities that is good both for you and for the people around you. So keep that in mind as … 
  9. Practicing in Solitude
     … One way to counteract them is to add some more things to become earworms: Get some of the Buddha’s teachings as an earworm so the chants are there in the background. Look through the book of chants and try out some chants that we don’t do as a group. You find that some chants are your friends. Some people like doing the … 
  10. Selecting from the Teachings
     … Without that quality of inner sensitivity, the meditation becomes mechanical, forced. That’s when desire takes over. Being more sensitive is one way of keeping check on whether your desire is too much, whether it’s getting in the way of your seeing things as they’re actually happening by focusing on what you want to have happen the next moment, the next breath … 
  11. Rightly Directed
     … How is it that a thought forms in the mind? How does it become an emotion as it involves the breath, and then from the breath it gets into the body? How do you take on an identity within that emotion, and how do you get out? If you can see these steps, then you can step out at any time. That way, you … 
  12. Joyous Endurance
     … You don’t want to become deflected by other people’s bad behavior. So you have to develop some real resilience. Fortunately, practicing concentration can help in that direction. You gain a sense of well-being inside. You begin to realize that your well-being doesn’t have to depend so much on other people’s behaving in a certain way or behaving in … 
  13. Easy to Instruct
     … That way, your responsibility for practice becomes a two-way street. You show that you’re willing to put in the effort and put your mind to solving your problem. There’s a spot where the Buddha says that admirable friendship is the whole of the holy life. This practice is not something you can do alone. As you saw today at the ordination … 
  14. Mindfulness Like a Dam
     … They become more meticulous, and you get to see things that are more and more refined happening in the mind. Now, you’re not going to like a lot of what you see. Well, just accept that fact. Again, take a very matter-of-fact attitude toward that: that this is the way the mind has been all along. You’re trying to uncover … 
  15. Positive Capability
     … We’re here to become more perceptive, more inquisitive. Things we ordinarily take for granted, we want to start questioning them, especially when you say, “I like this, and of course I like this. Who wouldn’t like this?” Well, arahants don’t let liking or disliking get in the way of getting beyond these things. So it’s something you’ve got to … 
  16. Me, Me, Me
     … You look at them and the question isn’t, “What’s wrong with me?” or “How can I get rid of me?” It’s simply: “What’s going on here? Where is the stress? Where is the suffering?” When you take things apart in this way, then the job becomes a lot more manageable, and you can do it without a lot of self … 
  17. Self-esteem
     … But the less burdensome your behavior is, then it becomes less and less and less anybody else’s business—until finally you reach the deathless. That’s totally your own business. Nobody else has to know. They just sense it in that you’re less of a burden on them. Basic to those nine kinds of conceit is another one the Buddha talks about … 
  18. The Sport of Wise People
     … In this way, you become a wise person whose sport is jhana. You’re not the old person you were whose sport was indulging in different kinds of fantasies and finding your entertainment that way. Even though you’re engaged in restraint, the fact that you’re not asked to have opinions about things means you’re more free to play inside. It’s … 
  19. A Pervasive Well-being
     … As you work through all the various blockages in the body, you find that the body becomes a more comfortable place to stay. It’s easier to settle down right here. When you’ve gone through the body as a whole several times and have opened up the roadblocks, there finally comes a point where you can just settle down. You don’t have … 
  20. Awaken to Your Potentials
     … That’s how your conviction is verified and becomes unshakable. Not even an earthquake can shake it. The realization is that overwhelming.
  21. Wisdom Requires Integrity
     … Only when the mind is very, very still can the little actions of the mind become apparent. But it’s the same principle all the way through. Be honest with yourself about what you’re doing and what the results are. If the results aren’t up to standard—and you try to make sure your standards are high —then you realize you’ve … 
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