Search results for: "Becoming"

  1. Page 85
  2. Correcting, Fostering, Cutting Away
     … When things become clear, then look at what needs to be done. Do what needs to be done. You have the choice in what to think. So choose whatever is going to bring things into balance and is appropriate for what you need right now—the thoughts that help correct, the thoughts that help to foster, the thoughts that help to cut things away … 
  3. The Use of the Present
     … And here you are, learning to be a doctor yourself, taking the things that you used to use to poison yourself and figuring out how, if you mix them in a different way, they can actually become medicines. So the present is here to be used. And the teachings are here to teach us how to use it wisely.
  4. Effort against the Hindrances
     … You’re going to mistreat them, and then that becomes your karma. There’s no way at all that you benefit from ill will, wanting to see someone else suffer. You’re just burning yourself up with anger at the moment, and setting yourself up to do unskillful things in the future. There’s no reason you should want to be involved in that … 
  5. Your Main Foundation
     … When the breath is that still, then the events of the mind become more and more prominent, and you can watch them from that stillness. The stillness can be your foundation. At that point you can work with the other elements. Ajaan Fuang used to tell his students—once they reached the stage in the meditation where the breath got really calm and still … 
  6. The Alternative of Concentration
     … The mind is really focused, it’s really still, so that things become extremely clear. You’re sensitive to the slightest things that are happening, and everything seems to flow because there are no interruptions. The flow comes from this feedback loop that’s not interrupted. So you take those lessons and you apply them to the meditation. One of the reasons we focus … 
  7. Nourishment from the Breath
     … If it becomes mechanical, it gets uncomfortable. And when it’s uncomfortable, the body feels ill at ease, the mind feels irritable, and it saps your strength. After all, the breath is the energy of life. So you want to give it your full attention when you can. The Pali term for this is citta: intent, being really sensitive. It’s one of the … 
  8. The Strength of Conviction
     … Sensitize yourself to these things, and this sensitivity becomes a strength in the practice. Then as you stick with it long enough with a sense of conviction, mindfulness, and alertness, concentration does develop. But concentration can develop in many ways. We read about it in the texts, and it seems like a very simple ladder. You go through this stage and then to the … 
  9. Old Movies & New
     … That way, your concentration becomes not just a matter of forcing the mind, but also of drawing the mind in, giving it something to explore, something to learn about, so that even if it doesn’t settle down as solidly as you’d like it to, at least you learn something in the course of the hour. That will make you interested in coming … 
  10. Using Right Resolve Rightly
     … They turn around and say, “What can I find inside that would create a greater sense of well-being?” This is where your thoughts of renunciation become more noble. In other words, you’re focused on the directed thought and evaluation of concentration: “How do I get to understand my breath? How do I get to understand whatever it is that I’m going … 
  11. Sober Up
     … Through exercise, they actually do become strong. It’s like exercising the body. You’re embarrassed to go down to the gym because everybody else is a lot more fit than you are. But that embarrassment is not going to help you get strong. If they look down on you for being puny and weak, well, that’s their problem. You’re going to … 
  12. The Samsaric Mud Fight
     … In any mud fight, the question of who splashed more mud on the other person after a while becomes really irrelevant. It’s not the kind of score you want to keep, a score you want to settle. It’s a fight you want to get out of. There’s a passage where the chief of the asuras says, “If other people see you … 
  13. Open Door Meditation
     … Your concentration may not be as solid, but the opportunity for discernment arise becomes more and more available. This is because, as you’re moving around, you’ve got to keep one eye on your center and one eye on what’s happening around you; one part of your mind thinking about staying with your center and another part having to think about whatever … 
  14. This Fathom-Long Body
     … And as soon as it becomes something you are, you’ve got all kinds of problems. One, trying to pin it down. And two, if you’ve got this self that’s unenlightened, how are you going to enlighten it? How can an unenlightened self enlighten itself? This is where the Pure Land people take off. But the Buddha doesn’t have you look … 
  15. The Power of Attention
     … Well, things are always becoming different. They start out as potentials. Remember, we’ve got that field of kammic seeds. Some of the things you did in the past would potentially lead to pain right now. Some of the things you did in the past would potentially lead to pleasure. Some things would have the potential to get you tied up in old issues … 
  16. Defilements as Not-self
     … Every becoming that we take on wants happiness in one way or another. In some cases, it sees happiness in making you miserable. But you have to point out that this is not going to be very long-lasting, it’s not going to be very healthy, so it’s not going to be good for anybody at all—whatever the reasoning that helps … 
  17. A Tale of Two Kings
     … It means learning to become more and more skillful in your actions. There is a potential as you develop the path to find an opening that will lead you out. At that point the problem is solved, not because you’ve lowered your standards. You’ve actually raised your standards and you’ve found something that’s totally satisfactory as a result. It is … 
  18. Proactive Mindfulness
     … The walking becomes easier. The same with the breath: You begin to realize that the different cartoon notions you have of what you have to do in order to get the breath in, what you have to do in order to get it to come out, are really not all that accurate. You begin to sense the breath as a whole-body process, so … 
  19. Merit: Goodness of the Heart
     … What used to be normal thinking suddenly becomes something you’ve got to fight. It makes you more sensitive to ways in which your mind creates problems for itself. This is a lesson you learn from virtue as well. When you take the precepts, you suddenly realize that certain things that you thought were okay are not really okay. This makes you more sensitive … 
  20. Metta Isn’t Love
     … The problem is that if you try to wipe evil out of the world, you can become pretty evil yourself. You have to realize that there’s a lot in the world that’s beyond our power. In this way, metta can live with equanimity. Love cannot. It’s hard to be equanimous about people you love, especially when they’re being mistreated by … 
  21. From Heedfulness to Purity
     … It’s through heedfulness that we become good. It’s through heedfulness that the mind is purified. Not that we start out pure, but we can get there. So that’s what you hold onto. Use that determination, that heedfulness to sort everything else out.
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