Search results for: "Greed"

  1. Defilements Are Real
     … That allows you to step back from the voices of greed, aversion, and delusion, to look at them from the outside. After all, when you look at anger in somebody else, it’s obviously a problem. You look at greed in somebody else, it’s obviously a weakness. So you want to be able to see your own anger and your own greed in … 
  2. Greed for Outer & Inner Wealth
     … for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, which you might call greed for experiences. The word “greed” is used specifically to refer to greed for things. Now, the Buddha didn’t say that wanting to have things is, in and of itself, bad. When he talks about unskillful greed it’s modified by a Pali term, visama, which means out of balance, out of … 
  3. Greed & Distress with Reference to the World
     … As for greed about the world, some of the attractive thoughts of greed are thoughts of, “Well, maybe I’ll get some psychic powers when I meditate. After all, we read about all the hungry ghosts and the devas and whatnot. Wouldn’t it be fun to encounter some?” Some people start having visions as they meditate. And the question is, are they true … 
  4. Practical Wisdom
     … So greed, anger, and delusion arise around the pleasure and pain, and then the greed, anger, and delusion have an impact on your subsequent actions, your subsequent intentions. This keeps the cycle going around and around in directions that tend to lead to suffering. The greater the defilement, then the greater the suffering—because when your mind is clouded, it’s hard to make … 
  5. Subduing Greed & Distress
     … You have to learn how to subdue greed and distress with regard to those, as the Buddha says. If you remember something stupid or something bad you did in the past, there’s going to be some distress. If you remember some things you want out of the world, there’s going to be greed. It’s interesting that those are the two emotions … 
  6. Bad Friends Inside
     … And then you look at the mind, the state of the mind that likes to get involved with greed, anger, or delusion. Because often it’s not so much the object, say, of our greed that we’re really fixated on, it’s the greed itself. We enjoy it, we enjoy wanting. The same with lust: We enjoy not so much the object as … 
  7. Dualities
     … And you want to develop your sensitivity so that you finally decide that your greed isn’t worth it. Aversion isn’t worth it. There are better things you can do with the mind. That, they say, is when you get to taste the ultimate emptiness—when the greed, aversion, and delusion finally go away for good. It’s not that they just go … 
  8. A Safe Home
     … Sometimes we seem to think that greed is sparked by something outside, or anger is sparked by something outside, but there are often times when the mind is simply in the mood to be greedy and then it goes looking for something worthy of its greed. Sometimes it wants to be angry and so it goes out looking for something worthy of its anger … 
  9. Appreciating the State of Peace
     … You look at the world not with the eyes of anger or the eyes of greed. You listen to the world not with the ears of anger or the ears of greed. You don’t rile up defilements through the way in which you engage with the world. That allows you to be content—santussako ca subharo ca—living lightly. You’re content with … 
  10. Mindfulness, the Gatekeeper
    You look at the problems of the world, the things that cause a lot of suffering to the human race and the animals, and you can see that they all come down to greed, aversion, and delusion. It’s because of these three things that we cause ourselves to suffer and we cause others to suffer. So if we’re going to do anything … 
  11. What Is Skillful?
     … If we do something unskillful, we—or a lot of people—will say, “Well, I did that because someone else did this.” But the Buddha said no, it comes from your own greed, aversion, and delusion. And that’s what we want to see, so we need to dig up those roots. To do that, first we counteract them. For instance, we counteract greed … 
  12. The Energy You Broadcast
     … The kind of energy that would bounce back, say, as greed: It’s not just that you see other people’s greed, but also you see objects outside as worthy of greed. When you’re sending out anger, you see objects outside as being worthy of anger. The same with delusion and all the other unskillful mental states. So you’ve got to turn … 
  13. A Refuge from Modern Values
     … It becomes not only the norm but it’s also encouraged—as when they tell you that greed is good. I don’t know how many times people have complained to me, saying that if you live content with very little, the economy is going to collapse. Well, if the economy is built on greed, anger, and delusion maybe it should collapse. It’s … 
  14. Heedfulness
     … Most of us have a strong tendency to misperceive a situation, either out of fear or out of greed. Greed in particular. They say that a society built on greed, an economy built on greed, is a disaster waiting to happen. Because greed is basically hypermotivation, you’re too motivated to get what you want, so you’re not looking carefully at what’s … 
  15. The Best Place to Practice
     … If you’re involved in a livelihood that requires that you develop greed, aversion, and delusion in yourself—or that you’re provoking greed, aversion, and delusion in other people—you do your best to get out. And there are those occupations. I saw a cartoon a while back, showing a hobo holding a sign saying, “Will work for food.” And right next to … 
  16. Love Me, Love My Defilements
     … I mean, you read about human history and you see in each generation that there were so many good things that could have been done that weren’t done because of people’s greed, anger, and delusion. It’s amazing that the human race has gotten as far as it has. Some people think that it’s because of greed that we have progress … 
  17. The Good Fight
     … How did you place yourself in this position of danger to begin with? How can you get yourself out? You realize that you got in there because of your own greed, aversion, and delusion. Those are the things you’ve got to fight. But you fight using skill, and you convert the mind into a mind that doesn’t want the greed, aversion, and … 
  18. Dhamma Medicine
     … Ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. You’ve got two activities there. One is the focus, and then the other is the putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. That second activity is basically clearing away anything that’s going to interfere with your focus. Then there are three qualities of mind that help … 
  19. A Refuge from the Winds of the World
     … If you’re going to be rightly concentrated as you go through the world, you have to focus specifically on resisting those qualities of greed and distress. How do you maintain your focus? How do you maintain your balance, without your greed and distress pulling you out of balance? One useful way to think is to take the Canon’s image of the world … 
  20. An Hour of Bliss
     … You think about all the suffering in the world that comes from people acting on greed, people acting on aversion, people acting on delusion—and here you’ve got a mind that’s perfectly capable of acting on greed, anger, and delusion, too. So you want to train it. And these are the tools for the training: mindfulness, alertness, ardency. Mindfulness means keeping something … 
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