Search results for: past karma

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  2. Heeding the Deva Messengers
     … In other words, you have no way of knowing what in the past caused your suffering right now, and because they tell you that there’s nothing you can do about it, there’s no way you can protect yourself from suffering right now. But the Buddha’s teaching was very different. We do have influences coming in from the past, but they’re … 
  3. Good Heart, Good Mind
     … You have to learn how to get past an obstacle like that. Learn how to give yourself pep talks. When the Buddha would give Dhamma talks, he wouldn’t simply instruct people. He would also urge, rouse, and encourage them. So when it seems as if getting the mind to stay with the breath is like putting a marble on the tip of a … 
  4. Defilements
     … And, of course, because these defilements have been your identities in the past, it’s very easy to slip back into them. This is where the image of the committee of the mind comes together with the Buddha’s teachings on bhava, or becoming. You take on a becoming and it’s like a set of clothing you’ve worn in the past. It … 
  5. Choose Your Actions Wisely
     … If the thought that’s coming up is dealing with some bad relationship you had in the past, well, have lots of goodwill for yourself and the other person, remembering that karma is really complex and you don’t know how far back into the past these things have gone. Rather than keeping tally or keeping score, you just say, “Okay, enough of that … 
  6. Hindrances
     … One of the ways of getting past boredom and getting past sleepiness is to take an interest in what’s going on in your own mind, learning to question some of the ideas that you think are “of course” ideas. “Of course, I’m here doing this.” Now, the Buddha doesn’t say there’s nobody here doing this, but you can look at … 
  7. Practicing Meditation to Perform at Death
     … They have their karma, you have your karma, and you don’t want to be hovering around them. I knew a woman in Thailand who had two sons. Her husband had left her after the second son was born and he just disappeared. So she had to raise the two sons herself. The first son was bright, personable, athletic, good looking. The second son … 
  8. Tranquility & Insight
     … It’s just old karma. We all have good old karma and bad old karma, a big mix of it. Or you could think of it in Ajaan Lee’s image: All sorts of germs are going through your bloodstream, some of them going through your brain, and they may leave a thought here or there. The fact that there’s a thought appearing … 
  9. Book search result icon The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee Glossary
     … absorption in a single sensation or mental notion. Karma (kamma): Intentional act in thought, word, or deed, holding consequences for the doer of the act. Kathina: A gift of cloth to a group of monks who have observed the Rains Retreat together in one place. Khanom tom: A Thai boiled sweet made of a flour paste formed into balls around a sweetened coconut stuffing … 
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  10. Cornered
     … It’s in exploring how you fabricate right here, right now, that you begin to sense what in your experience right now is the result of past karma that can’t be changed, and what is the result of your present karma that can be changed. That’s an important distinction. What are the limits of well-being that fabrication can create, and where … 
  11. Verified Confidence
     … It went way back through the past, and potentially it can go on for a long time into the future. People who’ve gained the Dhamma eye know that there’s a limit to how much further they’re going to have to experience birth and death. And they realize that there is something that doesn’t die. So they can face death with … 
  12. Hope
     … After all, we are the ones creating our experiences right now out of the raw material that comes from our past karma. So that means we can learn to do a better job. The part for which we’re responsible right now can be handled more skillfully. And that’s a skill that can be learned. Without that possibility, things would be hopeless. With … 
  13. Creating Your Environment
     … So try to get the mind to a place where it can just drop all thoughts about past, all thoughts about future, and be right here, right here, right here. It’s not talking to itself about the past, it’s not talking to itself about the future. That’s a kind of seclusion. It’s the beginning of the seclusion they talk about … 
  14. Make the Most of Right Now
     … We have no idea what karma we have in the past that might suddenly might barge in at some point and take us off to some place where it’s going to be hard to practice. But we do have the opportunity to practice now. So make the most of it: Try to be uncomplacent, try to be heedful—because those are the qualities … 
  15. Mindfulness in the Driver’s Seat
     … That’s what the teaching on karma is all about. Our thoughts have arrows in them. They’re pointing in a direction. So we want to make sure we’re going in the right direction. That’s what mindfulness is for. It starts as a faculty of the memory. If you think of the charioteer, he has to keep a map in mind of … 
  16. Cut Through the Narratives
     … We’re not here trying to burn off past karma by inflicting ourselves with pain. It’s simply that there are times when you focus on pleasure or you pursue pleasures or pleasant meditation, and you find that you’re getting more complacent or you’re getting lazy, or unskillful qualities are developing one way or another. That’s when you have to practice … 
  17. The Buddha’s Tools
     … If you can see things in terms of karma and past lifetimes, it makes it a lot easier to let go a lot of the issues that you tend to grab hold of, especially, times when you feel you were treated unjustly. They don’t have such a hold on the mind anymore. The arc of the story of your coming here to meditate … 
  18. Happy to Be Here
     … Some of the potentials are limited by your past karma, but there’s a lot of room for play, a lot of room for experimentation. This is why the Buddha’s basic principle of causality is so important: Some of the things you experience right now come from past intentions, but not everything. To experience the present moment requires present intentions as well, to … 
  19. Page search result icon Because the Mind Is Purposeful
     … We start with raw material—the things coming in from our past karma. And then, for the sake of having an experience of the present moment, we put these things together. Notice that for the sake of: This fabrication, these processes of intention, aim at something. They’re motivated by desire, and although we may hear a lot of negative things about desire in … 
  20. Pleasure on the Middle Way
     … Pleasures and pains come partially from past karma, but partially from what we’re doing right now. We have the choice as to which ones we’re going to focus on and develop. So as we practice, we make the most of that by being very conscious of what these feelings can do to us. There are some pains that are actually useful for … 
  21. Right Livelihood
     … The guy asks him three times and the Buddha finally says, “Well, since I can’t get past you, okay, I’ll tell you. If you’re in the midst of a battle and are consumed by the thought of trying to kill other people, either from greed, anger or delusion, that intention is an unskillful intention. If you die with the state of … 
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