Search results for: past karma

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  2. Pushing the Three Characteristics
     … Maybe each kid comes in with a different load of past karma. They come from different directions. The same principle applies to your mind. On different days, during different periods of time, even within one meditation sitting, you find past karma of different kinds will come up, so that focusing on the breath for one five-minute period will get results, and for the … 
  3. Strength Inside
     … Some of our thoughts come from past karma, some come from present karma. The present-karma ones are the ones you can change. As for the past-karma ones, learn how not to be overcome by them. So focus on your present moment, what you’re doing right now. You’re making up your mind to stay right here, all the way through the … 
  4. It’s All about Action
     … The kind of karma you’re going to be encountering as you meditate is of three kinds. It could be the results of past actions coming in, and that can be anything from pains you may feel in the body to your habitual ways of thinking. If you’ve been meditating, some of the skills you’ve picked up from your past meditation should … 
  5. Switch the Context
     … Think of it all as karma. And think of karma going back quite a ways in the sense that, okay, what you have now may be the result of your past karma, but then that past karma may have been picked up from somebody else, and then they picked it up from you, and you picked it from them. If you trace this back … 
  6. Meaningful Freedom
     … They claimed that were burning off old karma. The Buddha would ask them, “Have you noticed that when you stop doing the austerities, the burning sensations go away?” “Well, yes.” “So how can you say that it’s the result of past karma? It’s what you’re doing right now.” The other three cases come under one sutta. In those three cases, the … 
  7. Choices
    One of the complaints you often hear about the Buddha’s teachings on karma is that they’re all about past and future, whereas the real practice is in the present—the implication here being that the teachings on karma are a distraction from where the real work is. But that’s not the case. When the Buddha talks about being in the present … 
  8. Page search result icon Karma Is Individual
     … So, if a particular group—a family, a nation—suffers hardships, it’s not because the long departed members of that group created bad karma. It’s because the individuals currently in the group have similar bad karma in their own past. Even then, though, their karma is individual—as shown by the fact that hardships suffered by a group are rarely distributed evenly … 
  9. Interdependence
     … Sometimes conviction in the principle of karma can get you really worried about what kind of bad karma you might have in the past. I had a lot of questions like that when I was in Brazil: “How do I know that I don’t have bad karma in the past?” And the answer is: “You have bad karma in the past, otherwise you … 
  10. The Psychology of Virtue
     … The things we experience in terms of sight, sound, smells, taste, tactile sensations, ideas come from past karma, and you want to see them as past karma. Then the question is, how do you relate to your past karma? Some things you develop into your present karma, and others you can let go. You have that choice. If your present-moment choice is not … 
  11. There’s Always a Skillful Option
     … This is all a very important principle in the Buddha’s teachings on karma. He didn’t say simply that what you’re experiencing now comes from the past and you can’t do anything about it. He says there are potentials coming from the past and what you do with those potentials is up to you right now. That’s your new karma … 
  12. Page search result icon Not the Predictable Thing
     … And one of them was when he went to some teachers who taught that everything you experience in the present moment is determined by the past: either by the actions of a creator deity or your own past karma. And he would argue with those people: If everything you experience right now is determined by the past, he said, then if you’re going … 
  13. Potentials for Good
     … Which means that when you see somebody suffering, or see somebody doing something that could lead to suffering, you don’t just say, “Well, that’s their past karma,” and leave it at that. The same when you look at yourself: You don’t say, “All I’ve got is the karma I see right now.” If we’re born as human beings, we … 
  14. The Power of Intention
     … That way I can burn off old karma and not do any new karma.” But that intention is a kind of karma, too. Now, there are times when things coming in from the past are so strong that you can’t do anything about them, aside from maintaining a separate awareness that doesn’t run along with their currents. It’s like someone standing … 
  15. Page search result icon Contents
    Contents Cover Titlepage Copyright Introduction A Decent Education The Grass at the Gate Mental Experiments Of Past & Future Get Real Sticking with an Intention The Karma that Ends Karma Analyzing the Breath Immersed in the Body Marshalling the Emotions Good Humor Suppressed Emotions Resistance Gladdening the Mind Cherish Your Friends Your Inner Mob Mindstorms The Story behind Impatience Little Things Nuclear Thinking Stepping Back … 
  16. As Days & Nights Fly Past
     … Even though you may have some past bad karma, you can generate good karma right now. It may be difficult if you haven’t had any experience with the meditation. But if you have had experience with the meditation, that’s the time when you want to really use your skills. As Ajaan Fuang said, when the moment of death comes, remind yourself: “Okay … 
  17. Desire for Success
     … Peace of mind can come on its own every now and then, but that’s the result of past karma. You want to be responsible for your present karma so that even if the conditions coming in from your past karma are not good, you can still make something good out of them. Whatever comes your way, if you learn how to handle it … 
  18. Book search result icon Noble & True Danger is Normal
     … The fact that we’re born in the human realm means that we all have some past bad karma, so simply avoiding unskillful karma in the present isn’t enough to protect you from suffering. Fortunately, though, while we can’t go back to change our past actions, we can weaken the effect of any past bad actions by training the mind. The types … 
  19. Faith in Karma
     … But the reflection on everyone’s karma is also a reflection to induce equanimity for the things that you can’t change, particularly the things that you’ve already done in the past or the results of things that you’ve done in the past. Not only things that you’ve done, but also things that other people have done. There are people who … 
  20. Cooking the Present Moment
     … This is one of the reasons why the Buddha kept saying that the things we experience are not just the result of past karma. We’ve got our present karma coming in, too. And with our present karma, some of the limitations on our ability to choose have to do with our range of skills. So as you meditate, you want to learn a … 
  21. Shaping Your Breath, Shaping Your Life
     … If karma were totally deterministic, we couldn’t be sitting here making choices at all. But because things have tendencies like this and because your present karma plays a role in how you experience what’s coming in from the past: That gives you some freedom of choice. It also means that if you’ve got past bad karma you don’t have to … 
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