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d193284
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It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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a004d72
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Don't think about your problems during your practice. Push them aside very gently. Take a break from all that worrying and planning. Let your meditation be a complete vacation. Trust yourself, trust your own ability to deal with these issues later, using the energy and freshness of mind that you built up during your meditation. Trust yourself this way and it will actually occur. Don
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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d8e869f
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protective cocoon. That is not living, but is premature death. The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found, and how to deal with it when it arises.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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79e302b
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This sort of intuition can only occur when you disengage the logic circuits from the problem and give the deep mind the opportunity to cook up the solution. The
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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175668d
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come four more stages that have almost nothing whatever
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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496de9f
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The meditator's intention is to purge her own mind of anger, prejudice, and ill will, and she is actively engaged in the process of getting rid of greed, tension, and insensitivity. Those are the very items that obstruct her compassion for others.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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0c8b879
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A state of mindfulness is a state of mental readiness. The mind is not burdened with preoccupations or bound in worries. Whatever comes up can be dealt with instantly. When you are truly mindful, your nervous system has a freshness and resiliency that fosters insight. A problem arises, and you simply deal with it, quickly, efficiently, and with a minimum of fuss. You don't stand there in a dither, and you don't run off to a quiet corner so ..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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749a8ee
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When we mindfully watch our bodily sensations, we should not confuse them with mental formations, for bodily sensations can arise completely independent of the mind. For instance, we sit comfortably. After a while, there can arise some uncomfortable feeling in our back or our legs. Our mind immediately experiences that discomfort and forms numerous thoughts around the feeling. At that point, without confusing the feeling with the mental for..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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22fa405
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Don't fight with these distracting thoughts. Don't strain or struggle. It's a waste. Every bit of energy that you apply to that resistance goes into the thought complex and makes it all the stronger. So don't try to force such thoughts out of your mind. It's a battle you can never win. Just observe the distraction mindfully and it will eventually go away. It's very strange, but the more bare attention you pay to such disturbances, the weake..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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d109941
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If you learn nothing else from meditation, you will learn patience.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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dedf083
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Any action that comes from a mind not currently filled with greed, hatred, or delusion brings happiness to the doer and to the receiver. Such an action is, therefore, skillful or right.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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227f33a
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If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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8a7b8b2
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Place no head above your own." By this he meant, don't just accept somebody else's word. See for yourself." --
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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dd5a461
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When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic. An accomplished meditator has achieved a profound understanding of life, and he or she inevitably relates to the world with a deep and uncritical love.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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956dc46
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You cannot attain jhana without a sense of peace and contentment with your life as it is. Striving to make your life radically other than it actually and presently is will interfere with steady movement toward jhana. Such striving is a form of living for the imagined future; jhana grows out of living in the now. You have to find your present conditions suitable and sufficient or you will always be yearning. You must be content with your foo..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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71cc793
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The actual experience lies beyond the words and above the symbols.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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6b113a1
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Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. You may not be perfect, but you are all you've got to work with. The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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97ee46a
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With this ability, one sees things without condemnation or judgment.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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61f6461
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There is no clinging to the pleasant, no fleeing from the unpleasant. Mindfulness treats all experiences equally, all thoughts equally, all feelings equally. Nothing is suppressed. Nothing
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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097ae06
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Both of them, alone, are limited. But when the disabled person climbs on the shoulders of the blind man, together they can travel and achieve their goals easily.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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2313e41
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If you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is memory. When you then become aware that you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is mindfulness. If you then conceptualize the process and say to yourself, "Oh, I am remembering," that is thinking."
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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91ae886
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Concepts and reasoning just get in the way. Don't think. See.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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fbabd83
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Meditation deals with levels of consciousness that lie deeper than conceptual thought. Therefore, some of the experiences of meditation just won't fit into words.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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22d422e
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There is a point in the meditator's career where he or she may practice special exercises to develop psychic powers. But this occurs far down the line. Only after the meditator has reached a very deep stage of jhana will he or she be advanced enough to work with such powers without the danger of their running out of control or taking over his or her life.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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bcfa807
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Remember, jhana happens when it happens. It cannot be forced or rushed. Every apparent failure is a step toward success. When it doesn't happen as you want it to, use mindfulness to notice the feelings of frustration that arise. Every time you do that, you are strengthening your mindfulness and moving one step closer to the goal. You cannot lose unless you give up.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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b8dc681
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Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and prejudices and stereotypes. I want to understand the true nature of life.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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0122da8
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We spend all of our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears, endlessly seeking security.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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5e436be
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but rather as a set of propositions for each individual to investigate for him- or herself.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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073c142
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Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more the mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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8e4113b
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Vipassana, by definition, is the cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. If you find that you are becoming unconscious in meditation, then you aren't meditating, according to the definition of that word as used in the vipassana system.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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972fead
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Don't think. See.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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7291f65
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Your body is a tool for creating desired mental states. Use it judiciously.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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d2ba582
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equanimity. Clearly, what the parents feel for the child
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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8cce33a
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No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are times when pain catches up with you. And in between those times, life is so boring you could scream. Our minds are full of opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around ourselves and are trapped in the prison of our own likes and dislikes. We suffer.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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c72c0ee
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The essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha. At first glance this statement seems exceedingly morbid and pessimistic. It even seems untrue. After all, there are plenty of times when we are happy. Aren't there? No, there are not. It just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension that no matter how great this..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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c081fdb
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You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes will flow naturally. You don't have to force anything, struggle, or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. It is automatic; you just change. But arriving at that initial insight is quite a task. You have to see who you are and how you are without illusion, judgment, or resistance of any ki..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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694bc4a
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To cultivate your mind, first you have to clear out the various irritants that are in the way--pull them right out by the root so that they won't grow back. Then you fertilize: you pump energy and discipline into the mental soil. Then you sow the seed, and harvest your crops of faith, morality, mindfulness, and wisdom.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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8f0b8b4
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Buddhism does not advocate faith in the sense of believing something because it is written in a book, attributed to a prophet, or taught to you by some authority figure. The meaning of faith here is closer to confidence. It is knowing that something is true because you have seen it work, because you have observed that very thing within yourself.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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166f7fd
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The purpose of meditation is personal transformation. The "you" that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same "you" that comes out the other side."
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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b8ea591
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Feeling is one of the seven universal mental factors. The other six are contact, perception, attention, concentration, life force, and volition.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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c32119a
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The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found, and how to deal with it when it arises.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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1f08797
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In order to give your mind a little rest, you need to "forget" things deliberately from time to time. This is like draining all the energy from your batteries in order to fully recharge them. When you drain all the energy from the battery of your electronic device and recharge it, the battery lasts longer. Give some rest to your mind. Cease to think about all those duties and responsibilities for a little while. Give the mind full rest by n..
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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c184843
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Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power. Then, piece by piece, your own subconscious motives and mechanics become clear to you. Your intuition sharpens. The precision of your thought increases, and gradually you come to a direct knowledge of things as they really are, without prejudice and without illusion.
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Henepola Gunaratana |
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76c85b6
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Concentration and relaxation are considered necessary concomitants to awareness. They are required precursors, handy tools, and beneficial byproducts. But they are not the goal. The goal is insight. Vipassana meditation is a profound religious practice aimed at nothing less than the purification and transformation of your everyday life.
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Henepola Gunaratana |