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-<div center round todo 60%>**Preperation of htmls into ATI.eu currently in progress.** Please visit the corresponding page at [[http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/index_en.html|ZzE]]. If inspired to get involved in this merits here, one may feel invited to join best here: [[http://sangham.net/index.php/topic,8657.0.html|[ATI.euATI/ZzE Content-style]] </div> +<div navi>[[en:index|{{en:img:home_en.png|Index page}}]] >> [[en:lib:index|Library]] >> [[en:lib:authors:index|Authors]] >> [[en:lib:authors:thanissaro:index|VenṬhānissaro]] >>[[en:lib:authors:thanissaro:index#?|{{en:img:question_16.gif|Infos about the article}}]]</div>
  
 +<div right round box 25%>**Preperation of htmls into ATI.eu currently in progress.** Please visit the corresponding page at [[http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/index_en.html|ZzE]]. If inspired to get involved in this merits here, one may feel invited to join best here: [[http://sangham.net/index.php/topic,8657.0.html|[ATI.eu] ATI/ZzE Content-style]]</div>
  
 ====== Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt) ====== ====== Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt) ======
- +<span hide>Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)</span>
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-Title: Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)+
  
 Summary:  Summary: 
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-<div #h_doctitle>Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt) </div>+<div #h_doctitle>Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)</div>
  
-<div #h_docby>by </div>+<div #h_docby>by</div>
  
 <div #h_docauthor>Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu</div> <div #h_docauthor>Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu</div>
  
-<div #h_copyright>[[#wrap_f_termsofuse|{{en:img:d2.png?16x18}}]][[#wrap_f_termsofuse| 2017-2018]]</div>+<div #h_copyright>[[#f_termsofuse|{{en:img:d2.png?16x18}}]][[#f_termsofuse| 2017-2018]]</div>
  
-<div #h_altformat>Alternate format: {{trainyourhunger_en.pdf?linkonly}} (pp./336KB)  <a href="http://sangham.net/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item519" title="download the audiofile from samgham.net"><img src="./../../../img/audio.gif" alt='[audio icon]    /></a></div>+<div #h_altformat>Alternate format: {{trainyourhunger_en.pdf?linkonly}} (pp./336KB) [[http://sangham.net/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item519|{{en:img:audio.gif|download the audiofile from samgham.net}}]]</div>
  
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 //Eveningtalk given on November 11, 2016// //Eveningtalk given on November 11, 2016//
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 There’s a little animal called the sea squirt. It’s not very big, and its most complex organs are its brain and its digestive system. After it’s born, it moves around in the ocean and finds a spot that it likes, where it senses that the food will be good. Then it stays there for the rest of its life. And one of the first things it does after it’s found its spot is to digest its brain, so it’s just left with a digestive system, basically to show who’s in charge. There’s a little animal called the sea squirt. It’s not very big, and its most complex organs are its brain and its digestive system. After it’s born, it moves around in the ocean and finds a spot that it likes, where it senses that the food will be good. Then it stays there for the rest of its life. And one of the first things it does after it’s found its spot is to digest its brain, so it’s just left with a digestive system, basically to show who’s in charge.
  
-This is true not just for sea squirts. They’ve shown that when the brain makes its map of reality, a lot of the information—in fact the first order of information—comes in from the digestive tract. All the signals about what you’re hungry for, what you lack, drive you as you look to the world outside. A large portion of your map of reality is devoted to what’s needed inside, in your gut, in your stomach. And you go out looking.+This is true not just for sea squirts. They’ve shown that when the brain makes its map of reality, a lot of the information — in fact the first order of information — comes in from the digestive tract. All the signals about what you’re hungry for, what you lack, drive you as you look to the world outside. A large portion of your map of reality is devoted to what’s needed inside, in your gut, in your stomach. And you go out looking.
  
 This fits in with the Buddha’s teachings on the fact that what defines us as beings is our need to subsist on food. We’re constantly looking for the next meal. It’s good to keep this point in mind. It’s often forgotten. This fits in with the Buddha’s teachings on the fact that what defines us as beings is our need to subsist on food. We’re constantly looking for the next meal. It’s good to keep this point in mind. It’s often forgotten.
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 That’s not going to work. Our hunger drives us. As the Buddha said, it’s our primary disease. If we can’t get the food we want, well, we’ll settle for something else. You see this with the coyotes. You look into their scat and sometimes you find plastic rope. They couldn’t get the food they wanted but they found something to stuff into their stomachs. And as long as our hunger is driving us, we’re going to keep looking for food, even if it has to be plastic rope. That’s not going to work. Our hunger drives us. As the Buddha said, it’s our primary disease. If we can’t get the food we want, well, we’ll settle for something else. You see this with the coyotes. You look into their scat and sometimes you find plastic rope. They couldn’t get the food they wanted but they found something to stuff into their stomachs. And as long as our hunger is driving us, we’re going to keep looking for food, even if it has to be plastic rope.
  
-So the solution doesn’t lie simply in changing your map of the world outside or the world inside, to see that there’s no permanent entity either inside or out—because that, of course, doesn’t take into account the fact that your inside map is not telling you about permanent entities. It’s telling you about hunger. And we don’t hunger for food because we think we have a permanent self or that there’s permanent food. We hunger for food, both physical and mental, because of our hunger pains.+So the solution doesn’t lie simply in changing your map of the world outside or the world inside, to see that there’s no permanent entity either inside or out — because that, of course, doesn’t take into account the fact that your inside map is not telling you about permanent entities. It’s telling you about hunger. And we don’t hunger for food because we think we have a permanent self or that there’s permanent food. We hunger for food, both physical and mental, because of our hunger pains.
  
 Our reaction to those pains is what we’ve got to train: We’ve got to train our hunger to be more discerning as to what’s worth going after. We train it through virtue, concentration, and discernment. This will take time. It’s like trying to wean yourself off of sugar: It takes a while to grow used to not constantly getting, or going for, the quick hit of sugar. But once you’ve managed to stay away from it for a while, then you begin to realize that if you go back to eating sugar, it doesn’t feel right anymore. It smells funny, tastes funny. It doesn’t feel right inside you. Our reaction to those pains is what we’ve got to train: We’ve got to train our hunger to be more discerning as to what’s worth going after. We train it through virtue, concentration, and discernment. This will take time. It’s like trying to wean yourself off of sugar: It takes a while to grow used to not constantly getting, or going for, the quick hit of sugar. But once you’ve managed to stay away from it for a while, then you begin to realize that if you go back to eating sugar, it doesn’t feel right anymore. It smells funny, tastes funny. It doesn’t feel right inside you.
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 Even more so with concentration: You’re totally retraining your hunger. You’re finding that there is a sense of well-being that can come simply from sitting here focusing on the breath, allowing the breath to get comfortable, allowing that sense of ease and well-being to spread through the body. As you get more skilled at it, you find that you can tap into it whenever you need it. Even more so with concentration: You’re totally retraining your hunger. You’re finding that there is a sense of well-being that can come simply from sitting here focusing on the breath, allowing the breath to get comfortable, allowing that sense of ease and well-being to spread through the body. As you get more skilled at it, you find that you can tap into it whenever you need it.
  
-Then you can turn around and look at the food that you got, say, from sensual desire or ill will, or any of the hindrances—restlessness and anxiety, uncertainty, sleepiness. All the hindrances are a kind of food, but they’re bad food. Junk food. Now that you see you’ve got a better source of food, a greater sense of well-being, you get more picky about your search for pleasure, your search for happiness, the things you want to feed off of. Remember that, as the Buddha said, we suffer in clinging, and the clinging is another word for taking sustenance. It’s another word for feeding.+Then you can turn around and look at the food that you got, say, from sensual desire or ill will, or any of the hindrances — restlessness and anxiety, uncertainty, sleepiness. All the hindrances are a kind of food, but they’re bad food. Junk food. Now that you see you’ve got a better source of food, a greater sense of well-being, you get more picky about your search for pleasure, your search for happiness, the things you want to feed off of. Remember that, as the Buddha said, we suffer in clinging, and the clinging is another word for taking sustenance. It’s another word for feeding.
  
 As for discernment, the Buddha says there are five things that you need to know if you want to discern the escape from this feeding cycle. Even though there may be some satisfaction in getting certain hungers satisfied, with a lot of them you realize that the effort that goes into them and the costs they entail are not worth it. And that’s what discernment is all about: learning how to let go by passing judgment on which ways of feeding are worth the effort and which are not. After you’ve fed the mind well on concentration, you begin to look at all the other things that would pull you out of concentration, and you see that there’s greed or aversion or delusion involved in going after those things. So, to get past them, the first step is to see, when the greed or the anger comes, how does it come? What’s its origination? What’s causing it? Then the second step is to see, when it goes away, how does it go away? But you don’t just stop there though, just watching it coming and going away. As for discernment, the Buddha says there are five things that you need to know if you want to discern the escape from this feeding cycle. Even though there may be some satisfaction in getting certain hungers satisfied, with a lot of them you realize that the effort that goes into them and the costs they entail are not worth it. And that’s what discernment is all about: learning how to let go by passing judgment on which ways of feeding are worth the effort and which are not. After you’ve fed the mind well on concentration, you begin to look at all the other things that would pull you out of concentration, and you see that there’s greed or aversion or delusion involved in going after those things. So, to get past them, the first step is to see, when the greed or the anger comes, how does it come? What’s its origination? What’s causing it? Then the second step is to see, when it goes away, how does it go away? But you don’t just stop there though, just watching it coming and going away.
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 So the way to let go is not to just deny your hunger, it’s to train your hunger to make it more discerning, to ask yourself deep down inside, “What do you really want out of life? What would really be satisfying?” And notice how the answer to that question is going to change as you develop more virtue, concentration, and discernment, as your hunger gets trained to the point where it’s no longer needed. So the way to let go is not to just deny your hunger, it’s to train your hunger to make it more discerning, to ask yourself deep down inside, “What do you really want out of life? What would really be satisfying?” And notice how the answer to that question is going to change as you develop more virtue, concentration, and discernment, as your hunger gets trained to the point where it’s no longer needed.
  
-So instead of digesting your brain, you get your intelligence to take over until it puts an end to your need for a digestive system. You find a happiness that’s totally free from hunger, free from the need to feed, and that’s when you let everything go—not out of defeat, out of victory.+So instead of digesting your brain, you get your intelligence to take over until it puts an end to your need for a digestive system. You find a happiness that’s totally free from hunger, free from the need to feed, and that’s when you let everything go — not out of defeat, out of victory.
  
 That attitude of giving up on consuming the world because you say, “Well, it’s not permanent, and I’m not permanent, so I might as well give up looking for happiness”: That’s basically saying that there’s no true happiness to be found through fabricated things, so just give up on the whole idea of happiness and just be equanimous. That’s defeat. That attitude of giving up on consuming the world because you say, “Well, it’s not permanent, and I’m not permanent, so I might as well give up looking for happiness”: That’s basically saying that there’s no true happiness to be found through fabricated things, so just give up on the whole idea of happiness and just be equanimous. That’s defeat.
  
-As the Buddha said, though, one of the names for the noble eightfold path is unexcelled victory in battle. You battle the ignorance that’s been guiding your hunger, and you come out with something much better. You’ve learned that you can use the processes of fabrication to create a path that leads to something unfabricated. And that’s genuine victory. We struggle in the world because of our hunger, but when we find something that doesn’t require feeding and totally satisfies the hunger, then there’s no more need to struggle. As the Buddha said, better than victory over thousands of other people is victory over yourself—and this is how the victory is won. +As the Buddha said, though, one of the names for the noble eightfold path is unexcelled victory in battle. You battle the ignorance that’s been guiding your hunger, and you come out with something much better. You’ve learned that you can use the processes of fabrication to create a path that leads to something unfabricated. And that’s genuine victory. We struggle in the world because of our hunger, but when we find something that doesn’t require feeding and totally satisfies the hunger, then there’s no more need to struggle. As the Buddha said, better than victory over thousands of other people is victory over yourself — and this is how the victory is won. 
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 <div #f_atiCopy>This Zugang zur Einsicht edition is [[en:dhamma-dana|{{en:img:d2.png?14}}]]2017.</div> <div #f_atiCopy>This Zugang zur Einsicht edition is [[en:dhamma-dana|{{en:img:d2.png?14}}]]2017.</div>
  
-<div f_zzeCopy>Translations, rebublishing, editing and additions are in the sphere of responsibility of //Zugang zur Einsicht//.</div>+<div f_zzecopy>Translations, rebublishing, editing and additions are in the sphere of responsibility of //Zugang zur Einsicht//.</div>
  
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 <div #f_termsofuse>**Scope of this Dhamma-Gift:** You are invited to not only use this Dhamma-Gift here for yourself but also to share it, and your merits with it, again as a Dhamma gift and to copy, reformat, reprint, republish and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: you only make such copies, etc. available //free of charge//; This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/]]. For additional information about copyrights on ZzE, see the [[en:faq#copyright|FAQ]].</div> <div #f_termsofuse>**Scope of this Dhamma-Gift:** You are invited to not only use this Dhamma-Gift here for yourself but also to share it, and your merits with it, again as a Dhamma gift and to copy, reformat, reprint, republish and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: you only make such copies, etc. available //free of charge//; This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/]]. For additional information about copyrights on ZzE, see the [[en:faq#copyright|FAQ]].</div>
  
-<div #f_citation>**How to cite this document** (one suggested style): "Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)", by  Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu. <span style='font-style:italic'>Zugang zur Einsicht</span>, October 4, 2017, [[http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/trainyourhunger_en.html|http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/trainyourhunger_en.html]], retrieved on: +<div #f_citation>**How to cite this document** (one suggested style): "Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)", by  Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu. //Zugang zur Einsicht//, October 4, 2017, [[http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/trainyourhunger_en.html|http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/trainyourhunger_en.html]], retrieved on: 
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 <div #f_toenail>[[en:help|Help]] | [[en:faq#whatis|About]] | [[en:faq#contact|Contact]] | [[en:dhamma-dana|Scope of the Dhamma gift]] | [[en:cowork|Collaboration]]\\ Anumodana puñña kusala!</div> <div #f_toenail>[[en:help|Help]] | [[en:faq#whatis|About]] | [[en:faq#contact|Contact]] | [[en:dhamma-dana|Scope of the Dhamma gift]] | [[en:cowork|Collaboration]]\\ Anumodana puñña kusala!</div>
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en/lib/authors/thanissaro/trainyourhunger.1550669012.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/02/20 14:23 by Johann