How to change old behavioral patterns?

On the cultivation of insight/wisdom
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Ben
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by Ben »

wizi wrote:Actually, the more practical question i have is also how to help a loved one change their old behavioral patterns?
By concentrating on eradicating your own defilements. The source of your misery is within - not outside.
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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rowboat
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by rowboat »

Ben: Maintaining your practice everyday you are putting one foot in front of the other on the path. Its the constant application as well as retreat experiences that are for your long term benefit.
That's right. And with mindfulness you will be able to note certain types of arising thoughts and you can be aware of the birth/becoming factor such thoughts play in terms of behavior when they are not recognized or noted. This is the short-term stopping work of day-to-day practice. But to uproot such mental defilements, daily persistence built upon a foundation of retreats and good instruction are just the thing.
Rain soddens what is covered up,
It does not sodden what is open.
Therefore uncover what is covered
That the rain will not sodden it.
Ud 5.5
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Soe Win Htut
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by Soe Win Htut »

Please do not reject nor indulge the old behavioral patterns.

In fact, old behavioral patterns are arising from mind-creation or mind actions.

So Abandon the mind-action(the attitude) of emphasizing and centering the old behavioral patterns as reality and importance by remembering the truth of old behavioral patterns or created truths again and again.

The truth of old behavioral patterns or created truths is that the old behavioral patterns or created truths are NOT FOR attaching, thinking and confirming as reality or real existence because old behavioral patterns and created truths are impermanent, unsatistactory and non-self.

Listen & follow the below mp3 talks regularly till the old habit you want to change is changed.
http://onlymiddleway.multiply.com/music ... talk_05-11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Awareness(mental noting) alone is not enough for enlightenment. (Ashin Tejaniya)
Created truths(Sammuti Sacca) are just to be used only, experienced only and known onlyWithout rejecting and attaching them with the idea of reality.
Vipassana (Insight meditation) is changing from the volitional action to action-only, attachment to detachment, misunderstanding to right understanding.
To Learn more....
http://www.thabarwa.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, or
http://www.thabarwa.org/guided-insight-mp3-talks/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Cilla
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by Cilla »

People have to arrive by themselves at the decision to change. If your old parent is not interested in meditation then there is nothing you can do. Well all you can do is be an example. Is she/he doesn't want to see and replicate your example, you just have to accept it. Try to be compassionate. iT is harder to change older people apparently. All willingness to change has to come from within. Let it go. Let your parent do what they want. If you don't like what they do to you, you just have to find a way to handle it differently within yourself. I know this is not easy. I have a problem wiht a family member too. I'd like her to take up meditation so i am gently nudging her in the direction. But she's very busy and may not ever decide to take it up. I have to accept that and just try to find other ways to get along with her rather than hoping she will change as well as me.
befriend
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by befriend »

just recently i overcame, extreme OCD like symptoms, which were a lot more severe than washing you hands 30 times a day. how i change my behavior was to just stay busy. i wake up shower, do the dishes, and i dont stop till the sun goes down. now i have no negative symptoms or any mental problems. meditation isnt the only way to help your well being, we have more than minds and hearts, we have bodies too. metta, befriend
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
Cilla
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by Cilla »

That's fascinating befriend. YOu say it wasn't OCD? just "OCD like symptoms". Do you think this would work for someone who actually had OCD? I mean, i don't but i do talk to people who have it and i am interested in all mental health issues.

btw hand washing can be a severe symptom. It depends on how often you end up having to wash your hands and how often you are delayed from doing what you have to do. People who have this symptom, when severe find it extremely distressing and extremely disruptive in their lives. It seems the cause is actually a wiring problem in the brain. It would be quite hard to distract yourself from the thoughts that make you want to wash your hands obsessively.

Probably what you are talking about is more of an anxiety related symptom. I have experienced those once that i can recall. It past of its own accord.
befriend
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by befriend »

tell them to buy the book Brain Lock. it changed my life from hell to heaven. this book is FOR people specifically for OCD, but can help people with many other problems too. the author is actually a buddhist, but doesnt say so in the book. it has nothing to do with buddhist meditation or anything buddhist. none of my therapists said i would ever get better. ever. now i have a job doing what i love, am going to work with people with OCD and other mental issues, and show other people how to do metta. tell them about this book. they say it takes up to two months to get better at best maybe longer. it took me about 24 hours. metta. befriend
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
Cilla
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Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2011 9:10 am

Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by Cilla »

Ok thanks befriend. I shall pass it on. Hopefully it will help some of them.

Befriend, i wonder if you have heard of the book called Mindfulness in Plain English. If you have read it can you say how it compares with the book you refer to.

If you haven't read it, you might get hold of a copy and see how you think that meditation helps your symptoms. Or i could jsut ask you this anyway but i don't know anything about your meditation practice. the book i mention, it seems to me would help iwth OCD symptoms. I mean a practice following this approach which is theravada i believe anyway. Its just that this book is very clear.
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wizi
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Re: How to change old behavioral patterns?

Post by wizi »

Soe Win Htut wrote:Please do not reject nor indulge the old behavioral patterns.

In fact, old behavioral patterns are arising from mind-creation or mind actions.

So Abandon the mind-action(the attitude) of emphasizing and centering the old behavioral patterns as reality and importance by remembering the truth of old behavioral patterns or created truths again and again.

The truth of old behavioral patterns or created truths is that the old behavioral patterns or created truths are NOT FOR attaching, thinking and confirming as reality or real existence because old behavioral patterns and created truths are impermanent, unsatistactory and non-self.

Listen & follow the below mp3 talks regularly till the old habit you want to change is changed.
http://onlymiddleway.multiply.com/music ... talk_05-11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Hi Soe,

Rejecting and indulging the old behavioral patterns or Created Truths seems like what I am currently going through.

There are moments I lapse to my Created Truths and moments where I am aware of my Created Truths and have to fight an internal mind-battle to reject it.

I like the talks you have posted..... :thumbsup:
All beings like yourself are responsible for their own actions. Suffering or happiness is created through one's relationship to experience, not by experience itself. Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends on your actions, not on my wishes for you.
May you not be caught in reactivity.
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