Search results for: virtue

1. Beyond Desire & Passion Contents
    … Chapters 18 through 23 focus on the training in heightened virtue. 18. Virtue in Rules 19. Rules & Determinations 20. Training Rules for All 21. Virtue as Attitudes (1) 22. Virtue as Attitudes (2) 23. Virtue as Attitudes (3) Chapters 24 through 28 focus on the training in the heightened mind. 24. Herding Your Thoughts (1) 25. Herding Your Thoughts (2) 26. Training in Mindfulness … 
2. Beyond Desire & Passion 21. Virtue as Attitudes (1)
    … Virtue as Attitudes (1) In addition to the rules of the Vinaya, a monk’s training in virtue is also expressed in terms of attitudes he should adopt and qualities of character he should develop. There are many lists of these qualities in the Canon—we’ve already encountered one list in the Buddha’s rebuke to Ven. Sudinna—but here we’ll focus … 
3. Beyond Desire & Passion 6. Ignorance
    … These two factors then guide your practice of the remaining factors that develop virtue and concentration. The triple training, on the other hand, lists the factors in the order in which they’re mastered: first virtue, then concentration, then discernment. Training in virtue makes you more sensitive to your intentions and more honest in judging them, which helps in the development of honest concentration … 
4. Beyond Desire & Passion 17. Starting Out Right
    … That sense of joy is calming— the calm that comes from a life of virtue. This is a pattern that holds throughout the triple training. You don’t simply force yourself to become calm and equanimous regardless of events. You first have to find an inner sense of joy that comes from virtue, concentration, and discernment. That joy keeps your calm from becoming grudging … 
5. Beyond Desire & Passion 36. Levels of Awakening
    … MN 78 notes that those who have gone beyond this fetter are virtuous but not “made of virtue.” In other words, they don’t build any sense of conceit around their virtue, exalting themselves or disparaging others. As SN 55:26 notes: “[T]he disciple of the noble ones is endowed with virtues that are appealing to the noble ones: untorn, unbroken, unspotted, unsplattered … 
6. Beyond Desire & Passion 18. Virtue in Rules
    … Virtue in Rules The rules and qualities of character that constitute the Buddha’s training in virtue are best seen in his instructions for his monk disciples. This is a point often overlooked in modern Buddhist writings. Given that some exceptional lay people can attain the various levels of awakening, it’s sometimes assumed that the training offered to lay people is the standard … 
7. Beyond Desire & Passion 20. Training Rules for All
    … You possess what he calls the treasure of virtue (AN 7:6). These five training rules are said to be the rudiments of the holy life. Monks who gain any of the noble attainments may still break other rules in the Vinaya, but they would never intentionally break these. Lay people who stick by these training rules in all situations are said to be … 
8. Beyond Desire & Passion 15. Desires & Determination on the Path
    … This is why one of the Buddha’s most common teachings to people at large was to point out the rewards of virtue in this life and the next, so that they would generate the desire to practice virtue themselves (DN 16). What’s striking about the role of desire in developing the path is that it holds to an overarching skillful desire—the … 
9. Beyond Desire & Passion 23. Virtue as Attitudes (3)
    … The three remaining qualities are part of the training in heightened virtue: being reclusive rather than entangled; being modest rather than self-aggrandizing; and being content rather than discontent. These three qualities appear as a set in many other lists of qualities that the Buddha encouraged as well, probably because they’re mutually supportive. Being reclusive—seeking solitude—is the quality most prized as … 
10. Beyond Desire & Passion 37. To Summarize
     … training in heightened virtue, the heightened mind, and heightened discernment. These qualities become heightened as they strengthen one another through continual commitment and repeated reflection. As you commit to the training in virtue, you overcome the gross unskillful desires that would cause you to harm yourself or others. As you reflect on what you learn as you do battle with the desires that run … 
11. Beyond Desire & Passion 16. Honest & Observant
     … They can even quote Dhamma to their own purposes when they want to, lulling you into thinking that by fighting them, you strengthen them, so you should avoid challenging them; or that because contentment is a virtue, it’s best just to accept them and be at peace with them. The Buddha, however, never shied away from the fact that the practice will involve … 
12. Beyond Desire & Passion 22. Virtue as Attitudes (2)
    22. Virtue as Attitudes (2) The second list of virtuous attitudes comes in a discourse that describes four qualities that keep you from regressing in the practice and that bring you into the presence of unbinding. The four are: scrupulousness, restraint of the senses, moderation in eating, and wakefulness (AN 4:37). The first quality is an expression of truthfulness in holding your actions … 
13. Beyond Desire & Passion 12. Aspects of Dispassion
     … This is why even the lowest level of awakening—the first glimpse of the deathless—is said to perfect your training in virtue (AN 3:87). There’s no room in the Buddha’s teaching for the idea that awakening puts you above ethical norms. The Pali word for intoxication, mada, can also mean infatuation, as when you’re infatuated with pride or childish … 
14. Beyond Desire & Passion 35. Relinquishing the Path
     … The faculty of conviction is developed through the training in heightened virtue; the faculties of persistence, mindfulness, and concentration through the training in the heightened mind; and the faculty of discernment through the training in heightened discernment. SN 48:3 states that when you investigate these five faculties using all five steps of the program—discerning their origination, their passing away, their allure, their … 
15. Beyond Desire & Passion 24. Herding Your Thoughts (1)
     … However, it’s worth noting that when moving from the discussion of virtue to concentration, the Buddha supplements martial metaphors with metaphors based on people developing skills—such as cooks or archers in training—apparently to indicate that the work of avoiding unskillful actions and promoting skillful ones in their place continues but gets more refined. The need to overcome many unskillful desires before … 
16. End of results