Search results for: virtue

The Craft of the Heart Virtue: Questions & Answers
… This translates as fat virtues, plump virtues, rich virtues, the virtues taught by the Buddha Gotama. Whoever can’t do this will end up with poor virtues, sickly virtues, orphaned virtues, withered-and-wasting-away virtues. To have virtue is to have character, to have character is to have wealth, to have wealth is to be happy; the happiness of virtue is something supreme …
The Craft of the Heart The Service for the Lunar Sabbath
… Intention is the essence of virtue; aspects of virtue apart from that intention are simply its expressions and transgressions. The intention that qualifies as virtue is the will to abstain in line with the five or eight precepts. The expressions of virtue are simply the precepts that tell what is forbidden. The transgression of virtue is the act of breaking a precept. Virtue is …
The Craft of the Heart How to Practice Concentration
… Once you see that it has entered the sphere of virtue and the Triple Gem, you should recollect the virtues of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha—both mentally and out loud—so as to nurture a sense of conviction in the heart. The Recollection of the Virtues of the Buddha: Repeat the following passage from the Canon, at the same time nurturing a sense …
The Craft of the Heart Training in Virtue
Part I Training in Virtue Precepts for Lay People There are three sets of precepts for laypeople: the five precepts, the eight precepts, and the ten guidelines. Here we will discuss the five and the eight precepts first, saving the ten guidelines for later. The five precepts can be divided into two sorts: those dealing with bodily action and those dealing with speech. Normalcy …
The Craft of the Heart Turning the Mundane Path into the Transcendent Path
… People who have attained stream entry have their virtue completely developed. They don’t have to worry about virtue any longer. They no longer have to look out for their virtues, for they’ve been a slave to virtue long enough. From now on the quality of their virtue will look out for them, safeguarding them from the four realms of deprivation. What this …
The Craft of the Heart The Path to Non-Returning
… Thus we can say that heightened virtue (adhisīla) has been established. As for right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration: The mind makes a persistent, unwavering examination of physical and mental phenomena, resolutely intent on them as its single preoccupation. Once the qualities of virtue, concentration, and discernment are gathered together and brought to bear on physical and mental phenomena, use the power of …
The Craft of the Heart The Nine Stages of Liberating Insight
… What this comes down to is the fact that virtue, concentration, and discernment aren’t in harmony. For example, our virtue may have right view and our concentration wrong view, or our discernment may have right view and our virtue and concentration wrong view. In other words, our words and deeds may be virtuous, but our thoughts—overpowered by the hindrances—may not reach …
The Craft of the Heart The Path to Arahantship
… That is to say, mental states involved with the five aggregates have disbanded; mental states involved with virtue, concentration, and discernment have disbanded—because when virtue, concentration, and discernment converge on the level of physical and mental phenomena the first time, the first noble attainment is reached; the second time, the second attainment is reached; the third time, the third; and the fourth time …
The Craft of the Heart On Taking Refuge in the Triple Gem
On Taking Refuge in the Triple Gem The Triple Gem is a potent refuge for those who have firm faith in it and make it arise in their thoughts, words and deeds—i.e., for those who make the virtues of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha actually appear in their hearts. Most people at present take refuge only in the shadow of the Buddha …
The Craft of the Heart On Practicing Concentration
… Once you see that your virtues are pure, sit in a half-lotus position with your right leg on top of your left. Hold your hands palm-to-palm in front of your heart and call to mind the virtues of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha as your refuge. Repeat the formula for the four sublime attitudes, then Buddho me nātho, dhammo me nātho …
The Craft of the Heart The Seven Stages of Purification
… Purification of virtue (sīla-visuddhi): Cleanse your virtues—in thought, word, and deed—in line with your station in life, so that they are pure and spotless, free from all five ways of creating animosity, such as taking life, stealing, etc. 2. Purification of consciousness (citta-visuddhi): Make the mind still and resolute, either in momentary concentration or threshold concentration, enough to form a …
The Craft of the Heart Concentration: Questions & Answers
… To be able to know, we have to vary our practice slightly, by cleansing virtue so as to foster concentration, cleansing concentration so as to foster discernment, cleansing discernment so that our views are right, and then using that discernment to cleanse virtue and concentration once more. Once virtue and concentration have been made pure, we don’t need to use discernment to cleanse …
The Craft of the Heart Saṅgaha-Diṭṭhi
Saṅgaha-Diṭṭhi Now I would like to describe the virtues of the arahants, those who have clearly known the world and have abandoned the world once and for all. Though their aggregates (physical and mental activities) may still appear to the world, they are pure aggregates, absolutely free from both good and evil, because the mind doesn’t claim possession of them. The mind …
The Craft of the Heart Introduction
Introduction In the first part of this book I will discuss virtue, before going on to discuss the practice of mental training in the second. I put together this first section as a cure for my own sense of dismay. In other words, there have been times when I’ve asked lay Buddhists to tell me what exactly is forbidden by the five precepts …
The Craft of the Heart The Four Forms of Acumen
… The next step is to practice and to develop virtue to do away with the roots of unskillfulness, the more common forms of greed, aversion, and delusion; to develop concentration to do away with intermediate defilements, the hindrances; and discernment to do away with the subtle defilements, ignorance and the fetters (saṅyojana). Acumen with regard to mental qualities thus means to distinguish the various …
The Craft of the Heart On Radiating the Sublime Attitudes
… Radiating good will, compassion, and appreciation to yourself means to do no evil, to take pity on yourself by abandoning evil, and to be appreciative of the aims of virtue and morality. To develop equanimity toward yourself means to be unruffled when the occasion calls for it. For instance, when you’re ill and have done all you can to treat the illness, you …
The Craft of the Heart The Five Hindrances
… Associate with those who are mature in their virtue and circumspect in their knowledge and behavior. e. Kalyāṇa-mittatā: Associate with friends you admire. f. Sappāya-kathā: Speak of matters that put your mind to rest, e.g., of what is right and wrong. Restlessness and anxiety are abandoned once and for all only with the attainment of the path to arahantship, but we …
The Craft of the Heart The Path to Once-Returning
… They have completely developed virtue and one aspect of concentration, but they still have to work on the higher aspects of concentration, along with the higher aspects of discernment, because these have been only partially developed. Discernment is still weak. It has cut away only the twigs and branches, while the roots are still intact. Still, people who have reached this level have seen …
The Craft of the Heart Glossary
… the virtues of the Buddha, of the Dhamma, and of the Saṅgha; moral virtue; generosity; the qualities that lead to rebirth as a heavenly being; and the peace of nibbāna. (This last topic is for those who have already experienced a glimpse of nibbāna, but have not yet attained arahantship.) In addition, the following practices are also sometimes classed as “anussati”: mindfulness of death …
The Craft of the Heart Jhāna
… They see others speaking of the practice of virtue, concentration, jhāna, and discernment for the sake of ending becoming and birth, and they smile to themselves. “What a bunch of fools.” they say. But actually they’re the fools without their knowing it. Those who have seen that death has to be followed by rebirth have seen that if defilement, craving, and unawareness still …
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