Search results for: virtue
- One Thing Clear Through… The same with virtue: As the Buddha said, virtue is a gift. You’re giving the gift of safety. You decide that you’re not going to harm anybody: You’re not going to kill anybody or steal anything from anyone, have illicit sex with anyone, lie to anyone, take intoxicants in any cases. He said that when you give this gift of universal …
- Body Contemplation… Think of the Buddha’s graduated or step-by-step discourse, talking about the virtue of generosity, the virtue of observing the precepts, the rewards of generosity and virtue in terms of sensual pleasures in the human realm and heavenly realms, but then the drawbacks of sensuality. The text even calls it the degradation of sensuality. Think of all the degrading things you do …
Meditations 11
Glossary
… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. Sala: Hall. Samsara: The wandering-on through rebirth and redeath. Samvega: A sense of dismay, terror, or urgency. Sangha: On the conventional level, this term denotes the communities of Buddhist monks and nuns. On the ideal level, it denotes those followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least their …- Goodwill as a Guardian… He’d start with a graduated discourse, talking about the virtues of giving, the virtues of observing the precepts, the sensual rewards of giving, the sensual rewards of the precepts, but then the drawback of sensuality. In other words, the rewards would be either happiness in the human realm or in the higher realms. But even those higher realms have their drawbacks, because the …
- Mindfulness of Death… It’s basically those four qualities—conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment—plus learning. This, of course, refers to the Dhamma you’ve learned, and most particularly, I think, the Dhamma you’ve memorized. This is why it’s good to memorize passages in Pali, passages in Pali and English, so that you have some skillful thoughts sloshing around in the mind. After all, as death …
- Recollection of the Buddha… all those tough virtues. We have to find some way to generate desire inside, so that the tough virtues don’t seem quite so tough and so forbidding. It’s here that the guardian meditations are useful. This is a list of meditation topics that doesn’t come in the Canon. It comes someplace later. I don’t know exactly where it originated. King …
- To Escape the Prison of Time… Which is why your virtues now become virtues pleasing to the noble ones. They’re solid, they’re sure, but at the same time you don’t create a sense of pride around them. As the Buddha says, you don’t “make yourself” out of the virtues. You use them as tools to reach full awakening. Then there’s the fact that there is …
- The Five Faculties Confirmed… That’s part of our conviction, too, which gives us the energy to say, “Well, if they can do it, so can we.” The fourth aspect of conviction is virtues pleasing to the noble ones: pleasing both in the sense that you follow them strictly, and in the sense that you don’t exalt yourself and disparage others over the fact that you follow …
- The Primacy of the Mind (1)… At the same time, you’ve been training the mind to be active in thinking about generosity, thinking about virtue—and as you’re watching the processes of the mind, those thoughts are good processes to watch. All too many people go through life letting their minds wander all over the place. When they come to meditate, all they see is that all-over …
- Restlessness & Anxiety… Have some confidence in the Buddha, when he said that you protect yourself through your virtue, you protect yourself through your generosity and meditation. The more you can do these things now, the more protected you’ll be. In other words, make sure you’re living in a world where a Buddha is still remembered, the Dhamma is taught and practiced, and the Sangha …
- Mud Houses… Make them into a state of concentration; use this body to practice virtue, generosity, and meditation; use the mind to get into concentration, to develop discernment, and to allow these things to deliver you to something that’s beyond them. That’s when you really lose your passion for these things, and all the stitching of the seamstress comes undone. What’s left after …
- Discernment: Commit & Reflect… things like virtue, celibacy, discernment, and the Dhamma itself. Two of the most interesting explanations he has, as to the obstacles to these things, are the ones for discernment and for the Dhamma. For discernment, he says the obstacles are an unwillingness to listen and a lack of questioning. Now, this can apply to discernment in its sense of the discernment that comes from …
- The Carpenter’s Adze… You can reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, on your own generosity or your own virtue when you’re feeling down. Reflect on death when you’re feeling lazy. Learn how to read your mind by watching what it does, how it reacts to different types of training. After all, the carpenter himself has to do that. He’s not focusing …
- Persistence: Lift Your Heart… You have to realize that virtue is a skill. There are times when you have some information. Someone else wants it, and you know they’re going to abuse it. How do you not give them the information, and yet not lie? That’s a good challenge. You’ve got some inconvenient animals in your hut. How do you get rid of them without …
- Strength of Conviction… Of course, he had already been practicing part of the path in terms of virtue and concentration. What was left was the discernment. That was the last piece. When that piece fell into place, then there was an opening that went to the deathless. His question always had been, “Is there something that doesn’t die?” And here was the answer: “This is it …
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