Search results for: virtue

Meditations 13 Truth Without Air Quotes
… Some people treat virtue as an optional part of the practice, while the real practice, of course, lies in the techniques of meditation. But the Buddha never taught it that way. He taught virtue as an integral part of the path, because it’s through the practice of virtue—when you take on certain precepts and you try to follow them—that you start …
Meditations 13 When You Practice on Your Own
… He’d start with what’s called the “graduated discourse.” He’d start talking about generosity, acts of giving, and then virtue. Then he’d talk about heaven as a place where generosity and virtue are rewarded with sensual pleasures. If you’re listening to this teaching and you’ve been practicing generosity and virtue, you feel good about what the Buddha is saying …
Meditations 13 The Tools of the Path
… At the same time, in developing virtue through these precepts, you’re focusing on what? You’re focusing on your intentions. That’s what makes the difference between breaking a precept and not breaking a precept: the intention behind your action. So the practice of virtue gives you practice in focusing on your mind. After all, concentration is what? It’s a solid, steady …
Meditations 13 The Buddha’s Wisdom
… You get more and more sensitive to the ways in which you do cause harm—some of which are expressed in the precepts, and others which are not, but they become part of your virtue. After all, virtue is expressed not only in precepts, but also in principles like contentment, modesty, restraint: ways in which you can look at your impact on the world …
Meditations 13 The Need for a Purpose
… Someone asked the Buddha one time, “What is virtue for?” “Virtue is for the sake of developing concentration.” “What’s concentration for?” “Concentration is for the sake of developing discernment.” “What’s discernment for?” “For the sake of release.” “What’s release for?” “For the sake of unbinding, total freedom.” “What’s unbinding for?” The Buddha said, “No, stop there. Your question is going …
Meditations 13 The Culture of the Practice
… The four qualities the Buddha pointed out—and these apply not only to monks and nuns, but also to lay people—were (1) conviction, (2) virtue, (3) generosity, and (4) discernment. These are the qualities that create the culture of awakening, the culture of the practice. There has been a tendency in Buddhist circles, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, to reduce everything …
Meditations 13 Samvegic Ironies
… The only people whose virtue is firm are, at the very least, stream-enterers, those who have had their first glimpse of the deathless. And they’re going to be around for only seven more lifetimes at most. Otherwise, everybody is unreliable. They can be very good, but all too often their goodness depends on unstable conditions. They listen to the wise ones, they …
Meditations 13 To Be an Adult
… We have to use our opportunity to meditate, to practice the Dhamma in all ways—in terms of generosity, virtue, concentration, and discernment—as protection, both from dangers within ourselves and from dangers outside. As the Buddha says, the real dangers outside are not so much what people can do to us, they’re what other people can get us to do. They can …
Meditations 13 Ven. Ananda’s Awakening
… You come to the practice ideally with a sense of joy, which may be a mental joy based on generosity and virtue, but it also can translate into a sense of physical ease—and that’s what you can spread through the body. The Buddha talks about spreading a sense of rapture, a sense of ease through the body. It’s not just a …
Meditations 13 Goodwill Is Respect
… generosity, virtue, and meditation, learning how to turn within and finding the resources within our body and minds—our many minds—to see what we can develop that would lead to that happiness. Ajaan Lee talks about how human beings have so many good potentials within them that go undeveloped. So let’s see what we can develop out of the breath. You can …
Meditations 13 In the Context of the Deathless
… You look at the things the Buddha asks you to do in terms of virtue, concentration, discernment: They’re all honorable qualities. They’re all things you can be proud to do. Good qualities of the mind. Qualities of the mind that you respect within yourself. The Buddha’s asking you to develop them even further. So there’s a joy in being on …
Meditations 13 Nibbana Is Better than You Think
… This is why, when the Buddha was introducing the four noble truths to lay people, he would start out with the goodness of generosity, the goodness of virtue, saying that these things do have meaning. But then they get rewarded. Many people who are generous, many people who are virtuous, go to the heavenly realms. There they get complacent and then they fall. So …
Meditations 13 A Sense of Duty
… You gain that realization by developing the path, which boils down to virtue, concentration, and discernment. That’s the duty with regard to the fourth noble truth, These are your duties. Now, no one’s imposing them on you, aside from the fact that suffering imposes them. If you really want to get beyond suffering, these are the things you have to do. It …
Meditations 13 Strong-hearted
… You have to be patient, to have endurance, to be determined—all those good Capricorn virtues. And that’s a quality of the heart. The ancient Greeks used to say that we had three energy centers in the body: one in the head, one in the chest, one in the stomach. The head, of course, was your intellect; your stomach was your appetites; and …
Meditations 13 Perceptions, Not Characteristics
… the question that the Buddha said lies at the beginning of wisdom, which is, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” In the context of that question, you can teach generosity, virtue, meditation on goodwill, along with the other perfections. Unfortunately, they seemed …
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