Search results for: virtue

1. Play AudioMature Strategies
    … His teachings on generosity, virtue, and the development of goodwill — all the things that come under the category of merit — are skillful ways of employing your strategy of self. Basically, he has you take your sense of self, your sense of a continuing identity not only in this lifetime but also even into other lifetimes, and shows how to work with it intelligently so … 
2. Play AudioThe Walls of Ignorance
    … Generosity, virtue: All the teachings form a coherent whole. Even the teachings that we tend to regard more as the religious trappings around Buddhism are really integral to the practice. For instance, the act of taking refuge: What does it mean to take the Buddha as your guide in life? For one thing it means that you keep remembering him. The word “sarana,” or … 
3. Play AudioSimplify
    … And because the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment — all the seeds for happiness — lie right here, that simplifies matters. It also allows us to give our full energy to the things that matter most. So even if from the outside it may look as if the life of practicing the Dhamma has a lot of hardships, a lot of renunciation, a lot of … 
4. Play AudioGenerating Power
    … This is why in the Forest tradition so much emphasis is placed on the virtue of courage. Not foolhardiness, but courage. It takes a certain amount of courage to keep the mind centered and still, because otherwise we’re always trying to plan ahead, second guess things, anticipate things. But for the mind to have really strong powers of concentration you basically have to … 
5. Play AudioA Meditative Life
    … The first principle is virtue. Make sure you stick to your precepts. In the case of monks, of course, this refers to the Patimokkha. In the case of lay people, it refers to the five precepts and, on occasion, the eight. When you’re holding to the precepts, you’re holding to firm principles in your life. The Buddha described observing the precepts as … 
6. Play AudioVarieties of Mindfulness
    … This doesn’t mean that you have to reflect on examples of perfect virtue or perfect generosity. Reflect on what you’ve been able to do as a means of encouragement. So there are topics of recollection to deal with just about every direction the mind can go when it falls off the path, topics of recollection to bring it back onto the path … 
7. Play AudioRespect for Emptiness
    … It’s interesting that of the factors of the path — virtue, concentration, and discernment — the Buddha singled out concentration as something worthy of respect. At one point he called it the heart of the path. And yet the reason he needs to remind us to respect it is because we tend to overlook it, to step on it. Those little moments of stillness in … 
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