Search results for: virtue

  1. Two Roads to the Grand Canyon
     … If virtue were easy or natural, it wouldn’t require training. The Buddha wouldn’t have called it a training. The same with concentration: You do have to put an effort into it. It’s a very delicate effort in the sense that it requires a lot of precision, but it also requires strong dedication. The same with discernment: You have to think things … 
  2. Success by Approximation
     … Concentration is very calm; wisdom is very clear; virtue can be pure. But their calm, clarity, and purity are all fabricated, whereas the calm, clarity, and purity of the goal are on another level altogether. You get there not by imitating the goal; you get there through a process of approximation. Even though awakening can happen in a moment, and you’re awakening to … 
  3. Limitless is the Buddha
     … generosity, virtue. When you meditate, you develop a sense of well-being inside that doesn’t harm anybody at all. And that’s just the path. The goal is even more harmless, more noble, as in that phrase we chanted just now: admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end. The path starts out well, continues well, and its ending … 
  4. Strengthening Concentration
     … The first quality is virtue: You observe the precepts as practice in making promises to yourself that you then try to keep. You promise yourself that you’re not going to kill anything, not even a little insects. Not even termites. No stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of intoxicants. You set these principles up as promises and then try to keep … 
  5. Generating Energy
     … These can be the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha, your own generosity, your own virtue. Sometimes putting the breath aside for the time being and thinking about these things can be very helpful. Thinking about the Sangha for instance: Think about all the ajaans and the success they had in the practice. Remember that they were human beings, you’re a human being … 
  6. Between Either & Or
     … You pursue certain pleasures—the pleasures of jhana, the pleasures that come from mastering virtue and concentration, generosity—so that you can use them. Use the pleasure of concentration to put the mind in the proper mood and the proper frame of mind, making it stable enough so it can really see things in a balanced way. And often this requires a lot of … 
  7. Breath Meditation: The Third Tetrad
     … You can think about your past virtue, your past generosity, things that you find uplifting. Then you can come back to the breath, but this time with a better state of mind. If, however, the mind is feeling overly excited, overly energetic, then you want to figure out how to breathe in a way that steadies the mind. And again, this might have to … 
  8. Murderers, Vipers, & Floods, Oh My!
     … If his virtues are better than others, he exalts himself over that. If he lives in the forest, whatever his ascetic practice, he exalts himself over that. That’s what it means to be a person of no integrity. You can do the things. You can do the practices. You could even get in the very high stages of jhana and yet still be … 
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