Search results for: virtue
- Spread Goodness Around… But the things you get through lying are not really worth anything, because you’ve traded your virtue for what? Things that are just going to slip through your fingers like water. But the fact that you lost your virtue: That’s not going to slip through your fingers anytime soon. That’s going to stay with you. Your virtue, too, is a good …
- The Use of the Present… In the Buddha’s image, virtue cleans your discernment, and discernment cleans your virtue. And under the term “virtue” in that passage, the Buddha included the practice of the jhanas and the knowledges you can gain based on jhana. As virtue and discernment clean each other, he said, it’s like one hand washing another hand or one foot washing another foot. Both sides …
- The Gift of Spiritual Materialism… As the result of the good kamma of generosity, the good kamma of virtue, you’ll be reborn in really nice places and have a really good situation in life. But if you don’t have discernment, you can abuse that goodness. Discernment is what helps you see that even the goodness that comes from virtue and generosity is not enough. You need more …
- The Lessons of Good Kamma… This doesn’t mean that you have to start out good, but it does mean that you have to develop a full range of virtues, all around, if you’re really going to understand what the Buddha’s talking about—and “understanding” it means not just understanding the words, but getting to the meaning, to where they’re aimed. The word “meaning” in Pali …
- Self View & Conceit… In other words, your virtue is mastered. What does it mean not to cling to virtue? It doesn’t mean you don’t hold to the precepts anymore, it’s just that the precepts are part of your behavior now and you don’t have to build any sense of self around them. There’s no fashioning of a sense of self, so you …
- Building Character… There’s the list of the perfections—generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance—all those good Capricorn virtues; truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity. As Ajaan Fuang liked to say, when the Buddha was born in all his many lifetimes up until he became a Buddha, he was born for the sake of mastering these perfections. The list of good spiritual materialism in the suttas is …
- Respect for the Precepts… One of the distinctive principles of the forest tradition is its understanding of the interplay among virtue, concentration, and discernment. Usually, outside of the forest tradition, they’re taught three-in-a-row like that: You start with virtue and then, when that’s good, you learn concentration, and then when that’s good you work on your discernment. But from the beginning of …
- Ajaan Suwat’s Gift… It’s saying that you have to look after yourself wisely—which means that you develop good qualities of mind, such as generosity and virtue, that actually help other people, too. But you do have to look after yourself, because nobody else can do it for you. As the Buddha said, when you get yourself as a refuge, you get a refuge that’s …
- In Harmlessness Is Strength… generosity, virtue, and meditation. In the course of doing that, we develop a very strong sense of self, a healthy sense of self. But as the practice develops, we find that the sense of self becomes more and more just a concept that we use, a tool that we use. As long as it has its uses, we continue to hold it. It’s …
- Insight Is a Judgment Call… The same with virtue, when you really put virtue into practice by following the precepts: Try to make it an absolute promise to yourself that you’re going to stick to these precepts. You catch yourself about to do things that you used to do and you used to think were okay, but you stop. You realize that they have their drawbacks. And again …
- Metta Through Samvega… This is one of the reasons why, when the Buddha talks about practicing goodwill, he says it has to be based on a life of virtue and a life where you keep your senses under control—or, as he says, you keep your senses calm. In other words, you’re not constantly looking for the newest flashy object or trying to listen to the …
- The Core of Experience… Now, you will find, though, that in the course of the path, there are certain things you do have to hold onto temporarily, or provisionally—things like virtue, concentration, and discernment. Those are the skills you need to develop to get to release. After all, you can’t use release to get to release. You have to use what you’ve got. And the …
- Turning Anxiety into Heedfulness… The real dangers are loss in terms of losing right view and losing your virtue. So there are times when you have to be willing to face loss outside. But you always want to maintain your dignity as a human being. You don’t want events outside to control your emotions—to start doing things under the power of your emotions and then say …
- The End of the World… We develop generosity, we develop virtue, all the things that make human life good. But we do it in such a way that gets us out, because outside the world is a lot better than in.
- Defilements Are Real… After all, there are parts of the mind that get in the way of practicing virtue, there are parts that get in the way of practicing concentration, get in the way of practicing discernment. Those are defilements. If they’re cleaned away from the mind, the mind’s going to be a lot brighter. How do you clean them away? One, you learn how …
- Mindfulness 2.0… Now, there is some virtue in being with whatever comes up, because all too often we try to deny things. Years back, when they had that Ajaan Chah celebration up in Portola Valley, a lot of his students were talking about what attracted them to Ajaan Chah. And it seems that in every case, they were having trouble simply adjusting to the fact that …
- Right Resolve in Real Life… You want to have the wherewithal in terms of your virtue and your concentration and your discernment to protect your path, i.e., to protect your thoughts, your words, and your deeds to keep them in line with what you know will ultimately lead to true happiness, to the true end of suffering. When you keep that goal in mind, you realize that a …
- The Noble Truths Come First… anything that would pull you away from the practice of virtue, the practice of concentration, or the practice of discernment. You see those distractions as inconstant, stressful, not-self. These perceptions are there to develop a sense of dispassion for them. It’s only when the path has really completed its work—in other words, it’s fully developed—that you then let that …
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