Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. A Thread into Awareness
     … That, too, is a skill and it’s an important one. You’re going to learn some interesting things about the mind as you do that skill. You have to remind yourself that you’re learning things about the mind as you maintain it in concentration. Otherwise, part of the mind will say, “Well, where’s the insight?” Actually, this is where you’re … 
  3. The Heightened Mind
     … So to be fully mindful and to have the energy to delight in abandoning unskillful qualities and to delight in developing skillful ones, you need concentration. This is what lifts the mind. As you leave the monastery and head out into the world, think of having your mind lifted above everything around you. Not necessarily that you’re better than other people, but it … 
  4. Delight & Beyond Delight
     … well learn how to make it more than it is.” But now, when you’ve got the path here, you can learn how to develop some of its skills and get some mastery over the skills. You learn how to delight in that. Delight in the idea of freedom. Delight in the idea of not being a slave to your defilements, because otherwise, you … 
  5. Your Mind is Lying to You
     … So the concentration, as you’re working at it, develops a set of skills that enable you to gauge what’s being said in the mind, so that you can figure out who’s lying to you and who’s telling the truth. Who has your best interests in mind and who doesn’t? Remember that image of Ajaan Lee’s, of all kinds … 
  6. Analyzing Anger
     … seeing where they’re stressful, seeing where they’re not stressful; seeing where they’re helpful, skillful, where they’re not helpful, not skillful. Then we can translate that knowledge into the rest of our lives, because it’s not the case that we’re creating suffering for ourselves only when we sit here and meditate. It’s happening all the time. You want … 
  7. Factors for Stream Entry
     … that it’s through our efforts that we shape our experience—and we can learn how to do it in a skillful way, all the way to the end of suffering. One of the big misunderstandings about karma is the idea that everything you experience in the present moment can be traced back to past actions, but then you can take this present moment … 
  8. Happily on the Path
     … In fact, the Buddha said that was the secret to his awakening—not being content, even with skillful qualities. When he hadn’t gone all the way, and there was more work to be done, he would do it. He would find ways to delight in it as well. Even when he talks about the different levels of equanimity, he always recommends that you … 
  9. Hold onto the Breath
     … Those pep-talks are meant to help you cling to what’s skillful so that when you let go of what’s unskillful, you don’t feel threatened. You don’t feel like your world is going to be taken apart. One of the reasons we cling is because we feel we have to cling. Even when we cling in an unskillful way, we … 
  10. Recollection of Hell
     … Even when things aren’t going well, we want to make the best of what we do have, to figure out what’s the most skillful path to make out of these potentials. The Buddha says the most skillful thing we can fabricate is the noble eightfold path, like we’re doing right now: focusing on the breath. That’s a form, one of … 
  11. Strength of Mind
     … So you’ve got to train the mind so that your actions will be skillful. That means we’re doing good groundwork here. You remember to stay with the mind, that’s mindfulness. You’re alert to what the breath is doing, you’re alert to what the mind is doing. That’s alertness. And then you try to do this well. That’s … 
  12. Evaluation
     … When you’re well attached to the breath, well attached to the sense of well-being in the body, it makes it a lot easier to step back from your other attachments, the less skillful ones. So learn how to think strategically. I know people who ask, “How can I practice concentration without clinging?” because they’ve been told of the dangers of clinging … 
  13. Goodwill All Around
     … So why do you want to be greedy for their things? Why do you want to get angry at them? Why do you wish them ill? How can you let yourself be deluded as to what’s going to be skillful and what’s not if you really want to be happy? In other words, you’ve got to take the issue of happiness … 
  14. In Accordance with the Dhamma
     … We’re trying to make that our underlying intention as we deal with our own mind, as we deal with other people so that all our actions come from a skillful motivation. An important part of this training is to realize that the opposite of goodwill should not be ill will. In other words, when people are not acting in ways that are conducive … 
  15. Dhamma is Timeless
     … the four noble truths and the teaching that skillful qualities should be developed, and unskillful ones should be abandoned. The two principles come together, because the noble truths are not just ideas that sit there. Each truth has a duty. The cause of suffering, the cause of stress, is something that should be abandoned; the path is something that should be developed. So the … 
  16. Basic Intro
     … When we’re on autopilot like that, there’s no guarantee that the intention behind our actions is going to be skillful. So you want to be here to watch your intentions, which is why we start out with this intention to stay here, because once you establish an intention like this, it’s going to run up against other intentions that’ll pull … 
  17. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
     … You have to keep in mind the importance of keeping a good, solid, calm state of mind as a skill that you want to develop. You’re going to need this in your everyday life, as aging comes, illness, as death comes. Your best defense in the face of any pain or danger is a calm mind. Especially if your mind tends to operate … 
  18. Inner Refuge
     … It’s learning how to develop the skillful qualities we have inside. We all have skillful qualities to some extent: We have a certain amount of virtue, a certain amount of concentration and discernment. Our refuge lies in developing these things to the point where we really can depend on them, when they’re all-around. As Ajaan Mun once said, you have to … 
  19. A Path for a Noble Desire
     … We may have heard that the Buddha said desire is a bad thing, but skillful desire is actually part of the path. It’s there in right effort. You cultivate desire. You generate desire. You work on your motivation to follow this path, because without the motivation, it’s not going to happen on its own. Some people say that if you have any … 
  20. Breath Meditation – The Four Tetrads
     … What effect do they have on the mind? What can stimulate the mind or gladden the mind, as the Buddha says? Does the mind need to be made more steady and concentrated? If so, which perceptions and feelings make it more steady? And if there’s anything that’s not skillful in the mind, how go you release the mind from it? “Release,” here … 
  21. Be Precise
     … Well, “ego” means a lot of things, and it involves a lot of different actions, some of which are actually skillful and some of which are not. It’s too big a concept to function in the analysis that’ll succeed in getting rid of a problem. You have to see the problem in action and divide it up into useful units. In other … 
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