Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … And then through the concentration, there are instructions in how to develop discernment, because discernment is what you’re going to need to solve the problem of suffering. Ajaan Fuang had a student who had many cases of cancer. The cancer would appear here. They’d cut that out. Then it would appear over there; they’d cut that out. It would appear someplace … 
  3. To Be Your Own Teacher
     … For this ability to find what’s just right is an extremely important principle in developing discernment. So the more you can become your own teacher, the better. The discernment that’s involved in becoming your own teacher is going to be essential for release. Discernment is not just a matter of seeing things in line with the texts; it’s a matter of … 
  4. Strong-hearted
     … This provides the basis for discernment—a basis for discernment that’s reliable, or at least more reliable than it would be if your mind were running around. If it’s based on conviction, based on persistence, it’s even more reliable. This is where the head comes in, but even here, the head is motivated by the heart. What is discernment based on … 
  5. Truths of the Will
     … What kinds of causes do give rise to concentration? What causes give rise to discernment? What activities get in the way of concentration; get in the way of discernment? These are things you have to observe. In both cases, you learn about these things by wanting to know. There’s simply the issue of when it’s appropriate for your will to make things … 
  6. Practicing for Dispassion
     … virtue, concentration, and discernment. So we practice virtue for the sake of dispassion, we practice concentration for the sake of dispassion, discernment for the sake of dispassion. That’s what turns these things from simple activities that would lead to more becoming into something that leads beyond becoming. So what would that mean: virtue for the sake of dispassion? In the beginning, you do … 
  7. A Rite of Passage
     … What’s skillful and what’s not? When the Buddha talks about the various qualities you can develop through good or bad karma, he talks about how you can become a good-looking person, how you can become a wealthy person, how you can become a respected person, how you can gain discernment. Discernment is the only quality that starts with a question: What … 
  8. No Foolproofing
     … That’s when you really exercise your discernment. So although you have to bring some discernment to the path to begin with, the path requires that you exercise it and develop it. That means taking responsibility for looking after your state of concentration and figuring out: Is it something that needs to be given a little more energy? Are there things coming in that … 
  9. Two Kinds of Defilements
     … The discernment lies in your desire to get past these things, to understand them, realizing that you have to burn into them, as he says, to figure out what’s going on. If you don’t ask questions around these things, there’s no way discernment is going to come. You look at all the stories of the great ajaans and their discernment always … 
  10. Non-Verbal Discernment
    Non-Verbal Discernment September 11, 2021 There’s a passage where the Buddha says that if you want to master jhana and get really good at right concentration, you need both tranquility and insight. In other words, you don’t just force the mind down. If you want the mind to be willing to settle down, you have to understand its causes and effects … 
  11. Customs of the Noble Ones
     … There are four factors to any wise determination, and the very first one is discernment. Figure out what kind of goal is a worthy goal in your life. As the Buddha said, discernment begins with a question: “What, when I do it, will be for my long-term welfare and happiness?” He recommends going to ask people who know, or have given some indication … 
  12. Practicing from Gratitude
     … This is how discernment begins to grow out of concentration. And, as the Buddha said, as your discernment gets more and more refined, it can begin to dig deeper and deeper into the mind, until it gets down to the roots of what’s causing all this trouble inside: what the Buddha called asava, and we can translate as effluents. These are things that … 
  13. Twigs & Branches
     … Through evaluating it this way, you develop your own discernment, because that’s a lot of what discernment is: evaluation, making value judgments. We practice it first with the breath. As the issue of how to make the breath stay with the mind and how to make the mind stay with the breath gets more resolved, then you can use your powers of evaluation … 
  14. Wise about Happiness
     … That’s the kind of discernment the Buddha was talking about: strategic discernment, discernment in action. After all, as he points out, some kinds of happiness are not noble, others are noble. And among the ignoble forms of happiness, there are gradations. So the question is, which ones are worth pursuing, which ones are not? After all, happiness just doesn’t come floating to … 
  15. Look in the Mirror
     … It’s attained by discernment, but it’s still a state of concentration—and it too is fabricated. Ajaan Lee has a good way of dealing with that kind of issue. He says, “You see that there are these things that are inconstant, but there’s something else that seems to be constant”: either the state of concentration or the insight that allows you … 
  16. Relationships
     … We can’t wait until our concentration is strong before using discernment to deal with certain issues, because they come up in the midst of life. So what we do is learn how to make use of what we’ve got in terms of our virtue, in terms of our concentration, and in terms of our discernment—to put them to use. We put … 
  17. The Forerunner of All Things
     … Think of that question the Buddha has you ask, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” That’s the question that lies at the beginning of discernment. When you keep that question in mind all the time, you’re following what he says is one of the first determinations, which is not to neglect discernment. All too … 
  18. The Treasure of Virtue
     … It’s the quality that embodies discernment. I was reading someone saying that bringing discernment to the precepts means knowing when to observe them and when not. But that’s lazy discernment, and it’s not really wise. Wise discernment figures out, for example, what to do when you have some information that you know someone else would like to get out of you … 
  19. Mindful & Discerning 24/7
     … A defilement comes up, and I realize I have to depend on myself—my own powers of mindfulness, my own discernment—to work it through. When that problem is solved, then another one comes up in its place, and I have to fight that one off. It’s a constant battle. But it really brings home the point that the self is its own … 
  20. Ups & Downs
     … This is why the discernment that comes from reading and thinking things through is one thing. The discernment that comes from actually trying to develop qualities in the mind is something else. In the books, it all sounds very straightforward. One sutta even uses the image of a stairway. You go from one step to the next, to the next, to the next. It … 
  21. The Sublime Attitudes
     … You can talk about discernment, you can describe the three characteristics, the five khandhas, the six sense-spheres, dependent co-arising, emptiness, all these wonderful concepts; you can talk about them, but if they can’t help you make the right decision when you’re faced with a hard decision, your discernment’s useless. Useful discernment is the type that enables you to talk … 
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