Search results for: "Conviction"

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  2. The Gift of Spiritual Materialism
     … To begin with, there’s conviction, virtue, shame, and compunction. These four form a set. You believe in the power of action: that the Buddha really was awakened, and that his awakening depended on his own actions. You also are convinced that the qualities he developed to gain that awakening are qualities we all have in potential form. It’s through our actions that … 
  3. Skillful Fears
     … When things get difficult, will you really be able to maintain your conviction that you want to act skillfully, that you’re not going to break the precepts, that you’re going to be harmless in your behavior? That’s something you have to be be afraid of: being harmful, and the mind states that would make you act on the desire to be … 
  4. Noble Wealth
     … the treasures of conviction, a healthy sense of shame, compunction, virtue, knowledge of the Dhamma, generosity, and discernment. He talked about them as a wise investment. This is very much unlike what we’ve heard in modern days about how bad it is to have an attitude of spiritual materialism, the idea that you’re going to get something out of the practice or … 
  5. Resilience Plus
     … First, he has you think about the four qualities that make you an admirable friend, starting with conviction in the principle of kamma, that you’re not going to do anything harmful and you want to see what you can do to influence the other person to be inspired to act in that way. You think about your virtue, that you’re going to … 
  6. An Admirable Friend — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … Underlying all this is the conviction that this is really useful, this is really a worthwhile project: training the mind, realizing that the mind is the major factor in life, shaping your happiness and sorrow, your pleasure and pain. It needs to be trained so that its actions yield the happiness you want, a happiness that doesn’t harm you, doesn’t harm anybody … 
  7. The Buddha’s Narratives & Yours
    In the Buddhist context, conviction is defined as conviction in the Buddha’s awakening: not only that it happened, but also that we take it as our reference point. When issues come up in the mind, you try to think of the issue in light of what the Buddha experienced, what he found on the night of his awakening. For example, narratives come up … 
  8. Don’t Worry, Be Focused
     … That’s what conviction is all about, and that can make a difference. But there are some areas where your actions can’t make a difference. That’s where you have to drop any worries you might have. The Buddha lists three things that people might be worried about as they’re approaching death. They might be worried about their children, their family; or … 
  9. The Bright Tunnel
     … the strength of conviction in your own ability to do the practice, conviction in the powers of your own actions. The strengths of persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Discernment is the one that keeps all the strengths strong, as you begin to take apart exactly where the clinging is, why it is. There are four kinds of clinging. You cling to sensual passion, you … 
  10. The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless
     … You haven’t even had that view confirmed yet, which is why when the Buddha compared the path to a chariot, the two horses that lead the chariot are conviction and discernment. The conviction is in these principles, a conviction strong enough that it inspires you try them out and act on them. The discernment lies in realizing that this is really a good … 
  11. Pain
     … them in terms of the habits you develop as you go through life. And they are habits that you want to develop: conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment. But you’re really going to need them at the moment of death, too. Conviction that the Buddha was right: What you do with the mind right now is really going to make a difference. That was one … 
  12. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … Then tune all the rest of the strings in your lute to that—your conviction, your mindfulness, your concentration, your discernment. With conviction, that means really being convinced that even tiny steps are worthwhile. You’re not going to stay with the tiny steps. As you make the tiny steps and you get really perceptive about what you’re doing, you’re going to … 
  13. Protection
     … The first of the five strengths is conviction. You believe in the Buddha’s awakening, that what he saw on the night of his awakening is true. Not only that, but he gained freedom from the knowledge that he gained on that night. As he said, it came from qualities that anybody can develop: heedfulness, ardency, resolution. We all have these qualities to some … 
  14. Seriously Happy
     … This is what motivates us and gives us the conviction to practice. So you have to learn how to focus on the downsides of your old friends—the pleasures you had once and that part of the mind would like to go back to again—and see that they don’t really measure up. Sometimes this is hard when your meditation seems to be … 
  15. To Discern Suffering
     … The first is conviction: The conviction that if we’re going to get past this suffering, we have to understand it, i.e., it’s our own duty, it’s something we have to do on our own. Now, we can get help from other people who explain things to us. In fact, without that help, we’d be totally lost. But still, we … 
  16. Beyond Likes & Dislikes
     … But for some reason we find it very hard to doubt our defilements — all these convictions and preconceived notions we’re unwilling to give up. Only when we’re willing to put them aside and open ourselves to the possibility, “Okay, maybe they’re wrong,” can we open ourselves to the Dhamma. What this comes down to is respect. The Buddha says that the … 
  17. Reflect
     … But she could not be swayed from her conviction that there was something going on, and that she’d actually seen these things. That’s a case of not being reflective at all, because what it came down to was that she wanted to get rid of the monk. So whatever comes up in the meditation, you’ve got to reflect, “What in the … 
  18. Life in the Context of the Practice
     … There’s conviction, i.e., conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, which translates into conviction in the principle of action, that your actions really do matter. Based on that there’s virtue, and then a sense of shame and a sense of compunction. Virtue is the desire not to harm. It’s making up your mind not to harm. We have to consciously take … 
  19. A Sense of Yourself
     … The first one is conviction, the extent to which you really do believe that the Buddha was awakened. That also means that you believe in the principle of kamma, that whatever progress that’s going to be made on the path is going to be made through your actions. You’ve got to be responsible, because that’s what the message of the Buddha … 
  20. Right but Wrong
     … reasoning by analogies, or reasoning by things fitting together, making sense together, or a tradition that we believe, or a teacher we believe, or a conviction. As the Buddha says, if you want to safeguard the truth, you say, “This is my conviction”—and leave it at that. Or: “This is what makes sense to me”—leave it at that. The more humility we … 
  21. How to Read Yourself
     … Maybe right now the strength of concentration is weak, but look to see what else you’ve got in terms of your conviction, your persistence, your mindfulness, your discernment. Ajaan Mun made a lot of the idea of using your discernment to develop your concentration. When Ajaan Lee wrote the book, The Craft of the Heart, which is one of the first books in … 
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