Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. Dualities
    There’s an interesting passage in Luang Pu Dune’s teachings where he talks about how to develop discernment. He says you get your mind quiet, and then you start contemplating things that come in pairs. He says, for example, black and white or fast and slow. Of course, he’s not talking about things outside. He’s talking about things in the mind … 
  3. Energy & Efficiency
     … And the Buddha then said, “In the same way, you should tune your energy to the point where it’s just right and then tune the rest of the strings of your practice.” In other words, conviction, mindfulness, concentration, discernment: Tune those to the level of your energy. In that way the practice will come out right. So keep this in mind as you … 
  4. One Thing Clear Through
     … This fits in with another principle that underlies discernment, which is the basic question of discernment, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term harm and suffering?” Realizing that the long-term is really worth it, and it’s going to have to come from your actions … 
  5. Do, Maintain, Use
     … This is how concentration begins to develop discernment, and how maintaining provides the basis for putting the concentration to use—because the major use you want to get out of this, of course, is how to see through your defilements, how to liberate the mind. The seeing through, the insight, the discernment, begins as you’re maintaining. It’s like maintaining the monastery. Building … 
  6. Freedom from Fear
     … That’s when you have to exercise your discernment. Years back, I read a statement by a Mahayana teacher saying that the wisdom that comes from the precepts is learning when to follow them and when not to follow them. But there’s nothing special about that discernment. It’s the way of the world in general. People are constantly making exceptions to the … 
  7. Joyous Discernment
     … The Buddha termed this joyous discernment. There’s a passage where he says, “Sariputta has quick discernment, joyous discernment.” In other words, he likes exploring things, likes learning new things. He’s not simply sitting around waiting for old habits, old ideas to be confirmed. So develop the alertness that looks more quickly and looks in areas you didn’t know before, because that … 
  8. Understanding Through Developing
     … The first two are exercises in gaining some discernment—in other words, discerning what long breathing feels like, what short breathing feels like. But then the remaining steps are trainings. You train yourself, “I will breathe in such a way. I will breathe out in such a way.” You’re going to make a difference, you’re going to explore potentials here, develop skillful … 
  9. When You Care
     … We bring the discernment that realizes that our actions do have long-term consequences. And we have the heedfulness to realize that some of those consequences can be pretty dangerous. We also have a quality called compunction. The Pali term is ottappa—it’s sometimes translated as fear of doing evil. Basically, what it means is that you care about the consequences of your … 
  10. To Discern Suffering
    That phrase in the chant just now, “Those who don’t discern suffering”: It sounds strange. We all detect suffering in our lives. It’s a daily occurrence. Sometimes there’s a lot, sometimes there’s a little. Some people, of course, deny that there’s any suffering in their lives. I knew a journalist in Bangkok one time who asked me, “Why is … 
  11. What Makes Concentration Right
     … One of the reasons why this is called the middle path, or the middle way, is that you have to find the point of balance, and it’s in find that balance that you really develop your discernment. There’s the discernment that comes from reading books, the discernment that comes from thinking things through, but the discernment that comes from finding the point … 
  12. Gifts of Noble Wealth
     … Then finally, discernment: This is when you learn to go beyond just the wisdom you’ve learned from other people and heard from other people, and you start producing your own wisdom, your own insights as you need them. I made reference just now to the three skills of the archer that the Buddha used to compare with discernment. To fire shots in rapid … 
  13. Virtues Bright & Neither Dark nor Bright
     … I was reading someone saying that the use of discernment with regard to the precepts is figuring out when to hold by them and when not to hold by them. That’s not very discerning at all. That’s just the way of the world. As the Buddha pointed out, it’s not the case that people who lie a lot are lying more … 
  14. Nothing Wrong with Right & Wrong
     … Gaining a sense of time and place for truths like that is one of the ways in which you exercise your discernment. And it’s in exercising your discernment in areas like this that you develop the discernment that you need to look deeper inside. That’s the problem with communication: knowing what’s true for everyone and what’s true only in certain … 
  15. The Armored Car
     … So you have to be very discerning in how you choose a path, choose the way you want to be practicing, realizing that this is the engine that powers you. Discernment is part of that engine. The axles, the Buddha said, are jhāna. They may turn around but they’ve got a still center. You want to have that centered quality to your concentration … 
  16. Remorse
     … But he also requires discernment because, as I said, compassion can sometimes be misleading. That’s where compassion gets scary. This is why discernment is so important. What does it come down to? An understanding of the principles of what’s skillful and what’s not. The Buddha gives some basic examples in the precepts. But then there are the subtler things, and those … 
  17. Doing Meditation
     … We talk about practicing concentration, developing discernment. In English, these things are nouns. In Pali they have nouns for them, too, but they also have corresponding verbs, which is one of the reasons why I prefer to translate paññā as discernment rather than wisdom. In English we don’t have a verb for “wising,” but we do have a verb for discerning. So remind … 
  18. Hedgehog Knowledge
     … This is why the Buddha said that there’s no jhana without discernment. Of course, there’s no discernment without jhana. The mind really has to settle in. Discernment here—in that heightened sense—means transcendent discernment. The mind has to be really still for you to see things clearly. The more still it is, the more sensitive you can be. The more sensitive … 
  19. What You’re Choosing to Do Right Now
     … As the Buddha said, there’s discernment that comes from listening, and there’s discernment that comes from thinking. Listening gives you the new vocabulary; listening points out what the big issues are. Thinking about it requires appropriate attention—in other words, making sure that you take these teachings and apply them to the real issue, which is why is it that you’re … 
  20. Meticulous
     … This is the point that Ajahn Chah was aiming at when he constantly talked about how virtue, concentration, and discernment are all the same thing. It’s not that you pick up one and then drop it when you go on to the next. You just get better and better at this one thing: virtue-concentration-discernment. And that’s how *all *the aspects … 
  21. Evaluation
     … So look carefully at how they did it and learn the lessons that they have to offer, so that you can build on their discernment and start developing your own discernment, discernment that you can trust, the discernment that really does make a difference—a difference that’s all for the good.
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