Search results for: "Discernment"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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.
  16. Circumspection
     … As the Buddha identifies it, this factor of circumspection is another way of saying “discernment.” It’s good to remember that discernment has this quality. It’s not simply a matter of agreeing with the Buddha that things are inconstant or stressful or not-self. It’s an all-aroundness that looks for cause and effect, looks for situations, looks for conditions, that may … 
  17. Right View from Right Effort
     … In other words, you’ve got to keep your ingenuity alive, keep your discernment alive, so that you can deal with problems as they come up. Otherwise, laziness sets in. This is another way in which effort gives rise to discernment—the effort to be skillful. So learn to be up for the challenge. Your mind is very complex, and you’ve got to … 
  18. Meditate to Win
     … The discernment is in the stepping back. It’s one of the reasons why, in that image of the dead cow, discernment is represented as a knife. Suppose there’s a dead cow, and a butcher takes a knife, cuts all the different tendons that connect the skin to the cow, and then puts the skin back on. Is the skin attached to the … 
  19. Look Around
    In the bases of success, the fourth one, the one related to discernment, vimamsa, is a hard one to translate into English. Ajaan Lee’s favorite translation in Thai, khwaam rawb ihawb, means circumspection: looking around, looking at things from all sides. That’s one of the features of discernment, he said. It does look at things from all sides. Ajaan Maha Boowa talks … 
  20. Willing to Learn
     … What does it mean to be willing to learn? The Buddha lists three types of discernment that you’re going to need: the discernment that comes from listening, the discernment that comes from thinking, and the discernment that comes from developing. They’re usually ranked with the discernment coming from developing as the really important one, but all three of them help one another … 
  21. Five Strengths
     … The strength of your mind lies its conviction in the importance of its own actions, its ability to stick with what it knows is skillful; its qualities of mindfulness, concentration and discernment. These are the qualities of mind that determine how you’re going to deal with issues in life as they come up. The more mindful you are, the stronger your concentration, the … 
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