Search results for: "Skillfulness"
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- Rightly Directed… Beings who act skillfully, based on skillful intentions with right view, go to a good destination. Those who act on unskillful intentions with wrong view go to a bad destination. And the basic principle is simple. But the working out, it turns out, is more complex. There was another time when he mentioned that it depended a lot on what came before and what …
- When Your Will Is Ill… Whether they’re skillful or unskillful is what makes us happy or unhappy. We tend to think of happiness as a product of an action, something we receive. The same with pain: We think it’s the product of the action. But there’s a passage where the Buddha indicates that the action itself is either the happiness or the pain. In the case …
- Refuge… This is why we train the mind, so that we don’t forget the standards for skillful actions. And why do we forget? We get provoked. As the ajaans in Thailand noted, people in the West are really weak in two areas: endurance and equanimity. We lack endurance in not being able to stand harsh words; not being able to stand pain, unpleasant sensations …
- Hurtful Memories… how to say Yes to skillful things even when they’re difficult, and how to say No to unskillful things in the mind even when they’re attractive. Think of the image of the gatekeeper at the gate to a fortress. The gatekeeper has to say Yes to some people coming in and No to others. You say Yes to the friends, No to …
- A Quiet Spot… This is how the concentration becomes more and more of a skill.
- A Mind Like Earth… that whatever you’re going to do, regardless of the situation, whether you like it or not, you’re going to try to do the skillful thing. You can’t let your impatience to take over. There are some cases, not only with other people but also with yourself, that are going to take a lot of time. So, think of your patience as …
- What Focus? What Breath?… Remember, right effort includes desire, the desire to get rid of any unskillful states that are there, and to prevent unskillful states that haven’t come yet from arising; the desire to give rise to skillful states and then to maintain them and bring them to fruition. Without that desire, the practice doesn’t go anywhere. Or as Ajaan Fuang used to say, you …
- A Separate Self… The source of all our trouble, he said, is our heedlessness, whereas heedfulness is the root of all skillful qualities. And in the very beginning, to be heedful, you do need a sense of self. You think about yourself as an agent who’s going to be acting and as the recipient of those actions. It’s because you see that your actions will …
- Songkran Blessing… There’s also the strength of persistence, when you stick with the principle that you want to do what’s only skillful, you want to abandon anything that’s unskillful. The strength of mindfulness, when you keep in mind what’s right and what’s wrong, not only while you’re here at the monastery, but also as you go through life. Concentration, when …
- Single-minded… You’re working on a skill here. You’re not checking off the jhana boxes and moving on. You want to learn what you can see as you get the mind *really, really *still. And among the first things you’ll see are thoughts of impatience. You have to recognize those for what they are: They’re defilements at the moment. This is a …
- Issues… That’s a skill. And his example is a challenge. If he avoided all issues, that would be easy: just avoid issues. But that’s not the example he set. You have to figure out which issues are worthwhile and which ones are not; how to deal responsibly with the worthwhile issues, and how to take that middle-way approach to the ones that …
- In Your Power… Then you watch to see what skillful and unskillful mental states come up around those frames of reference. That’s what it means to engage in analysis of dhammas. Notice what you’re doing that’s giving good results. Knowing what you’re doing that’s getting bad results. When you develop the qualities giving good results and abandon the ones giving bad results …
- Practice Without Gaps… So you have to be especially careful about your intentions, making sure they’re always skillful. If any unskillful intentions come up in the mind, you just say No. You don’t go with them. In that way, as your virtue becomes more continuous, it becomes a good foundation for your concentration. You get used to not making exceptions for your likes and dislikes …
- Blessings… This is a skill that you can develop, keeping those three qualities in mind—mindfulness, alertness, ardency—so that the mind can gather into one. Then you find that what you need for the sake of true happiness, what you need to bless yourself, is here in potential form inside. You’re simply learning how to make the most of your potentials. There are …
- Self Determination… But the more you make skillful choices in exercising your freedom of choice, the more you expand it. And as you make the most of your freedom of choice, right next to that is where you’re going to find something that’s of even more value and has even more freedom. It is there. As you’re just getting started on the path …
- Being a Buddhist… observing the precepts, looking for your security in skillful actions. That’s when you’ve made the important step in becoming a Buddhist.
- Planting a Tree… But what is there to be all that attached to? The reason you’re attached to the body, if you’re skillful in your attachment to the body, is because there’s good that can be done with it—not because it’s good-looking, not because it’s attractive, but because there’s good you can do with it. So if you find …
- A Culture of Restraint… I’ve been able to say No to it, and I haven’t died.” This way you can maintain your mental health, and the meditation really does become an ongoing process of developing — developing the skillful qualities you want: mindfulness, alertness, a sense of calm, a sense of wholeness and wellbeing in body and mind. As the Buddha said, “The mind well trained brings …
- One Thing Only… I’m not going to blame anybody else.” But blaming yourself doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person – simply that there’s been a lack of skill, and that’s something that can be corrected. This will take time; it requires patience. Just as the Buddha said that to get to know someone well, you have to spend time with that person …
- Totally Secure… You’ve got to go out looking for it, and the things you do in the course of looking for it may not be all that skillful. Oftentimes you find that when you actually get what you were looking for, there’s not much there. You’ve gone through all that trouble, created all that suffering for yourself, often suffering for other people, and …
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