Search results for: "Discernment"

  1. Page 13
  2. Potentials for Awakening
     … This, out of the seven, is the wisdom or discernment factor. And it’s interesting here that the Buddha says the potential that you develop to foster discernment has to do with seeing skillful and unskillful qualities in your own mind. This is why I said actions are important, because the question of which actions are worth doing lies at the basis of discernment … 
  3. Heedfulness & Confidence
     … In the same way, your discernment gets dull because you’re not sharpening it in concentration, you’re not giving it the time to be confident that, yes, letting the mind rest like this will not only give you a bit of peace right now but will also be good for your discernment down the line. So have some respect for the training, have … 
  4. Pain
     … When you settle in, one of the beginning exercises of discernment will be to cut off every inclination to want to go to the pain. Sometimes you have to question it, like the feeling that the pain is saying, “Look at me, look at me.” What would make the mind want to think that? It’s anthropomorphizing the pain, creating stories around it that … 
  5. Equanimity
     … When it came Ajaan Chah’s turn he said, “Well, yes, you need to develop equanimity, but you have to develop it together with discernment.” The discernment here is a matter of knowing what to accept and what not to accept, or what not to be equanimous about. This connects with two principles. One is that there are some areas where you can make … 
  6. Determination
     … truthfulness comes under virtue, relinquishment, renunciation, and calm come under concentration, and discernment comes under discernment. So on this first day of the new year, it’s a good time to stop and think, “Where are you going?” You don’t want to simply go with the flow. You want to be the kind of person who determines the flow, so where do you … 
  7. Three Weapons
     … The weapons the Buddha lists are learning, seclusion, and discernment. Learning here of course means learning the Dhamma. It’s good to have a fund of Dhamma knowledge that you can draw on. When something comes up in meditation, you can stop and think: “What would the Buddha say about this?” The more you know what about he actually said, then the more likely … 
  8. A Happiness Based Inside
     … This requires discernment: comparing things, seeing connections, and seeing that if you want certain pleasures, certain problems come in their wake. And you have to be able to gauge: Are they worth the effort? The effort spent in centering the mind is always well-spent. But it has to be augmented by this ability to discern, to see that you can’t have your … 
  9. How to Be an Admirable Friend
     … So the mind needs a measure of control, and this is where you exercise that control by developing mindfulness and discernment around the breathing. So you come back to the breath. Try to make the breath as interesting as possible. In other words, notice how the breath energy has an impact on how you experience your body right now. Think of the energy flowing … 
  10. Breath Energies
     … If you don’t learn that, where are you going to get any discernment? Discernment requires a willingness to take chances and then see what results. Sometimes you make a mistake, but you can learn from the mistake. As Ajaan Fuang once said, there’s no mistake in meditation that can’t be undone. So you focus on the breath as you experience it … 
  11. All-around Eye
     … It requires the most discernment. If this were simply a practice of running off to one extreme, everybody would just run off to the extreme, and that would be it: no problems, nothing to figure out, no real need for discernment. But the discernment lies in figuring out what is just right, right now, and also looking at things from all sides. Whatever you … 
  12. Independent of the World
     … the desire for discernment, the desire for truth, the desire for relinquishment—in other words, letting go of whatever is holding us back—and the desire for calm. Nibbana is supposed to embody those four qualities. The discernment that frees you from your defilements is the highest noble discernment. Nibbana itself, which is totally undeceptive, is the highest noble truth. The discernment that allows … 
  13. Let Go Like a Millionaire
     … It’s part of the middle way, a pleasure that’s actually conducive to developing clarity and discernment in the mind. So work on your concentration to make sure that it’s something you can rely on. Work on your virtue, work on your discernment so that you can hold on to them with confidence. When the Buddha says that the self is its … 
  14. The Path to Stream Entry
     … As the Buddha once said of his teachings, “There’s nothing lacking, and there’s nothing in excess.” So try to be virtuous and discerning in your concentration. Try to be discerning and concentrated as you practice virtue. And then as they all come together like this, that’s when they take you to something really special. You gain a glimpse of what the … 
  15. Appreciating the State of Peace
     … The four qualities are discernment, truth, generosity, and calm. The discernment, of course, is expressed in our realization of what the true aim is—the most skillful aim: to put an end to suffering. This gives a context to the practice of metta. It also helps us understand the content of metta as well. In terms of the context, we realize if we really … 
  16. Firmly Intent
     … We want the discernment that comes from concentration and the release that comes from discernment. But you have to work on the causes. That’s where your intention has to be aimed. We can set goals for ourselves, but they have to be goals that are in the area of causes, because the results, when they come, may not be what you expected. The … 
  17. Treasure Island
     … So from the discernment that comes from reading and listening, there comes the discernment that comes from thinking things through. Then, when you think things through in the proper way, you develop a desire to put them into practice. That’s when you develop the discernment that comes from actually trying to get the mind to settle down, actually trying to get the mind … 
  18. A Sense of Yourself
     … The fifth quality is discernment: seeing where you’re causing yourself suffering. This, of course, requires that you work on your concentration so that you can see things more clearly. Discernment is not just a matter of having learned things or having thought them through. It means actually seeing, when you’re about to do something that’s going to be unskillful: How can … 
  19. Feeding While You Work
     … As Ajaan Lee once said, if you see causes without results, that doesn’t count as discernment. Seeing results without causes that doesn’t count as discernment. You have to see the connection, and to see the connection you have to work at things and detect what comes about as a result. So you focus on the breath and learn to how to enjoy … 
  20. Your Actions Are Yours
     … When the Buddha talks about the discernment that’s penetrative—discernment into arising and passing away—the important adjective there is that it’s “penetrative.” When your discernment is penetrative, what does that mean? It means that you recognize that there are skillful actions and unskillful ones, skillful arisings and unskillful ones. If something is skillful, you want to encourage it; if it’s … 
  21. To Comprehend Suffering
    That phrase in the chant just now—“those who don’t discern suffering”— sounds very strange. After all, we see suffering all around us. Someone would have to be very anesthetized not to see it. But even though we see it and feel it, we don’t really know it. In other words, we don’t understand it. It hounds our lives. And we … 
  22. Load next page...