Search results for: "Skillfulness"

  1. Page 135
  2. What You Bring to the Meditation
     … You want to learn something here and try to master a skill. The ardency, in turn, requires four other qualities in order to succeed. The first is desire. You really have to want to do this well. You realize that the mind is in a mess if it’s not trained, and that you’re causing problems not only for yourself but also for … 
  3. Secluded from Sensuality
     … So craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming do play a role—as you’re trying to master the skills of concentration. The same with clinging: There’s no role for sensual clinging on the path, but there is a role for habits and practices. You’ve got the habits of the precepts, and you’ve got the practices of concentration. Views, right … 
  4. To Comprehend Craving
     … We come to the present moment not because it’s the goal of the practice, but because it’s the place where we get to work on the skills we’ll need at the moment of death, so that we can see and master our cravings clearly right here, right now. This is one of the reasons why we create this state of becoming … 
  5. Look Around as You Follow the Trail
     … We’re working on a skill that requires you to commit to doing it and then reflect on the results. Then you do it better the next time. There may be setbacks, but you learn not to be discouraged by the setbacks. Realize that what you’re doing right now is important. There are people who complain, “Nibbāna is something that has nothing to … 
  6. The Human Condition
     … Instead of taking these things personally, you use the gains, you use the status, for whatever purposes you find skillful. When you lose these things, you can learn lessons. You can turn loss to a useful purpose as well. At the very least, you learn who your true friends are, both inside and out. If you got complacent when you were wealthy and powerful … 
  7. Dhamma Is a Quality of the Heart
     … And the process of developing the skillful qualities and abandoning the unskillful ones: What’s that going to do to your awareness? It’s going to do something good, really good, but beyond that, you can’t anticipate it. The Buddha simply reassures you that we’re not committing spiritual suicide here. We’re not blanking out. There is a kind of awareness that … 
  8. The Right Medicine
     … All the teachings are skillful means for that end. All the teachings are meant to be taken as strategies. Once you’ve used the strategies and gotten the proper results, you really are going to cherish them. You see that this is the most precious medicine that human beings can pass on to one another: knowledge of these strategies. But to really appreciate them … 
  9. Immersed in the Body
     … Remember, this is a skill: taking this stance, maintaining this stance, being concentrated in the body, but concentrated with an expansive sense of ease so that it doesn’t become oppressive. Work at filling the body with your awareness so that if they were going to take a picture of your sense of self, of the mind’s sense of self, it would be … 
  10. Grief & Regret
    Ajaan Suwat would often comment on the need while you’re meditating to have some respect for what you’re doing, because this is an important skill that we’re working on, and it’s really good for the mind. In the Buddha’s words, you need to have some respect for concentration. That means several things. On the one hand, it means you … 
  11. The Buddha Teaches a Yakkha
     … One is the principle that skillful actions should be developed, unskillful actions should be abandoned. And actions there covers not only physical actions, but also the words you say and the thoughts you think. The other categorical teaching is the four noble truths and the duties appropriate to them: to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize the cessation of suffering, by developing the path … 
  12. You Should Heed These Shoulds
     … They’re activities to be done—skills to be mastered. After all, the mind is an active entity. It’s constantly shaping the present moment. And it needs instructions on how to do it skillfully, because right now it’s causing suffering by shaping the moment in a very ignorant way. The Buddha responds to this need by giving you examples, ideas, opening opportunities … 
  13. Appreciating Merit
     … As the Buddha said, even one moment of a skillful thinking generates a lot of merit. One moment of goodwill, even just the amount of a finger snap, generates a lot of merit. So learn how to appreciate these things, nurture them. Think of them as little seeds that can grow into large trees if you take care of them. So have a sense … 
  14. Stay Centered
     … how unskillful thoughts get connected, how skillful thoughts get connected, how that continuous sense of the center can get connected. As Ajaan Lee said, “When you see cause and effect, that’s when you have real insight.” If you just see causes but without the effects, that’s not insight. Or, just the effects but not the causes: That doesn’t count, either. Real … 
  15. Part III : Daily Life
     … So make sure you have the strengths you need in order to maintain the desire to be skillful. Because the world can tear away at that very easily if you’re out looking for your nourishment in the world. That’s the other reason we try to find nourishment inside, because the more independent we are here, the less we open ourselves up to … 
  16. First Principles
     … And when you are tempted to do something unskillful, how can you talk yourself out of it? When you’re too lazy to do something skillful, how can you talk yourself into being not lazy? That’s real discernment—and that has to come from you. So we’re looking at the potentials of the breath at the same time we’re looking at … 
  17. How Right Mindfulness Leads to Right Concentration
     … It tries to be skillful effort. That means reading the situation and figuring out what needs to be done and then doing it—and having a desire to do it as well. All of this is based on desire. Sometimes you hear people say that you should try to meditate without desire. But if you meditate without desire, you’re not meditating. The mind … 
  18. True Friends & False
     … Are they really helping you, or are they your own worst enemies? Do they reinforce your unskillful thoughts, or do they try to reinforce your skillful ones? This is something really important, because just as you have enemies and friends inside your own mind, or friends that are not real friends inside your own mind, like that chant we had just now, they’re … 
  19. Curious About the Process
     … If you’ve been able to peer into the process, see how it goes, learn how to direct it in a useful direction, then you’ve developed a skill that you’re really going to be able to use at that point. We don’t know when that point is going to come. So take an interest now.
  20. An Exercise in Sensitivity
     … You have to learn about feelings, and what better way of learning about feelings than to create feelings that are skillful and pleasant? There’s the phrase says, Vivicc’eva kāmehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi, secluding yourself from sensual thoughts, secluding yourself from unskillful mental qualities, you settle down. You try to find a sense of well-being with the breath. This is why Ajaan … 
  21. Happiness Without Conflict
     … the desire to prevent unskillful qualities from arising in the mind, the desire to get rid of any ones that already have arisen, the desire to give rise to skillful qualities, and then the desire to maintain them and bring them to their full development. But that first set of right resolves—renunciation, non-ill will, harmlessness: These things are related because our fascination … 
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