Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. The Importance of Being Truthful
     … It’s a form of heedfulness, which is the beginning of all that’s skillful, realizing that if you keep on acting in unskillful ways, you’re going to suffer, the people around you are going to suffer. But keep it on that level: just the action. When you see these things as simply actions, there’s nothing inherently wrong with you, there’s … 
  3. To Purify the Heart
     … That’s how you develop skill inside with regard to how you relate to your own breath, how you relate to the energies and other potentials in the body right now. This is something each of us has to discover for him or herself. That’s why Ajaan Fuang said that, as a meditator, you have to think like a thief. In other words … 
  4. Fear
     … When you believe in that basic principle, believe in the principle of karma—skillful intentions do lead to happiness; unskillful ones, to pain, suffering—you’re going to be very careful about what you do. Persistence comes as the next strength. You just keep at it, because you realize the law of karma is not like a traffic law: It’s not enforced only … 
  5. The Lightness of the Concentrated Mind
     … Then you can make that your skill: picking up assumptions when you need them; putting them down when you don’t. Our minds are like those old tank water heaters. They keep water boiled at a high temperature all the time so that it’s there when you need it. But it’s a huge waste of energy. So they developed tankless heaters and … 
  6. Strengthening Concentration
     … That’s one set of skills and strategies that help you to associate sitting in meditation with a sense of well-being, a sense of refreshment. And you have that to tap into when mind gets antsy and wants a quick fix of pleasure. But there are lots of other issues that are going on in the mind as well, in terms of your … 
  7. The Dhamma Protects
     … If we don’t have patience, we can’t see what’s happening, we can’t figure out what’s the skillful thing to do. This is why the Buddha teaches patience, equanimity: so that we can observe carefully. When the mind is very still, it’s like putting scientific equipment on a very stable table. You don’t have to worry about the … 
  8. The Four Biases
     … It’s that quiet corner that allows us to have a basis for our integrity, a basis for our skill in how we approach life, so that we’re not influenced by what the Buddha called the four wrong courses, or the four ways of going off course: going off course through desire, going off course through aversion, going off course through delusion, or … 
  9. When the Mind Is Still
     … In that way, you can develop this skill.
  10. It’s All in What You’re Doing
     … And as you get more skilled at it, reflect on what you’re doing, because everything you need to know is involved in what you’re doing right here.
  11. A Complete Training
     … You climb the stairway that’s composed of developing skillful senses of a self and also learning how to use not-self. But as long as you stay on the stairway, you’re not in the house. When you get into the house, you don’t carry the stairway in with you. You leave it there. That’s when you’re really free. So … 
  12. In the Land of Wrong View
     … And you want to be skillful about it. You don’t want your attention to be distracted by other people’s behavior. At most you look at them as examples: Is this person’s behavior a good example? A bad example? But your primary focus has to be on what you’re doing right now. That’s one of the questions the Buddha has … 
  13. Learning by Doing
     … As he said, if people couldn’t abandon unskillful qualities and develop skillful qualities, there would have been no point in his teaching. But we can do this, we can change. And we learn as we change. So this is your laboratory: your mind, right here, right now; the body, sitting here right now; the breath, putting it all together. This is a laboratory … 
  14. Thinking & Evaluating
     … The same with anger, the same with greed, the same with any of the unskillful thoughts—even the seemingly skillful ones, like equality or justice. For right now, you just put them aside. Even our best values have to have their time and place. When, as right now, you’re trying to get the mind quiet, they’re not going to be helpful, because … 
  15. Goodwill First & Last
     … Looking at intentions as skillful and unskillful, looking at views as right and wrong, and applying those perspectives to the question of suffering, he discovered the four noble truths. He applied them, followed the tasks appropriate to them, and gained awakening. So notice the pattern. It starts with his own narratives, moves to the larger picture, and then focuses in on the present moment … 
  16. The Buddha’s Relationship Advice
     … Because there’s so much dissolution going on, we don’t take the time to stop and figure out, “Well, what should I hold on to? What’s skillful to hold on to?” We just grab whatever. So we need concentration to give ourselves a more solid basis. Even though the concentration itself is not permanent, still it’s a lot steadier than most … 
  17. Dhamma Books & the Actuality
     … In other words, really put the effort in to develop skillful qualities when they’re not there; to maintain them and develop them when they are; to abandon unskillful qualities and to do what you can to prevent them from happening again. You really work on this. You really develop a desire to do these things, to develop the good qualities so that you … 
  18. Metta Means Goodwill
     … What would be a more skillful way of handling the situation the next time it comes? This fits in with the Buddha’s teachings on preventing unskillful states from arising. These are times when you really do have to think about the past and think about the future, i.e. where you’ve made a mistake in the past and what you can do … 
  19. Clinging to Karmic Diarrhea
     … Again the question is, is it worth it? We’re learning how to be more skilled in passing judgment, in evaluating things. All too often, we hear that meditation is to teach us not to pass judgment, and that makes sense only in the sense of not being judgmental, i.e., jumping to quick conclusions without looking at things carefully. But we look at … 
  20. Taking the Buddha at his Word
     … This is how they developed their skill in the practice. Going into the forest, going into the wilderness, really forces you to hold onto the Dhamma in ways that you wouldn’t have to when you live in comfortable surroundings. Ajaan Lee learned this, one, through experience, and two, through thinking about it. This is how you understand the Buddha’s teachings: both putting … 
  21. Between You and Your Eyes
     … You don’t want to go to equanimity until you’ve got some basic skills in how to use the breath as a source of pleasure. This involves getting acquainted with your sense of the body sitting here in the present moment. Again, this is something else we tend to be ignorant of. We use the body for various things. Not only when we … 
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