Search results for: "Conviction"
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- An Exercise in Freedom… Once you’ve started on the path and your conviction begins to waver, or your energy begins to fall slack, you remind yourself, “Do I really want true happiness?” And you realize that if you really loved yourself, you’d have to answer Yes. So for the sake of your true happiness, you want to keep practicing. In other words, you have the “I …
- Initiative… You engage in admirable friendship, which means that if they have good qualities, and the Buddha gives a list—conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment—you try to emulate those qualities. You actually ask them, “How do you do this?” If you have trouble being generous, ask people who are generous, “How do you do this? What is your way of thinking that allows you to …
- Good Humor… And then tune everything else, all the other faculties — conviction, mindfulness, concentration, discernment — to the level of energy you can manage.” It’s like tuning a guitar. First you tune one string and then you tune the other strings to the first one. In meditating, your first string is the amount of energy at your disposal. You want to put enough pressure on yourself …
- A Refuge from the Winds of the World… They’re people of conviction; you try to develop conviction, too. They’re people of generosity, virtue, discernment; you try to develop those qualities as well, because you pick up the qualities of the people that you’re near. There’s an image in the Canon of a leaf. If you use the leaf to wrap up fine-smelling spices, the leaf will smell …
- Right Now… So when we develop conviction in the principle of karma, we take responsibility for our actions. We look carefully at what we’re doing and at what the results are. That’s why it’s such a good teaching to adopt. One of the very first lessons the Buddha gave to his son after his son was ordained as a young novice was to …
- The Value of Effort… If you hold in mind your conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, you’ve got to be convinced that you can do something about suffering and stress. You can bring them to an end. That’s what the basic conviction in our practice is: that the Buddha really did awaken to something special. There’s something special out there. Why not go for it …
- Protest Your Virtue & Right View… He develops some conviction in the Buddha and occasionally comes to see him. He’ll come to report his insights as he reflects on the life of a king, and one of his insights is that people who protect themselves only with arms, with armies, but don’t protect themselves by engaging in skillful behavior, really leave themselves unprotected. Whereas those who do engage …
- Your Desire to Practice… And when you have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening that it is possible to get past these things, you’re not quite so overwhelmed. All this is inside work. Or, as they say, it’s an inside job. And you have to overcome some very strong tendencies that want to keep you coming back, coming back, coming back to the old pleasures that …
- Nobody’s Servant… Conviction, conviction in the principle of karma, that your actions really do make a difference; generosity; learning the Dhamma, and discernment. All these things are goodness inside, and we develop them through the meditation and also through learning the Dhamma, stocking ourselves inside with good things, so when things outside are lacking, we’re not poor. We’re wealthy with internal wealth. That makes …
- Analysis of Dhammas… Ajaan Maha Boowa at one point once said, “Try to prove the Buddha wrong.” In other words, you have conviction in the Buddha. But still, you’ve got to test it. Is this conviction well founded? To find out, you pay appropriate attention. In other words, you look at what you do when you try to follow the path, and you gauge the results …
- How to Look, How to Listen… The Buddha said that this is the one you use to measure how much you’re going to be acting on your conviction, how much you’re going to be expecting out of your mindfulness, your concentration, and discernment. He gives the image of playing a lute. Back in those days, lutes probably had five strings. And as you know, in playing with any …
- Attention with an Agenda… It’s because we have conviction in the four noble truths, and the third one in particular, that we’re looking for reasons to let go. When we can let go, that’s when we find that what the Buddha said was true—there really is a deathless element that you can contact, you can touch inside. It is the highest happiness. This is …
- A Meritorious Heart… It’s a rare person who suffers and then, reflecting on that suffering, develops the conviction that’s needed to get on the path. So you see that there is suffering out there, and you hope that people will develop the conviction that will allow them to get beyond their suffering, but you don’t want to wish suffering on people. Then as you …
- What It All Comes From… But there’s one version where you get to suffering and then what comes next? Conviction. Conviction that there’s got to be a way out. Based on that, you start acting in skillful ways. There’s joy as a result. Based on the joy, there’s concentration. Concentration leads to discernment. And discernment, in turn, leads to release. So, you have to have …
- Genuine Satisfaction… The conviction that there have been people who’ve followed this way before us and they’ve come back saying how genuine satisfaction comes from learning how to let go: Let that article of faith, or that article of conviction, be one of the perceptions that shapes your view of what’s going on. It’ll lead you on to a point where you …
- As Days & Nights Fly Past, Fly Past… So what can you do to make sure that you’re still climbing, climbing? There’s another place where the Buddha lists six qualities that you should look for in yourself, what he calls, “having a sense of yourself.” The first quality is conviction: Is your conviction in the path growing? You know by looking at your virtue*,* which is another one of the …
- Trust Your Desire for Happiness… That requires a certain amount of conviction—conviction even before you’re sure. What drives you is the suffering that exists in your life and your desire to find a way out. The Buddha never forced you. He never said you have to believe his teachings. But he advises you to look at your life. If there’s suffering, then you might want to …
- Three More Recollections… you to think about is, one, what is it that makes a person a deva? And two, do you have those qualities within you? He lists five qualities: conviction, virtue, generosity, learning, and discernment. Conviction is in the Buddha’s awakening. Generosity and virtue we already know. Learning is learning the Dhamma, having a fund of Dhamma within you. Think of the things that …
- Generating Energy… When the Buddha discusses persistence in the five strengths, it builds on conviction. That’s one of the mental ways of giving rise to more energy. Another is in the context of the seven factors for awakening, where persistence builds on mindfulness: keeping something in mind. So what are the ways of giving rise to conviction that are going to energize you, and what …
- Heedfulness for the Holidays… That’s conviction – conviction in the principle of your actions, that when you do good, there are going to be good results; when you do something based on unskillful intentions, there are going to be bad results. You keep on doing good so you can be confident in your good. This is one of the reasons the Buddha would emphasize both generosity and virtue …
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