Search results for: "Conviction"
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- Clearing a Space… Discernment needs the strength that comes from concentration, that comes from mindfulness and alertness, that comes from your conviction in the principles of kamma. All the five strengths—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment—have to work together. Otherwise your discernment will just start analyzing things and get further and further away from what’s actually happening in the mind. That’s not the kind …
- Four Determinations… When you have a certain opinion, where did it come from? And why are you holding to it? When you’re careful about this, you realize how little you really know and, when you’re taking on the path, how much you actually take on conviction. That also means that if you’re operating on conviction, what can you do to confirm it? You …
- Choices… Feed on the conviction that your choices really do make a difference. Feed on the fact that you can put effort into this, and that it’s effort well spent. It’s effort that gives rise to energy rather than wasting energy. So choose to stay with the breath and keep that choice in mind. Try not to forget. Be alert to what the …
- To Escape the Prison of Time… This is why faith in the Buddha’s awakening, or conviction in the Buddha’s awakening is so important. We don’t like the word faith—it’s become the F-word in modern Buddhism—but there are certain things we have to believe if we want to find true happiness. One is that our course through life doesn’t begin with this particular …
- Reflect on What You’re Doing… Or there’s just conviction: “This is just got to be the way it is.” Here again, focus on the conviction: Do things always have to be that way? This is where you can think about Ajaan Lee’s question, “To what extent is this insight true and where would it not be true?” It’s like the insight that all cars drive on …
- Inner Wealth… The first is conviction. Technically, it’s conviction in the Buddha’s awakening, but what it means for us is the fact that human beings can, through their own efforts, find happiness. Their efforts really do make a difference. We do have an impact through our actions on the happiness or the lack of happiness we experience. This thought is empowering because it encourages …
- Acceptance… All the good qualities in the mind that the Buddha talks about developing—mindfulness, alertness, ardency, conviction, persistence, concentration, discernment: These are all things we have to some extent already. If we didn’t have them at all, we wouldn’t be human beings. It’s simply a matter of taking stock of what we’ve got and having the conviction that if we …
- Cutting the Fetters… As the Buddha said, the conviction that overcomes doubt in the Buddha has to be confirmed. What’s going to confirm it? Being convinced of things simply by thinking them through is what the Buddha calls arriving at an agreement through pondering views. And that, he says, can sometimes be true and sometimes false. So it doesn’t qualify as confirmation. There has to …
- Reinvest Your Noble Treasures… You’ve got the profits of conviction, of a sense of compunction, shame, virtue, learning, generosity, discernment. You gain these things. You can use them for all kinds of purposes. There are a lot of people who use their discernment just to gain more money—that’s a real waste. Use your discernment to find the deathless. Reinvest your noble treasures. And you’ll …
- The Inner Saboteur… You have to ask yourself, “What kind of happiness do I want?” Do you want a happiness that’s going to let you down, that’s going to disappoint you? Or do you want one that’s totally reliable? Do you have the conviction that there is such a happiness, and that you can reach it? A large part of you will probably say …
- Learning from What You Do… finding people who are exemplars, people whose virtue you admire, whose generosity you admire, whose conviction and discernment you admire. Try to learn from them, talking over these issues, emulating them in areas where they’re worthy of emulation. Because we do have our blind spots: That’s what ignorance is all about. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s being ignorant of …
- Death Is All Around… Your true treasures are things like conviction in the principle of your actions, a sense of shame at the idea of doing anything that’s not noble, concern for the harm that can come from unskillful actions, virtue, learning, discernment, generosity: These things are your treasures. People can take your body away from you, they can kill you, but they can’t take these …
- Heedful of Small Dangers… You’ve got to practice with a sense of respect, a sense of conviction, that the training of the mind really is important, that it really does make a difference, and that you value the good qualities of mind as you would value gold. Of course, this takes energy, so you have to watch out the ways in which you squander your energy. And …
- Persistence… He says, “You tune your persistence to your level of energy”—in other words, what you’re capable of right now—“and then you tune all the remaining faculties—conviction, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—to that first string. Then pick up the theme of your meditation.” He’s playing with a lot of words here. Picking up the theme is the same as picking …
- Self Power, Other Power… All he had was his conviction that life wouldn’t be worth living unless he could find a happiness that wasn’t affected by aging, illness. and death. And he couldn’t live with himself unless he actually gave it the best try possible. We, however have the advantage. There’s the Buddha, there are the noble disciples who’ve passed the teaching on …
- Clinging & Feeding… Then we feed the mind with conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, all of which are good food for the mind. These are the things that strengthen us, so that we can manage the path. So the Buddha doesn’t try to starve us right from the start. He simply tells us to take a different approach to our feeding. Feed on good food …
- A Sense of Entitlement… There’s a lot demanded of us, but if we have a sense of conviction in the importance of the Dhamma, we’ll be willing to make whatever effort’s required. Ajaan Fuang once told me that one of his prime motivations in practicing was that he was born into a poor family. He didn’t do well in school, he was orphaned at …
- Free Sources of Energy… So think of the conviction as a treasure, think of virtue as a treasure, something you can amass of value inside. When you have to give up other things for the sake of the practice, don’t see it as a sacrifice. See it as a trade. You’re trading up. And holding that perception in mind, holding that way of thinking in mind …
- The Food of Feelings… these things can really weaken the mind if you feed on them. That’s why a large part of the practice is giving us other food, better things to feel on. Conviction can be food for the mind, as can persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. It may seem artificial to create these things, but the Buddha’s analysis of feeling shows that it’s …
- Honesty… the truthfulness of statements you make; the truthfulness of how you represent yourself to yourself; and your willingness to stick with your convictions in spite of the difficulties they may involve—being true to your determinations. All three of these things are absolute, rock-solid, basic qualities that are needed in the practice of the Dhamma. Being a true person is very closely connected …
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