Search results for: "Persistence"
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- A Seeker’s Habits… You want to develop conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment. You work on these, and as you work on these, they begin to make a difference. The one thing he asked you to believe was in the principle of karma: that what you do makes a difference. So as you’re sitting here meditating, it’s not that you’re sitting here waiting for something …
- Patience & Curiosity… desire, persistence, intent, and your analytical powers. Think about how you applied them in learning that skill and how you found balance among them. Then see if you can apply the same lessons to working with the breath. In particular, this issue of curiosity: When the Buddha gave meditation instructions, he didn’t spell everything out, he didn’t have an ironclad method. Some …
- You Can’t Eat the Buddha… conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are qualities we all have to some extent, but we’ve got to learn how to strengthen them, and they in turn make the mind stronger. So our food here isn’t bread and wine. Our food is concentration. The Buddha compared the different levels of concentration to different types of food. The first jhana, he said …
- Protect Your Energy… It requires that you learn some patience and some persistence, sticking with things even when they don’t come easily, because this is really an essential skill. You need to develop it. If our educational system really were designed for people’s needs, rather than using people as means for other purposes, one of the basic skills we would learn would be how not …
- Truths of the Will… The mindfulness, the persistence that you bring to the practice: This will make all the difference in the world. We were talking earlier today about two kinds of truths: truths of the observer and truths of the will. Truths of the observer are facts where you have no role in determining how valid or true they are. You simply observe them. That’s your …
- Magha Puja… You have to, as the Buddha says, generate your desire, arouse your persistence, uphold and exert your intent. All these things build on the desire for what’s right for true happiness. Then, when all the elements of the path come together, it leads to a glimpse of nibbāna. When you see that, then even though you haven’t gone all the way to …
- Strength of Body, Strength of Mind… Well, the practice is very much a truth of the will, in the sense that if you don’t stir up your will—as the Buddha says, generate desire or activate your persistence, or energy, uphold your intent—it’s not going to happen. This is something that becomes true because you *will *it to be true. You will the path. Each of the …
- Alert… If they’re persistent, you ignore them. And you try to relax around them. Notice, when a thought comes into mind, where in the body do you tense up? Where is there a little pattern of tension? Sometimes it’s along the skin, sometimes it’s in different parts of the body. Relax that. See what happens. If nothing else works, then just grit …
- Put Your Heart into It… He extolls modesty, contentment, persistence, unburdensomeness. These are all qualities of the heart. We tend to think of someone being good-hearted as meaning that they’re kind and gentle. And that is an important part of the heart of a Buddhist trainee. Look at all the teachings on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy. But the idea of being good-hearted also sometimes carries the …
- Beyond Inter-eating… Until you start seeing results, you need to operate on the principle of conviction, because the path requires effort and persistence. You’ve got to stick with it because the mind has its old habits and it’s easy to slip into its old habits. You meditate for a while and things aren’t going well, and you want to give the mind a …
- Mindfulness over Time… analysis of dhammas, persistence, rapture. These are the ones that you would emphasize at that time. When there’s too much energy, then you go to the calming factors: calm, concentration, equanimity. But mindfulness is what remembers what the possible problems are, the possible solutions, and then it, together with alertness, checks to make sure that you’re actually getting the results you want …
- Practical Wisdom… This is one of the reasons why we develop alertness, mindfulness, concentration, discernment, and how we learn to be persistent and ardent in developing these qualities of heart and mind. That’s because these are the qualities that guarantee the quality of your intentions. There’s a teaching in the commentaries about the cycle of action. First comes the intention and then the result …
- Judging the Dhamma… This is why when you deal with pain, you’re told not to think about how long the pain has been persisting in the past or how long it’s going to last into the future. That thought weighs the present moment down unnecessarily. It places restrictions on how much freedom you have here and now. And the same principle applies to all your …
- Questioning Your Conviction… Sariputta, “Are you convinced that the five strengths of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment lead to the deathless?” And Sariputta says, “No, I’m not convinced. I know.” And how did he know? Because he questioned things, tested things, tested himself. **So even though conviction is the foundation post, it’s not the whole building. And before you put up the whole building …
- The Buddha Didn’t Play Gotcha… You use desire, you use persistence, you use your intent, as you really focus on what you’re doing. And you use your powers of analysis and ingenuity, figuring out what’s going wrong, what’s not working right here, what distractions are getting in the way. You bring all of these bases of success to bear on what you’re doing. But they …
- Reading & Meditating… They could give him hot compresses and other things to help alleviate some of the pain, but still the pain was persistent. Then one night he woke up, and all the monks who were looking after him were fast asleep. The first thought that went through his mind was, “Who’s looking after whom here?” But then he told himself that as long as …
- Attahi Attano Natho… mindfulness, the ability to keep something in mind continually; alertness, the ability to watch what’s actually going on; persistence, the ability to stick with something. These qualities, as you develop them, can provide food for the mind from within the mind. When disturbing thoughts come into the mind or disturbing things happen outside, if you’re mindful and alert, you can keep reminding …
- Things Don’t Have to Be This Way… They require persistence. This is where it’s hard: in the sticking-to-it. He says, simply, “Be mindful: Keep in mind the fact that you want to act in a skillful way.” Keep remembering that the power of the mind lies in its intentions, and that you want to learn how to focus those intentions properly. When the power of the mind is …
- Discernment Fosters Concentration… This is precisely the type of attitude you want to foster as you develop this factor for awakening, because then, from there the list goes on to persistence. You get down to work. Anything that’s unskillful in the mind, you hold it in check. As for skillful thoughts, you allow them but you try to lasso them in, realizing that the most skillful …
- Meditation as a Skill… This comes under not only desire, but also persistence. You just stick with it. Here again, you have to know how much energy to put in: how much is too much, how much is too little, how strong your focus should be, how weak it should be. Tune it so it’s just right. This relates to the third basis for success, which is …
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